the operation of these mysterious laws with the certainty of a demonstration in mathematics." "

It is the Conversion Period. The psychology of conversion shows that this phenomenon, with its "sense of sin," is a physical or psychological, rather than a spiritual, development. It gives the ripe and fitting time, however, for Christian and Spiritual teaching. Like other instincts (love, curiosity, altruism, etc.), the Instinct of Religiosity should be seized and made use of. It is the Conversion-period, and should be used as such by the Church.

Sin, however, and its realization by those who have fallen into its meshes, is a very real thing. President G. Stanley Hall says, in THE PRINCIPLES OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: "I am very strongly persuaded that not many years will pass before we shall have from science a very strong plea for more preaching of sin from the pulpit. I say this with great diffidence, and I hardly meant to put it quite so strongly, but I will not go back now, for I very rarely get an opportunity to talk back from the pulpit; my place is in the pews. But I do feel very strongly persuaded that we ought to have a little of the old-fashioned doctrine of sin preached as Augustine preached it. The Church deifies some of our good Calvinistic friends for preaching it. We do not hear so very much of it; but it is a dreadful thing. Read a book like Nordau's DEGENERATION. Read the modern studies in criminology that are being made. Read the literature that is abroad, stamped with the marks of human decadence. Look at life as you see it. Is not sin a real thing?"

Referring again to Professor Pratt, he says: "In this sense, religious belief, apart from its accidental and purely intellectual accretions, is biological rather than conceptual, it is not so much the acceptance of a proposition as an instinct. I do not mean by this that it is an instinct in the technical sense of the term. but it has its roots in the same field, and is in many ways comparable. An instinct might be roughly described as an organic belief. It cannot be reasoned out; it must simply be accepted and obeyed. The young bird before her first migration to the south or before her first period of motherhood, we must suppose, feels a blind impulse to start southward or to build her nest. She cannot tell why it is; she simply obeys.

"The religious consciousness in which the mystical germ is somewhat developed is in a similar position. It may be utterly in the dark as to the nature of the Cosmos so far as all reasoning goes. It can see God no more than the bird can see the southland. It simply accepts what it finds—and for the same reason the bird has in flying south, it must say, 'Lord, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.' The immense popularity of this sentence of Augustine's among religious people of all sorts and of all times is an indication of its truth as a psychological description."

Miss Harrison treats the subject thus: "The assumption that every normally constituted offspring of the human species has a capacity for religion is, therefore, warranted by the study of man as a religious being, as well as of religion in its historical development. It is human to be religious. It is something less than human, or more than human, or somehow extra human, not to be religious. This conviction may be confidently asserted in the name of modern psychological and historical science.

"All religion rests on a need of the soul; we hope, we dread, because we wish. The ceaseless craving for satisfaction is an important part of the human being's capacity for religion: And it is the attempt of the present age to satisfy the deepest needs of human nature by a more abundant supply of physical comforts and of sensuous pleasures, which constitutes and validates some of the most effective influences for thwarting the chief benefits of the religious life."

How do we explain Conversion Physiologically and Psychologically if it is not primarily a spiritual and religious phenomenon? Forbush, the great student of Adolescence, gives us the answer: "The peculiarity of this period that most attracts attention is that of crisis. It seems to be well proven that there comes a time in the adolescence of almost every boy and girl when the various physical and moral influences of the life bear down to a point of depression, and then rise suddenly in an ascending curve, carrying with them a new life. There is first a lull, then a storm, then peace; what results is not boy, but man. This crisis, in religious matters, is called conversion, but is by no means confined to or peculiar to religious change. 'It is,' says Dr. Hall, ‘a natural regeneration. If the Hughlings-Jackson

three-level theory of the brain be true, there is at this time a final and complete transfer of the central powers of the brain from the lower levels of instinct and motor power to the higher levels.' 'It is,' says Lancaster, 'the focal point of all psychology.' Dr. Starbuck's careful though diffuse study shows that this change is apt to come in a great wave at about fifteen or sixteen, preceded by a lesser wave at about twelve, and followed by another at about seventeen or eighteen. It consists in a coming out from the little, dependent, irresponsible animal self into the large, independent, responsible, outreaching, and upreaching moral life of manhood. Professor Coe says: 'I do not think it should be called conversion, but commitment. It is a ratification rather than a reversal.' He also shows that the first wave is that of most decided awakening, although the number of conversions that can be dated is greater in the second period.

"There is a marked difference in the way this 'personalizing of religion,' as Coe calls it, comes to boys and to girls. With boys it is a later, more violent, and a more sudden incident. With boys it is more apt to be associated with periods of doubt; with girls with times of storm and stress. It seems to be more apt to come to boys when alone; to girls in a church service.

