aPPLieO RGLIGIOUS 
 ■ PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 jawesB.anDeRson 
 
A__ 
 
 BR 110 .A6 1919 
 Anderson, James 
 
 Burns, 1889 
 
 Applied religious psychology 
 
 An 
 
APPLIED RELIGIOUS 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES B. ANDERSON, A.M. 
 
 Professor of Philosophy in 
 Hastings College 
 
 
 !fARTIetV6RITAn1 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
COPYEIGHT, I919, BY RiCHAKD G. BaDGER 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED 
 TO MY PARENTS 
 
 Reverend and Mrs. J. P. Anderson 
 
 WHOSE LIVES ARE BEING SPENT 
 IN HIS SERVICE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN dealing with topics of this character it should 
 be remembered that psychology is tentative 
 in many of its views. No one claims that it is 
 final nor that the position which it takes on many 
 points is unassailable. As a science it deals only 
 with human consciousness and in considering sub- 
 jects of this character it leaves a vast field un- 
 touched. It makes no attempt to express itself 
 with reference to the conditions and factors of 
 the mind as separate from the physical body. It 
 deals only with the mind as it exists in connection 
 with a neural basis. It has no expression to give 
 regarding the Divine except as human conscious- 
 ness conceives of it. Any question of this sort is 
 beyond its field. This is the territory of the Phi- 
 losophy of Religion. While these limitations of 
 psychology must be constantly kept in mind this 
 does not destroy the fact that, as it is the science 
 of consciousness, it is capable of throwing the 
 searchlight on many a phenomenon of religion 
 which before has been cloudy and vague. Altho 
 there are many facts in religious consciousness 
 which it clarifies, we must continually bear in mind 
 
 5 
 
6 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 that there is a realm beyond its sphere which is 
 still unexplainable and mystical. 
 
 The purpose of this dissertation is to attempt 
 to mention some of the psychological truths with 
 reference to their religious application. We shall 
 not follow the usual course of a discussion of the 
 Psychology of Religion but, nevertheless, will men- 
 tion many points which come under that field of 
 consideration. We shall attempt to be practical 
 and non-technical in presentation, brief and direct 
 in approach and at the same time we desire that 
 the reader shall find the work not only interest- 
 ing but helpful. 
 
 James B. Anderson. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Psychology of Temptation ... ii 
 
 II. Psychology of Prayer 21 
 
 III. Psychology of Sin 28 
 
 IV. Psychology of Evangelism ... 34 
 V. Psychology of Conversion ... 41 
 
 VI. Psychology of Worship 50 
 
 VIL Psychology of Ideals 56 
 
 VIII. Psychology of Success 62 
 
 IX. Psychology of Faith 68 
 
APPLIED RELIGIOUS PSYCHOLOGY 
 
APPLIED RELIGIOUS 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF TEMPTATION 
 
 TEMPTATION In its working principles 
 follows much the same general laws as we 
 find prevailing in other phases of mental life. In 
 stating certain fundamentals which will aid in 
 meeting and conquering a suggestion or situation 
 which is wrong in the religious sense we find the 
 same principles applicable also In the case of a 
 business man who would eradicate a certain prac- 
 tice which he believes Is destroying his patronage. 
 The mental machinery is much the same in either 
 case, the material only being different. It is wor- 
 thy of note that Christ's way of meeting tempta- 
 tion agrees with that suggested by the science of 
 psychology. We, of to-day, can read psychological 
 truths Into His temptation and manner of dealing 
 with the questions which He had to answer. 
 
 II 
 
12 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 We shall attempt to point out five principles 
 each of them as valid to-day as in the First Cen- 
 tury because each is built on a fundamental char- 
 acteristic of consciousness. The adoption of these 
 suggestions which psychology has to offer will 
 greatly increase the chances of success. 
 
 The first suggestion is to resist immediately. 
 If one should discover that there was poison in 
 the body which had been taken by mistake, time 
 would be considered precious. An antidote would 
 be discovered and given as quickly as possible. 
 The reason is that the poison works on the tis- 
 sues of the body and its disastrous effect is known. 
 The same is true of thot even tho we do not often 
 realize it. Thot works on the neurones of the 
 brain just as definitely as poison works on the 
 tissues of the body. Just because thot is subtle 
 and its physical effects are not as easily seen does 
 not deny the fact. Consciousness leaves its path 
 on the brain just as definitely as a pencil leaves 
 its mark on a sheet of paper. 
 
 We often attempt a compromise, we often dally 
 with thots when we know they are wrong. Both 
 of these practices are dangerous and liable to 
 lead to disastrous results. In many instances we 
 do what we want to and fix the reason, excuse it 
 should be termed, up afterwards. These practices 
 are weak and inconsistent and eventually lead to 
 the destruction of all that is good in personality. 
 
