What has been said holds with peculiar force of the subject of conversion. This is not a phenomenon peculiar to Christianity, for initiation and conversion accompanies religion in all its phases. I do not think that it is peculiar to religion even as a whole. A sudden discharge of feeling in a special direction leading to a changed attitude, more or less permanent towards life, may be seen in connection with the non-religious life, although it fails to receive the attention bestowed on changes that are connected with religion. But if conversion is not a peculiarly Christian phenomenon, one school of theologians, at least, has raised it to a position of peculiar eminence in connection with Christianity. They have taken it to be the mark of a person who has attained spiritual manhood, and have laid down elaborate rules for its achievement. Many theologians will agree that this has been almost wholly disastrous. On the one side, conversion has been dwelt upon as a cataclysmal epoch in a person's life, produced, negatively, by an act of self-surrender, and, positively, by a supernatural act of grace. This has had the effect of blinding people to the real nature of the process, and has led to certain evil consequences that must always accompany attempts at wholesale conversion. On the other hand, it has given rise to a class of professional evangelists who count their trophies in 'souls' as a Red Indian might count scalps, and who are ignorant of nearly everything except the art of working upon the emotions of a crowd of more or less uncultured people. Here, for instance, is an account of an American evangelist and ex-prize fighter, and evidently a great favourite with certain sections of the religious public in America. The account is cited by Dr. Cutten from a local paper, Illinois:--