ALFRED T. SCHOFIKI.n, M.D., ON CHRISTIAN SANI'lT. 23 



and disturbances. Delusions and unnecessary fears and depressions 

 of the mind affected peoples, as well as individuals. In the Middle 

 Ages some of these became epidemic manias, like the Dancing Mania 

 and the barking Manias that went through Europe. In the same 

 way, happier generations might look back upon these times as the 

 strange days of the mania of Militarism. The effects of religion 

 upon the equipoise of the mind was very great — and might operate 

 both ways. It was well to remember that in the long run men 

 needed encouragement. Nothing could be true or healthy that 

 plunged men into fears and apprehensions. And now especially, 

 after the long sufferings of the war, men needed encouraging. They 

 needed to be made to see that life was good and glad, and that there 

 was opening now upon the world a new day of unimaginable possi- 

 bilities of progress and happiness. 



Mr. Rouse asked whether the Christians whose aims were classified 

 on page 20 belonged to the first or to the second original category, 

 to the number which had mainly objective aims or to that which 

 had mainly subjective ones. 



He further said : — Our Chairman has quoted Horace's description 

 of the good and fearless man : — 



Integer vitae scelerisque purus, etc. 

 But of course he did not mean that this was at all a description of 

 that poet's own character. Horace would have done well if, as 

 Burns did to a similar exhortation, he had appended : — 

 " And may you better reck the rede 

 Than ever did th' adviser." 



Our Chairman thinks, as I understand him, that we of Britain, 

 of North America, and of Western Europe have grown out of the 

 credulous minds possessed by our niediseval ancestors. But like 

 him I would refer to a striking utterance of Macaulay's : "A very 

 common knowledge of history, a very little observation of life, 

 will suffice to prove that no learning, no sagacity, affords a security 

 against the greatest errors on subjects relating to the invisible 

 world " (Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes). And this sentiment 

 we shall fully indorse if we contemplate the recent amazing dis- 

 semination in America, Britain, and Western Europe of Mormonism. 

 Christian science, clairvoyance and spiritism, the last named 

 cult now announcing even weekly " services " of its own in my 