Psychology of Temptation 13 
 
 The second suggestion In the meeting of temp- 
 tation is to resist not directly but indirectly. That 
 is, do not fight the thot which you recognize is 
 leading you off directly by saying, I will not do 
 so and so, but resist by substitution. A child was 
 once attracted by the color of a flower and at- 
 tempted to pull it. The mother said, "Don't pull 
 that flower," and kept repeating the command but 
 the child persisted. Another lady sitting near 
 made a suggestion which remedied the difficulty. 
 She noticed a ball with bright colors which the 
 child had not seen and brought this into his con- 
 sciousness, and when this was done the temptation 
 to pull the rose was gone. Putting ''nof' in front 
 of a word does not change the focus of conscious- 
 ness suflliciently. We say, "I will not steal," but 
 the focus is not shifted as it is if we say, "I will 
 pay my debts." Imagine a creamery called. The 
 Not Impure Creamery. Another situation which 
 should be recognized is that the positive seems 
 to make a stronger appeal mentally than the nega- 
 tive. In temptation we should not stop on the 
 critical point but transform it by passing to a 
 higher level and the temptation will have ceased. 
 The longer we hold a thot in mind the greater the 
 liability of Its being recalled at some future time. 
 Also the more likelihood that it will terminate in 
 action. Dr. Van Dyke says, "The best rose bush 
 is not that which bears the fewest thorns but that 
 
14 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 which bears the finest roses." Some Christians 
 concentrate their minds on keeping back the 
 thorns and their roses never mature. Some peo- 
 ple think of what they are not going to do so 
 much that what they can do never gets into con- 
 sciousness. Christ met His temptation by quot- 
 ing Scripture which presented a high plane of 
 thot and led His mind away from the lower level 
 which had been suggested. 
 
 A third principle might be expressed in the fol- 
 lowing manner: "In times of peace prepare for 
 war." We see a very apt illustration of this in 
 the temptation of Christ. In the quiet years spent 
 in Nazareth when we are inclined to think He 
 did nothing because we have no records of His 
 activity, one pursuit which must have been fol- 
 lowed very diligently was that of studying the 
 Scriptures. In His temptation we find evidence 
 that His mind was a storehouse of information. 
 Scripture is not the only antidote for sin but it is 
 the best because it presents a high level of thot 
 and we are thereby drawn further from the view- 
 point of sin. Any hobby which makes an appeal 
 to the individual may also be used-mechanics, 
 sports, music, mathematics and the like, depend- 
 ing upon the interests of the individual. The main 
 prerequisite is that the mind shall have ready an 
 attractive line of thot which has little or no con- 
 nection with the thot from which we are trying to 
 
Psychology of Temptation 15 
 
 escape. Germany's terrific onslaughts against the 
 Allies during the earlier part of the war seemed 
 one-sided. This was due to the fact that Ger- 
 many had spent years in preparation while her 
 enemies were lacking in this. So the mind which 
 in times of peace is filled with ideals and thots of 
 the right sort is prepared for a struggle when it 
 comes. This principle is related to the psychology 
 of memory systems which is that the individual 
 have as many associations as possible with the 
 fact he wishes to be able to recall, thus strength- 
 ening memory. So a thot to be kept in conscious- 
 ness must have a number of associations grouped 
 around it. These should find a personal setting in 
 the experience of the individual himself. 
 
 We make a mistake often in thinking we fail 
 or succeed in resisting the temptation at the time 
 it occurs. Christ succeeded on the Cross because 
 He was a victor in Gethsemane. Every physical 
 cross is preceded by a mental cross and this is the 
 critical point. A man walks down the street and 
 upon meeting another man pulls a gun and kills 
 him. This is the physical act of murder but it 
 was preceded by a series of mental pictures; these 
 having started with some thot and associations 
 having been gradually built up around it. This 
 mental phenomenon which came first was the real 
 cause. Our trains of mental thot are so subtle 
 that we minimize them in comparison with the 
 
1 6 Applied Religions Psychology 
 
 physical but the mental is the vital. This is a 
 fundamental of Psychology. 
 
 A fourth principle relates to the condition of 
 the physical body. Psychology has proven in 
 many and varied situations the intimate connec- 
 tion which exists between the mental and the 
 physical. In some instances the mental will af- 
 fect the physical, for example, if one is angry 
 with another and eats a meal there is Httle doubt 
 but that the secretions of the digestive organs are 
 thrown out of balance and a disturbed physical 
 condition is the result. On the other hand, if the 
 food one has taken is such as to cause maldiges- 
 tion it will tend to affect the mental. Many a 
 doubt or discouragement is due to a physical 
 cause. We are more likely to fail in temptation 
 if our bodies are in a depleted physical condition. 
 Saturday nights present a series of tragedies in 
 temptations not overcome and one of the reasons 
 for this Is the unusual condition of fatigue coupled 
 with the let-down feeling which comes with the 
 realization that the week's work is done. A ma- 
 chine if it is liable to be subjected to an extra 
 strain, should be put in a first-class condition. So 
 the mind, if it is to withstand temptation with 
 the highest efficiency possible, must be supported 
 by a healthy, powerful body. 
 
 The fifth instance is a recognition of the men- 
 tal steps In a fall or an uplift. The steps are the 
 
Psychology of Temptation 17 
 
 same, the outcome being determined by the con- 
 tent of the mind. The steps as they have been 
 given are : a look, a picture, a fascination, a fall, 
 or, a look, a picture, a fascination and an uplift. A 
 look consists in the thot entering the mind; it may 
 have been presented by any of the various means 
 of communication. A picture is this look sur- 
 rounded by associations and amplified from the 
 personal experience of the individual. This pro- 
 cess requires that the look shall be harbored in 
 consciousness and in some cases it may take con- 
 siderable time for the construction of the picture. 
 Before long our minds get to the condition where 
 we like to play with this mental picture. And 
 when we reach this we are passing to the third 
 stage which is that of fascination. This stage is 
 more highly colored by an emotional condition 
 of mind and it soon reaches the point of develop- 
 ment where we feel that the picture has a pulling 
 power and finally that we are slaves to it. From 
 this point it is only a short distance until we come 
 to the fourth stage which is a fall or an uplift. 
 By this time the picture which was mental has 
 been transformed into motor terms and the act 
 has been committed. 
 
