2. The study of religious experience has shown the power of religion (and certainly for the most part its power for good) in the life of the individual and of society. The psychologists have thrust upon our attention with unmistakable emphasis the _fact_ of conversion, however they may theorize about the fact. The recorded experiences of saints, reformers and missionaries, the testimony collected by the questionnaires and the cases of conversion described in such books as Begbie's "Twice-Born Men" have shown beyond a peradventure that men _can_ be born again. It only remains for the church to say, "Ye _must_ be born again." The records show that men who are the slaves of appetite and vice, too degraded to be reached by appeals to pride or to prudence, can by the gospel be restored to hope and self-respect and to lives of singular usefulness. As Begbie says: "There is no medicine, no Act of Parliament, no moral treatise, and no invention of philanthropy, which can transform a man radically bad into a man radically good.... Science despairs of these people, pronounces them 'hopeless' and 'incurable.' Politicians find themselves at the end of their resources. Philanthropy begins to wonder whether its charity could not be turned into a more fertile channel. The law speaks of 'criminal classes.' It is only religion that is not in despair about this mass of profitless evil dragging at the heels of progress--the religion which still believes in miracle."[99] 99: "Twice-Born Men," 1909, pp. 18f. The psychologists have emphasized not only the facts of conversion but the variety in its mode. It has been pointed out that "conversion for males is a more violent incident than for females, and more sudden."[100] Uhlhorn has observed that it is characteristic of a period of conflict "that sudden conversions are more frequent then than at other times, that the marvel inherent in every conversion becomes more evident, and, so to speak, more palpable."[101] A child brought up under strong religious influences will not have the intense struggles which are natural when a hardened criminal or a scoffing unbeliever is converted. Count Zinzendorf raised serious misgivings in the minds of the Moravians when he insisted that he "could not tell the day when he first decided for Christ, and had no knowledge of a time when he did not love Him."[102] The mother of Edmund Gosse, a woman singularly devoted in her labours by tongue and pen to the cause of evangelical religion, wrote in her thirtieth year: "I cannot recollect the time I did not love religion. If I must date my conversion from my first wish and trial to be holy, I may go back to infancy; if I am to postpone it till after my last willful sin, it is scarcely yet begun."[103] 100: Starbuck: "Psychology of Religion," p. 95. 101: "Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism," p. 168. 102: See Stevens: "Psychology of the Christian Soul," pp. 159, 160.