"There were people ... on the floor fairly writhing over the realisation of sin as it came over them.... Saturday we were favoured with a wonderful manifestation of the Spirit. One of the older girls who had had a remarkable experience, went into a trance, with her head thrown back, her arms folded, and motionless, except for a slight movement of her foot. She seemed to be seeing something wonderful, for she would marvel at it, and then laugh excitedly.... One girl rushed to the back of the vestibule and, lying across a bench, with her head and hands against the wall, she fairly writhed in agony for two hours before peace came to her."[157] I do not know on what grounds we are justified in calling civilised people who chronicle these outbreaks as "a wonderful manifestation of the Spirit." Civilised in other respects, in relation to other matters, they may be. Civilised in relation to this particular matter they certainly are not. Their viewpoint is precisely that of the lowest tribe of savages. Savages, indeed, could not do more; our 'civilised' missionaries do no less. Tylor well says that "such descriptions carry us far back in the history of the human mind, showing modern men still in ignorant sincerity producing the very fits and swoons to which for untold ages savage tribes have given religious import. These manifestations in modern Europe indeed form part of a revival of religion, the religion of mental disease."[158] The truth is that the appeals usually made to induce conversion, and the methods adopted, tend to develop a morbid state of mind, which very easily passes into the pathological. A too insistent habit of introspection is always dangerous, and the danger is heightened when it takes the form of religious brooding. In Dr. Starbuck's collection of cases, seventy-five per cent. of the males and sixty per cent. of the females confessed to feelings of depression, anxiety, and sadness before conversion. This may be attributed partly to the harping upon a conviction of sinfulness, which in itself is wholly of an unhealthy character. It does not indicate moral health, and it is very far from indicating physiological health. The following confessions are pertinent, and will illustrate both points. I give in brackets the ages of the subjects where stated:-- "I felt the wrath of God resting on me. I called on Him for aid, and felt my sins forgiven" (13). "I couldn't eat, and would lie awake all night." "Often, very often, I cried myself to sleep" (19). "Hymns would sound in my ears as if sung" (10). "I had visions of Christ saying to me, Come to Me, My child" (15). "Just before conversion I was walking along a pathway, thinking of religious matters, when suddenly the word H-e-l-l was spelled out five yards ahead of me" (17). "I felt a touch of the Divine One, and a voice said 'Thy sins are forgiven thee; arise and go in peace'" (12). "The thoughts of my condition were terrible" (13).