 Two facts should be remembered in the four 
 processes which have just been described. First, 
 they all take place in the mind of the individual. 
 The look has a slight sensory basis but its recep- 
 
1 8 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 tion into the mind depends on the "set" or the 
 general attitude assumed by the person himself. 
 The picture is altogether associational or mental 
 as well as the fascination. Both of these have a 
 coloring peculiar to the individual's own interests 
 and experiences. The fall or uplift is partly 
 mental and partly motor or actional but it is es- 
 sentially mental as we know a motor action of this 
 type cannot appear without a conscious basis at 
 one time or another. 
 
 These four steps might be outHned in different 
 terms. We could speak of them as first, sensa- 
 tional; second, associational; third, emotional; 
 and fourth, motor. We are only partly respon- 
 sible for the sensational, that is, we cannot keep 
 all evil thots or impressions out of the mind but 
 we are responsible for harboring them. And we 
 are most certainly responsible for the associa- 
 tional, emotional and motor states of conscious- 
 ness. The safest place to stop the line of thot 
 which is wrong is between the look and the picture 
 or between the sensational and the associational. 
 If we let It go beyond this we put ourselves in a 
 dangerous condition which is very likely to ter- 
 minate in downfall. 
 
 Temptation is more mental than we are often 
 led to suppose. But the mental background, as 
 it is often called, of action is coming to receive 
 more emphasis as psychology becomes more defi- 
 
Psychology of Temptation 19 
 
 nite in its inquiries and results. The development 
 of religion, also, has perhaps thru another ave- 
 nue of approach, arriv^ed at much the same con- 
 clusions. The topics of sermons in earlier years 
 were directed more along the physical and motor 
 basis of Christianity while those of more recent 
 years place a greater emphasis on the mental 
 which we now recognize precedes the motor. 
 Many questions which were formerly looked on 
 as, in the main, physical, we find to-day are funda- 
 mentally mental. It is of course natural that we 
 should see the physical first but that is no reason 
 why we should stop there when the mental ap- 
 pears. If we recognize and develop the mental, 
 we will thereby govern the physical which is sub- 
 ordinate. 
 
 In addition to the recognition that temptation 
 is essentially mental, another factor should be re- 
 membered, namely, that the mental process is one 
 whose development is slow. Often we are not 
 conscious of any change unless some unusual situa- 
 tion or experience serves as a check causing us to 
 compare a previous mental state with the present. 
 This applies to thots of a lower as well as of a 
 higher character. To illustrate, a boy comes 
 home from school and is asked what he has 
 learned to-day and he answers, "Nothing." Day 
 after day he might feel like giving the same an- 
 swer. But some situation recalls his condition a 
 
20 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 year ago and brings out a comparison with that of 
 to-day and he realizes that great progress has 
 been made. These changes are so slow that we 
 often fail to realize that they take place. If we 
 would only recognize the power of the mind in 
 the formation of personality we would realize 
 that 
 
 "We men of earth have here 
 
 The stuff of Paradise. 
 We need no other thing 
 
 To build the stairs into the unfilled. 
 No other ivory for the doors, 
 
 No other marble for the floors, 
 No other cedar for the beam and dome 
 
 Of man's immortal dream. 
 Here on the paths of every day 
 
 Here on the common human way 
 Is all the busy gods would take 
 
 To make New Edens. 
 Ours the stuff sublime 
 
 To build eternity In time." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 THE question of whether thot can be trans- 
 ferred from one mind to another without 
 the means of conversation or signs of some sort 
 Is a question on which psychology has as yet no 
 answer to give. This question of mental telep- 
 athy has been experimented with In a meagre and 
 unsatisfactory way. The test was made on num- 
 bers and thots such as these are not so likely to 
 be transferred as those which have an emotional 
 background. The experiments up to the present 
 cover a very narrow field, especially for such a 
 mental phenomenon, hence their results must be 
 looked upon as uncertain. Again, when we con- 
 sider the vagueness of our knowledge regarding 
 emotions together with the difficulty of creating 
 emotions In such a setting as a laboratory, we see 
 additional reasons why a conclusion cannot as yet 
 be given. Psychology In its present state dare 
 not say that transfer of this sort Is impossible be- 
 cause it has as yet no positive answer to give. 
 Considered from the standpoint of individual 
 
 21 
 
22 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 consciousness, prayer is valuable in four ways 
 which we shall attempt to develop. All of these 
 facts have been proven many times in a scientific 
 way. Each expresses a cardinal religious belief 
 found in the doctrines of all Christian churches. 
 We shall attempt to express these principles in 
 their psychological settings. 
 
