362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Speaking of " soul-sickness," brings to mind the subject of " reli- 

 gion " in all its bearing upon the consciousness of well-being or ill- 

 being, and the profound interest, comparable to the acknowledged 

 importance of the subject, thus insured. Formerly, certain classes of 

 people at some particular times in their lives would come more or less 

 unexpectedly to a more or less vivid and painful view of their sinful 

 selves; then, perhaps for a longer or shorter period, would go through 

 a series of spasms and stresses of conviction and renunciation and 

 pleading and aspiration; but would in time " come out" of it all so vic- 

 toriously, that usually forever after God was felt to be so good and so 

 near that " salvation " and the " joy in the Lord " thereof were more or 

 less fully assured forevermore. Along with these fortunately " con- 

 verted " people, still other classes also have quite naturally experienced 

 such a sufficient " assurance " of their " call," that they have quite un- 

 interruptedly found ample solace for their untoward depression and ap- 

 prehension, whenever needed. Thus, heretofore, many people have actu- 

 ally found, that when attacks of mental pain came on, they could go 

 unreservedly to the " fount of all mercy " and find what to themselves, 

 at least, was satisfactory relief. Indeed, whatever criticism may be jus- 

 tifiable with respect to religious dogmas and institutions, it certainly is 

 not wise to forget that the human personality everywhere has recognized 

 and does still recognize a supreme worth in its religious consciousness, 

 and has found and still finds its profounder weal or woe in the spirit of 

 religion and the practical exercises inspired by this. Woe indeed is it 

 when religious fears and apprehensions and the general gloom arising 

 from an abiding sense of detachment and loss, comes to pervade all the 

 soul-life and simultaneously sees no or little relief. Joy indeed, too, 

 when relief does come, or when the general religious temperament or 

 atmosphere or experience begets the " joy that abides," in true realization 

 of the Source that is Infinite ! It does not do for even the most clear- 

 sighted materialist any more than it does for the most devoted meta- 

 physician, to forget that this deepest-sounding and farthest-reaching of 

 all vital experiences may through mental or other pain come to be but 

 a mere travesty of the real life, or that such abject misery and this only 

 may irretrievably " damn " the subject long before the pains of future 

 perdition are possible. " Hell on earth " is not a figure of speech to 

 very many people; it expresses exactly the sufferings of those who are 

 the victims of the sort of psychalgia which is owing to perversions and 

 failure in their religious life. 



A concrete case of associated mental and physical distress, occasioned 

 by a succession of experiences certainly not very common, will serve to 

 make plain not only the comparative significance of the more intimate 

 kind of experience, in a way that can not be mistaken, but also somewhat 

 to elucidate the blundering and inefficiency to which sufferers of psy- 



