If religious observances, under determined conditions, are found to be useful and essential for the sane in mind and body, they are also likely to be so, under conditions otherwise determined and arranged, for the insane. Many insane patients are totally incapable of attending any religious function. Some must be prohibited; others may be encouraged. As an asylum physician the writer may state that a generic case of religious excitement or enthusiasm may most advisedly even be restrained from religious functions until at least the acute symptoms have subsided. There can be little doubt that no religious officer would be likely to succeed in accomplishing much for patients without an accurate knowledge of insanity and the mental experiences of those whom he seeks to influence. The fact that mental aberration forms a special study and phase of life increases his difficulties and limits his possibilities. Where there is apparent failure both inside asylums and without, such failures may very possibly be attributed to the deficiencies of the doctrine, the discipline of the religion itself, the organisations peculiar to it, or the functionaries associated with it in our day. If the Christian religion is a true philosophy, it is the duty of all who profess Christianity to assist in the practical application of its precepts, where such can be judiciously and safely applied, taking religious things perforce as they find them, and utilising their own special knowledge to the best possible advantage, according to the conditions they find. Is a person with deep religious conviction better equipped to face the stress of life than an unbeliever? An answer to this question was given by the writer in a paper read at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association held at Leicester in 1905. In stating that ‘a true and philosophical religion raises the mind above a mere incidental emotionalism’ he used the word ‘religion’ in its literal sense, as derived from _re_ and _lego_, to gather and consider, as opposed to _negligens_. He in no way extended its connotation so as to include demonstrations of incidental emotionalism, superstition, or fanaticism. Religion and moral obligation he considered to be almost convertible terms, both equally compatible with intuitionalism, utilitarianism, or any other ‘ism’ derived from the study of the laws of life and mind. Moral laws are generally principles of thought and action, which an intelligent being must apply for himself in the guidance of his conduct, and the translation of such general principles (expressed either in general abstract form or in the form of a command) into particular actions. Conformity with such precepts of morality may with reason be regarded as a safeguard against the ‘lusts of the flesh.’