 In the first place, prayer is non-egotistical. In 
 real prayer the mind of the individual is in a so- 
 cial atmosphere. The thots are stated largely in 
 terms of social consciousness. The individual 
 may be thinking of himself but the emphasis is on 
 the fact that he is a member of a group which is 
 composed of many individuals of much the same 
 mental tendencies. In other words the focus of 
 consciousness is largely outside the person him- 
 self. His thots are not wholly self-centered. An 
 experiment in psychology verifies the value of this 
 mental attitude. Every one realizes it from the 
 experiences of everyday living. In the target ex- 
 periment where the individual has a small hand 
 arrow and aims at a target, the effect of the thot 
 in the mind at the time of acting has been studied 
 carefully. The phase of the experiment in which 
 we are interested is the difference in the accuracy 
 and ease of control of movement when conscious- 
 ness is centered, first, on the individual's own body 
 and, second, when the direction of thot is outside 
 the body of the subject. In the first instance, thot 
 
Psychology of Prayer 23 
 
 is concentrated on the feeling of movement in the 
 arm or the feeling of the arrow as it leaves the 
 hand, compared with the second, where the mind 
 is directed to the arrow flying thru space and hit- 
 ting the target. In the latter there is no thot con- 
 nected with the individual; it is altogether outside 
 himself. In other words it might be termed non- 
 egotistical. Greater accuracy was attained in the 
 second instance. As far as the picture of the ar- 
 row is concerned another person might have 
 thrown it as the thot is not on who threw it. 
 This shows the fact that anything which takes the 
 mind away from a state of consciousness which is 
 self-centered in a narrow sense is an advantage. 
 And prayer does this in a way which nothing else 
 could because it brings us into relation with God, 
 the Infinite. This thot will be further developed 
 in the consideration of the fourth point. We real- 
 ize from our own experience the value of a mind 
 centered on accomplishing a task and forgetful 
 entirely of self as is expressed in the case of a 
 man lost in his work. Contrasted with this, we 
 have the individual who is always thinking of 
 himself, the tasks to be accomplished taking a sec- 
 ondary place. We know that the former is al- 
 ways the more efficient. So prayer is of value be- 
 cause it takes the mind which is prone to wander 
 in the narrow fields of egoism, which are barren 
 and unfruitful, and leads it into the wider and 
 
24 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 greener pastures of an enlarged social conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 In the second place, prayer enlarges social con- 
 sciousness. Imagine, if you can, the Lord's prayer 
 with all the pronouns in the singular — "My Fath- 
 er who art in heaven," et cetera. The Father- 
 hood of God and the brotherhood of man are not 
 only Inseparable fundamentals of Christianity but 
 also foundations for real prayer because of the in- 
 stinctive psychical characteristics of the human 
 mind. It is social In its basic principles and 
 prayer not only expresses this inherent tendency 
 but develops and enlarges It. Prayer Is an in- 
 valuable aid in developing the larger qualities of 
 the social mind. Imagine a pseudo-baby born on 
 an island, cared for In some mysterious way and 
 reaching the age of thirty without having seen 
 another person; never having had the opportunity 
 of helping another individual and never having re- 
 ceived aid from any one; never having had the 
 privilege of working with another and never hav- 
 ing played with a companion; never having tasted 
 of the joy of friendship and the like. We might 
 question whether consciousness should be applied 
 to such a being but we feel sure that we would 
 not dare use the term individual as we conceive of 
 It. The highest qualities of each individual mind 
 are cultivated In a social world. 
 
 In the third Instance, prayer is an expression 
 
Psychology of Prayer 25 
 
 of the desires of the Innermost soul. There are 
 three distinct advantages that come from this. 
 Desire Is a dream or vision not yet reahzed and 
 the continued expression of it makes it more li- 
 able to result In a reality. The focus of conscious- 
 ness is brought on it over and over again and 
 psychology supports a principle which all realize, 
 namely, that thot which is continually coming to 
 the mind will eventually result in influencing ac- 
 tion. The actions of one period are largely the 
 reflections of the thots of the preceding period. 
 So prayer is of value because It Is a means of ex- 
 pressing the highest dreams of which the indi- 
 vidual Is capable, thus Increasing the probability 
 of making them come true. "The thots of to-day 
 become the deeds of to-morrow." 
 
 The second advantage is that in prayer, If It Is 
 real prayer, we express desires which are of a 
 worthy order. Therefore the lower ones are 
 pushed from consciousness, If prayer is a habit. 
 This Is the principle of substitution Instead of pro- 
 hibition. We need only mention the point here 
 since It was developed In the discussion regarding 
 temptation. 
 
 The third advantage is that expression Is the 
 law of growth In the mental and spiritual world. 
 Prayer is a means of expression and at the same 
 time it results in the clarification of the ideas ex- 
 pressed. One Individual explains to another how 
 
26 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 to solve a problem and it results in clearing his 
 own difficulties as well as making his own knowl- 
 edge more certain. In the material world, we 
 lose by giving and gain by getting but the opposite 
 is true in the mental and spiritual. To illustrate, 
 a man has a thousand dollars and decides to give 
 one half of it to a friend. After this he has less 
 than he had before. In contrast, a man helps his 
 friend in a mental and spiritual way by aiding him 
 in removing a difficulty which was confusing him 
 — he has not lost anything mentally by rendering 
 this service but has gained, and at the same time 
 he has helped his friend. This is, in one sense of 
 the word, selfish but the focus must be kept on the 
 social if this mental state is to continue. If it is 
 selfish, it is certainly more to be desired than the 
 narrow form of egoism where no consideration is 
 given the social world except as it will be an ad- 
 vantage to the thinker. Shakespeare expresses 
 this truth very aptly, "To thine own self be true, 
 and it must follow, as the night the day, thou 
 canst not then be false to any man." Thine own 
 self to which he refers, is not a narrow but a broad 
 personality moving in a wide social atmosphere. 
 