"Next to the physical birth-hour this hour of psychical birth is most critical. For 'at this formative stage an active fermentation occurs that may give wine or vinegar.' "This,' says President Hall, 'is the day of grace that must not be sinned away.' The period of adolescence is by many divided into three stages, embracing respectively the ages from twelve to sixteen, sixteen to eighteen, and eighteen to twenty-four. These might be termed the stages of ferment, crisis, and reconstruction. Mr. E. P. St. John classifies them as physical, emotional, and intellectual stages. Coe marks them as impulsive, sentimental, and reflective. Rev. Charles E. McKinley marks them in character as solitary, self-willed, and social, and in result as discovering personal freedom, discovering life, discovering social relations. The three waves of religious interest correspond with these stages. I have not attempted to classify the phenomena of these stages here, desiring rather to give the impression of the period. as a whole. Most of the phenomena which I have spoken of begin in the earliest stage, reach their culmination in the second,

and begin in the third to form the fabric of altruism and character. Of course the instinctive, the sensuous, and the sentimental are apt to precede the rational and the deliberate.

"While we may not pretend to comprehend the whole philosophy of the entrance into religious life, there are some things which seem to be assured. Such are these: The boy is not irreligious; he is rather in the imitative, habituated, ethical stage. Conversion is the human act of turning to God, not a special cataclysmal kind of experience during that act."

Haslett says: "Definite religious awakenings are prominent during this stage. It is the paramount time when religious feelings are deepest and stir the soul most easily and naturally. It is to be noticed that there is a rise in the conversion curve just before puberty, a distinct fall in it at this change, and a very rapid and high rise in it immediately following puberty. The golden time for conversion is from about fourteen to nineteen. Sixteen is the year when the curve is highest, according to most of the studies that have been made. Nature favors and greatly aids grace during this stage. The soul is open in response to the physical and physiological renovation and rejuvenation.

"It is a sad fact that great numbers of our young men are outside the Church, and Church relations. They seem to have no interest in the Church. Their energies are being utilized elsewhere, and the Church is the loser. They appear to be out of touch with the Church, with too little in common between them, and the one institution that should be crowded with the youth of the land is neglected. A pastor who has been successful in filling his church at its services, said that he usually had three hundred young men at his meetings. Perhaps he did. But four years afterwards you could not find fifty young men in one of those meetings, except on special occasions. The fact is they drifted to those places where there was provision for their needs and interests. One of the saddest features of the Christian Church to-day is the fact that the young men are not found within her pale. It is not higher criticism, not the new theology, not the changed character of the preaching, not the extensive or elaborate musical programs, not the rivalry of the churches; none of these nor all combined that can account for the dearth of young manhood in the Church of the present. The cause must be

sought elsewhere. The character of the times has changed, changed enormously within the last twenty-five years. Social organizations, clubs, societies, fraternities, have all multiplied very rapidly. Here the young man finds the exercises that appeal to his nature and needs, to a degree. Not that they are religious, most of them are not, but they meet a deep want in his nature. They appeal to the sense of individuality, independence, worth, eagerness, and the feeling of enthusiasm, as well as feed the social nature, so strong at this stage. Provision must be made for the leading instincts and capabilities of the young to develop activity, and activity that results in actual value to others. The youth should feel that the work he is doing, the part he is playing in the role of the Church's activity, is essential, valuable, and appreciated by those with whom and for whom he works. Let him have something to do, and let him realize the importance of that service, and let it also be of such a nature as shall suit his gifts and interests as far as possible, giving great freedom and encouraging a spirit of responsibility and authority in him, and a long step will have been taken in the right direction towards holding the youth within the fold of the Church.

"The entire services of the Church, opening, music, sermon, closing, receiving of the offering, social feature at the close, must all be of such a nature as appeals to manhood. We should have a large number of hymns written by capable composers, and suited to the adolescent nature and needs, and given place within the hymnals. The trouble has been that the whole organization, administration, services and work of the Church until very lately, have been planned from the point of view of the adult, theological type of mind."

The Curve of Conversion.-Professor Starbuck, Professor of Psychology in the Leland Stanford Junior University, got out a book some years ago which is a study of THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONVERSION. He made a very detailed research, and his results are incontestable. Professor Coe, a devout Methodist, who would be inclined to accept the old view of conversion, brought out his book in 1900 on THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. He accepts Starbuck's curves. Stanley Hall, the author of ADOLESCENCE, the enormous two-volume study of this subject, accepts Starbuck's Curves;