 In the fourth instance, prayer brings out our 
 relation with the Infinite. A boy walking home 
 from school with a room-mate is asked what he is 
 going to do when he grows up. He will give an 
 answer but it will often be careless. His judg- 
 
Psychology of Prayer 27 
 
 ment will not be exercised to any extent and he 
 may even contradict himself. Upon going home 
 he finds that his father's best friend, a man about 
 whom he has heard a great deal, is there. The 
 boy immediately recalls the notable things which 
 he has heard of this man's doing. While in this 
 mental attitude the visitor asks him what he is 
 going to do when he becomes a man. We find his 
 answer is very different from the reply he made 
 to his schoolmate. He is careful, weighs his re- 
 ply, and in a measure draws power from the one 
 with whom he is talking. So it is in prayer, when 
 we talk to God we weigh our thots before express- 
 ing them. We, also, draw power and new life 
 from the One to whom we are talking. If this is 
 true in finite friendships, how much more must it 
 be true with reference to the Infinite. Prayer 
 will, as long as we are finite, have a mystic and pe- 
 culiar emotional atmosphere because we are deal- 
 ing with the Infinite. 
 
 In conclusion, prayer is of value because it is 
 non-egotistical, it enlarges our social conscious- 
 ness, it expresses the highest desires of the mind 
 and it brings out our relation with the Infinite and 
 thus increases the power which we ourselves pos- 
 sess. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SIN 
 
 SIN is fundamentally mental. Its origin is in 
 the psychic life of the individual. This fact 
 has been mentioned previously in dealing with 
 temptation. It may be expressed in a different 
 way by saying that sin is personal. That is, sin 
 is not the same for all individuals. Two per- 
 sons may commit the same act and in one case 
 it may be sin while in the other it may not be. Or 
 two acts of seemingly the same character may be 
 performed by the same individual, these being sep- 
 arated by an interval of time and again we would 
 not dare to say that they were sins of equal rank. 
 Mental and environmental changes may have hap- 
 pened in the interval which cause the difference. 
 The first may be a sin of little gravity while the 
 latter may be, with what has happened in the in- 
 terval, a sin of the greatest import. An indi- 
 vidual who has not been subjected to an environ- 
 ment of a high moral type may engage in some 
 business acts which to him appear right. That 
 same individual may be brot under a higher en- 
 
 28 
 
Psychology of Sin 29 
 
 vironment and under this condition his previous 
 acts, if repeated, would be sinful. 
 
 Sin may be accounted for partly by environment 
 but the personality of the individual is the factor 
 which is essential. Some individuals tend to 
 reckon all sin on a basis of the surroundings of 
 the individual. This seems to be carrying the 
 point to an extreme. In former years sufficient 
 credit may not have been given to the environ- 
 mental factors but we have a tendency to believe 
 at present that these are not the only causes. If 
 we would express the extreme view of those who 
 overemphasize environment in another way we 
 would be compelled to state that character, be it 
 good or bad, is the mechanical result of the dif- 
 ferent experiences thru which the individual has 
 passed. Environment no doubt has a potent influ- 
 ence in the building of the mental life of the indi- 
 vidual but the personality of the individual also 
 plays a large part in the interpretation of the en- 
 vironment. We see ample evidence of this in 
 two persons whose surroundings have been iden- 
 tical as far as the physical factors are concerned 
 but whose mental equipment is as different as day 
 is from night. Another factor must have entered 
 to cause the difference. We call this personality. 
 And even tho we are unable to define exactly what 
 it is, we believe it exists. Electricity is undefine- 
 able as to what it is but we believe that it exists. 
 
30 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 The motive or motives in the mind are the real 
 factors to be considered in determining sin. If 
 the individual has not acted on the highest motive 
 of which he is capable he is sinning, and the fur- 
 ther the motive is removed from that of which 
 he is capable the greater the sin. The range 
 of possible motivation will vary with difference 
 in personality as well as with the varying environ- 
 ments in which the individual has lived. We be- 
 lieve that a person is not only responsible for 
 what he has made of environmental opportunities 
 but also for what he might have made of these. 
 Two individuals may have lived in a Christian 
 atmosphere and it may influence only one while 
 the other is impervious. 
 
 An act usually is the result of a combination 
 of many motives, but the total basis of motivation 
 should be the highest of which the individual is 
 capable. To illustrate, the difference in the motive 
 when the act is seemingly the same — a blind man 
 seated on the sidewalk is begging for help. Two 
 men in turn pass by and each drops a quarter in 
 the man's hat. Physically they have performed the 
 same act but mentally we cannot say that they 
 have until we know the motive which was the 
 cause of the action. For instance, let us suppose 
 that the first man's motive was to help the beggar 
 with whom he sympathizes. But the second man, 
 knowing that he was being followed by a certain 
 
Psychology of Sin 31 
 
 Individual with whom he desired to raise his 
 standing because he anticipates asking a favor of 
 him in the near future, gave the quarter for this 
 reason and not because he desired to help the 
 beggar. Had this man not been followed by his 
 friend of whom he expected to ask a favor he 
 would not have made any contribution. The mo- 
 tive in these two instances was very different, while 
 the physical act was the same as far as the on- 
 looker could discern. So in sin the motive Is the 
 real basis for Its reckoning. This is one of the 
 reasons why It Is impossible to say without quali- 
 fication that a man has done right or wrong. It 
 is also one of the reasons why we cannot judge 
 another man's act. We can only say he seems to 
 have acted rightly or wrongly because we think 
 his motive was so and so. 
 
 If sin is personal. It must also be social. That 
 is, it must be related to society as seen from the 
 standpoint of each Indivlduars own consciousness. 
 We believe in the organic view of society and ac- 
 cording to it the individual and society are "not 
 two modes of existence but are two viewpoints of 
 a unitary existence." This means that we must 
 put an organic Interpretation on our consideration 
 of sin. The consciousness of the individual Is 
 intricately indebted to society and Its sense of 
 right and wrong cannot be separated from this 
 foundation. What concept of sin would a pseudo- 
 
32 Applied Religions Psychology 
 
 individual, who had never come in contact with 
 another person, have? He might have the ele- 
 ment of choice which would call for a decision but 
 his mental life would be so far removed from 
 ours that we could not conceive, let alone appre- 
 ciate, his mental basis of action. 
 
 Sin is necessarily connected with our ideals of 
 life. We shall develop this later in the discus- 
 sion of the psychology of ideals. Suffice it at this 
 point to bear out the relation of sin to the ideals 
 of the individual. Suppose the ideal of the first 
 individual Is to keep out of jail, the ideal of a 
 second Is to pay all his debts and live honestly in 
 a narrow sense of the word, that of a third is to 
 serve one's fellowmen in a limited sense of the 
 word, that of a fourth is the Fatherhood of God 
 and the brotherhood of men in the widest sense 
 and he Is attempting to make this come true in all 
 phases of life. It goes without saying that each 
 of these will have a different mental basis for 
 judging sin. Many an individual attempts to jus- 
 tify what he knows is sin by lowering his ideal in 
 life just for the moment when he Is considering 
 the question of right and wrong. But when the 
 question of sin Is dismissed and he comes to com- 
 pare his ideals with those of another person he 
 goes back again to the highest level of which he is 
 capable. A spot of Ink on a garment may be 
 scarcely noticeable In the twilight but at noonday it 
 
Psychology of Sin , 33 
 
 appears extremely black. And to attain the great- 
 est efficiency of which one is capable, one's idea of 
 whether an act is sinful or not should be measured 
 by the highest ideals one is capable of reaching. 
 Another interesting test which reveals a basic 
 difference is the attitude of the individual after 
 he has committed an act which, in the light of 
 later experiences, appears sinful. At the time of 
 action he was doing right but, in the meantime his 
 ideals having been raised to a higher level, the act 
 now appears wrong. If in this situation a man 
 tries to justify his action with unqualified support 
 he is not doing the best he knows. We would not 
 contend that he had sinned in his action but it 
 would be sinful if he was to attempt to justify 
 that which was formerly right but in the deepest 
 depths of his mind he now knows is wrong. 
 
 In summarizing, the following quotation ap- 
 pears fitting: 
 
 'Tor from within, out of the heart of men, 
 evil thots proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, 
 adulteries, covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lascivi- 
 ousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness: 
 all these evil things proceed from within, and de- 
 file the man." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF EVANGELISM 
 
 WITH reference to religion we, of to-day, 
 say that It applies to the development of 
 the body, mind and spirit. We do not realize 
 that this respresents the growth of many hun- 
 dreds of years. In the 15th Century it was con- 
 ceived of as dealing only with the spirit. At a 
 later period, we find the mental entering while in 
 recent years the physical has come to its own. 
 We speak of them to-day as intimately related but 
 our attitude is the result of years of struggle and 
 growth. The same is true of evangelism. The 
 former type was the personal or direct. In this 
 the individual was approached just as one person 
 would meet another and carry on a conversation 
 with him. The later type keeps this direct or per- 
 sonal method but adds the social or indirect with 
 it. The indirect may employ a conversation with 
 another but it does not stop there. If an institu- 
 tion is believed to be pulling an individual down 
 an attempt is made to annihilate this and thereby 
 help the person affected. It was natural that the 
 
 34 
 
Psychology of Evangelism 35 
 
 narrower type should come first but that is no 
 reason why we should stop with it. A man in a 
 factory learns the details of the particular proc- 
 ess upon which he is to work, first, but that is no 
 reason why he should not learn the processes re- 
 lated to his upon which other individuals are 
 working and which together make up the com- 
 plete product. 
 
 The broader type of evangelism was not used 
 in the early Christian Church for, at least, two 
 reasons. In the first place, the end of the world 
 was conceived of as being near and this led them 
 to use the most direct method possible. In the 
 second place, social institutions were not so numer- 
 ous nor so potential then as now\ Sin was more 
 personal and sinning by syndicate or thru an or- 
 ganization was not so common. We remember 
 hearing a speaker say that the only mission of the 
 Church Is to convert men from sin, the Church 
 has no business to take a hand in a political or 
 social situation even w^hen it is sapping human 
 vitality and thus making the highest expression of 
 the religious life Impossible. If his thot Is a 
 worthy criterion of his philosophy he would fit 
 better In the i6th than in the 20th Century. 
 
 The dynamic for the broader evangelism finds 
 its foundation in the teaching of Christ. When 
 He cast the traders out of the Temple He was 
 attacking an institution which was pulling human- 
 
2^ Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 ity down and at the same time misusing the Tem- 
 ple which was erected for the uplift of mankind. 
 If one really desires to see people saved in the 
 deepest sense of the word he must also desire to 
 see institutions in the community which are pulling 
 humanity away from salvation crushed and sup- 
 planted by organizations which will elevate man- 
 kind. 
 
 The way to get people out of the mire of sin 
 and the lower ideals of life is to point out higher 
 ones, but this is not all. If they are given a task 
 of helping others to higher ideals we may be more 
 certain that their own will also be raised. This 
 task may be personal or impersonal, it may be 
 that of bringing some one else who is your friend 
 to see the Christian viewpoint, or it may be the 
 using of your influence in bringing about the re- 
 moval of some institution which has pulled you 
 down as well as your friends. The church too 
 often enrolls people as members and stops there, 
 due to a lack of appreciation of the broader type 
 of evangelism. Social evangelism makes a strong 
 appeal to thinking men. We remember a man 
 who had not been in a church for twenty years. 
 The Church in his city undertook an application 
 of social evangelism and it was not long until 
 this man came and investigated very carefully 
 what was being done. And when he had looked 
 within he said, "If that is what you call Christian- 
 
Psychology of Evangelism 37 
 
 ity I want to be a part of it and help." He imme- 
 diately went to the pastor and said that he desired 
 to join, no one ever having asked him to do so. 
 After this, he went to the treasurer of the Church 
 and asked what three men who had been life mem- 
 bers of the church and who were receiving about 
 the same salary as he was, were in the habit of 
 giving. When told what the amount was and it 
 was not small, he said, "You may put me down for 
 the same." "If the Church does not Christianize 
 commerce, commerce will commerciahze the 
 Church." We might also say that if the Church 
 does not Christianize society, society will under- 
 mine the Church. 
 
 Another illustration might be presented show- 
 ing the sociological value of the broader evangel- 
 ism. A boy is playing in the backyard and a 
 stream flows near by into which there is danger 
 of his faUing. The father exhorts him to be care- 
 ful but he goes farther. He builds a fence along 
 the edge of the water, thus minimizing the danger. 
 A neighbor boy comes to play and altho he has 
 not been exhorted regarding the danger the fence 
 serves to keep him away as well. This fence rep- 
 resents the doing away with a social institution 
 which is destructive or the inauguration of one 
 which will be elevating. There is no mystical ele- 
 ment here nor is there in the broader evangelism. 
 "The key to understanding God's dealings thru 
 
38 Applied Religions Psychology 
 
 the ages is simply a universal love going out in a 
 redemptive purpose." If God's love goes out to 
 the individual seeking to elevate him, He must de- 
 sire that institutions destructive of the object of 
 his love should be eliminated. 
 
 A man walking along the street kills another. 
 We all know how we feel toward him. An em- 
 ployer thru an institution kills another by not 
 paying a living wage. Do we feel the same to- 
 ward him? No. It is due to the fact that we 
 look upon institutions as impersonal and also 
 that social forces work more gradually and in a 
 less dramatic way. On account of this we are 
 liable to underestimate or overlook them alto- 
 gether. Court decisions are testimonies of this 
 fact. We do not punish an institution as often 
 nor as severely as an individual when the crime 
 is the same. What is your attitude as a Chris- 
 tian toward a starving man whom you meet? 
 What is your attitude toward an institution which 
 is paying a starvation wage? It is not enough for 
 the Church to seek to enlist and help the starving; 
 it must go further and be alert for the institution 
 which is causing the starvation. 
 
 The Church that has not assumed the habit of 
 social responsibility, that is, of examining the con- 
 ditions of living, studying the influence of institu- 
 tions in the community, has no right to call itself 
 a Church in the fullest sense of the word. Christ 
 
Psychology of Evangelism 39 
 
 did not treat the symptoms of mental disease but 
 sought by a longer process to remove the germs 
 that were causing the disease. We after ages 
 have learned the value of the preventative, which 
 is the social, coupled with the remedial, which is 
 the personal. In treating contagious diseases the 
 individual having the disease is treated, but social 
 treatment is also applied in isolation which checks 
 the spread of the disease. 
 
 A boy frequents a gambling den, an institution 
 which is pulling him down. The individual rem- 
 edy is to counsel the boy and to lead him away to 
 better amusements, to turn him from the con- 
 tamination of evil influence, but a larger remedy 
 is, in addition to that just mentioned, to do away 
 with the den of vice and supplant it in the boy's 
 mind by another institution. In so doing you not 
 only help the boy who has been going but you also 
 remove the possibility of the boy of to-morrow 
 going as well. 
 
 The broader evangelism demands repentance 
 and faith. Repentance from social sin and faith 
 in the possibility of a new order. All the Chris- 
 tian virtues which we attach to the individual in 
 postulating a goal to be striven for should be at- 
 tached to the organism which we call society. 
 *'The modern emancipation of the intellectual life 
 began in the Renaissance and is not finished yet; 
 the birth of the religious life began in the Refor- 
 
40 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 matlon and is not finished yet; the bringing forth 
 of political life began in the Puritan Revolution 
 and is not finished yet; the beginning of the indus- 
 trial life occurred in the 19th Century and is not 
 finished yet; the modern emancipation of the so- 
 cial direction of the religious spirit has just begun" 
 and all the moral power generated by Christianity 
 is available for the task of social regeneration if 
 Christians are only conscious of the nature of the 
 problem which is before them. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF CONVERSION 
 
 CONVERSION as far as the psychological 
 side is concerned is not peculiar to religion 
 but is found in all phases of mental life. In many 
 instances we describe it by other terms when the 
 mental process is much the same. A business man 
 thru new and larger experiences becomes acquaint- 
 ed with new ideals of business. He ponders 
 over these and the change may be slow or quick, 
 according to his previous state of mind as well as 
 the ideals presented. After a time he reaches a 
 decision and thereafter his business is conducted 
 in a very different manner. He has been con- 
 verted, if we may use the term, in business. To 
 illustrate further, a student has certain moral prin- 
 ciples which we will call xyz. These have served 
 as guiding stars in his life of action in the same 
 manner in which a map points the way in making 
 a journey. But experiences cross his pathway 
 which bring into his mind principles which were 
 unheard of before. Let us call these mno. These 
 may come creeping along in his thot until they 
 
 41 
 
42 Applied Religions Psychology 
 
 force their way Into the focus of consciousness or 
 they may come so suddenly that they flash over his 
 mind In an Instant. For a period, It may be short 
 or It may be long, xyz and mno stand one against 
 the other. After a period of conflict the victory 
 comes to that one which presents from his per- 
 sonal viewpoint the highest Ideal. To continue 
 the Illustration, let us say after a period of Inde- 
 cision mno comes out In his mind as the victor over 
 xyz. He has adopted a new guiding principle 
 and from that point on his moral actions are 
 directed by a different map of life. Also the aim 
 of his action has been changed because the direc- 
 tion of his consciousness Is different than before. 
 In other words the Individual has been converted. 
 We need not elaborate this point further but reit- 
 erate that conversion, as far as the mental side Is 
 concerned, Is not peculiar to religion but Is found 
 In all phases of psychical activity. 
 
 We usually think of conversion as occurring but 
 once In the life of the Individual. In a sense this 
 is true. The one who has up to a certain point 
 drifted In sin and worldllness and then has 
 brought to his attention the truths of Christianity 
 which he accepts and by which he, from that mo- 
 ment, seeks to direct his life, cannot and should 
 not easily forget this experience. This is the larg- 
 est change In the direction of consciousness which 
 occurs, but It Is not the only one. It Is what might 
 
Psychology of Conversion 43 
 
 be termed the major conversion, but in the life of 
 the normal individual it is followed by other 
 changes which might be called minor conversions. 
 The individual has been wandering in the mire of 
 the lower things of life and has suddenly come 
 across a stairway which will enable him to raise 
 himself above the filth. In a condition of this 
 sort he naturally puts more emphasis in his own 
 mind on the first step just as the first pay a boy re- 
 ceives stands out in the limelight. But this initial 
 change is followed by others which lead to heights 
 beyond. True conversion is not an elevator 
 which in one lift transfers a man from sin to a 
 position in a high moral world, but it is a series 
 of growths or a stairway, the top of which is 
 always distant. All that is needed for growth is 
 the perception of the next step above. Other 
 steps will appear as we educate ourselves to dis- 
 cern them. 
 
 Human consciousness, if it is normal must be 
 progressive. Life is a series of goals which ap- 
 pear not simultaneously but one after the other. 
 In our present position we see a height beyond, 
 it is our ideal. But when we reach that point it 
 seems commonplace and we see that it was only a 
 foothill. Beyond, we see a mountain which be- 
 comes our new aspiration. We undertake again 
 our objective and so we go. Ideals realized 
 become ideas, then new ideals spring up and 
 
44 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 thus the endless succession continues. Life can 
 be supported in the physical body by much the 
 same chemical ingredients of food day by day but 
 not so with the mind. It must feast on new pas^ 
 tures: its line of thot must have something of the 
 unusual in it. Therefore, if real mentality is to 
 continue, it follows that a series of conversions 
 under ever widening circumstances is the natural 
 expression of the mind. 
 
 Conversion must be personal. That is, it must 
 have a mental or associational basis in the mind 
 of the individual himself. If conversion is real, 
 it must be his conversion in the sense that there 
 are certain factors in it which he alone can ap- 
 preciate. One person may imitate another in 
 the act of getting up, walking to the front 
 and taking the hand of the evangelist, but one 
 person cannot follow another in the sense that 
 he copies his associational setting and attempts 
 to make it his own. One individual m.ay listen 
 to the explanation of the conversion of his friend, 
 but his own will be different in certain respects 
 because his experience has been different. One 
 may hear a description of a scene in the Rocky 
 Mountains and accept it mentally, but it never be- 
 comes a vital part of his consciousness until he 
 has had some personal experience relating to it 
 himself. It is the same with reference to con- 
 version. 
 
Psychology of Conversion 45 
 
 We have different types of conversions because 
 minds are not of one kind but many. Usually 
 the powers of the mind are classed as three — 
 knowing, feeling and willing. And we have three 
 types of conversion according as the emphasis Is 
 put on each of these three powers. In each of 
 these kinds the other two powers of mind are 
 not excluded but are just pushed to the back- 
 ground. The first type emphasizes knowing; the 
 intellectual element comes to the front. This In- 
 dividual has a tendency to analyze and ponder 
 mentally with the various aspects of the situa- 
 tion. He is aided only as thots are presented to 
 his mind which make a logical appeal and on 
 this ground only are they accepted by him. Re- 
 citing a highly emotional situation which has lit- 
 tle of the logical appeal in it, to him is like throw- 
 ing water on fire — It deadens his tendency to 
 reach a conclusion. This type of individual may 
 be converted In his own home as he is meditating 
 by himself or it may be in a meeting, but the con- 
 dition causing the change Is the same. The weight 
 of logical evidence has been accumulated and the 
 scale is tipped to the other side, his decision has 
 been reached. 
 
 In the second type the emphasis is on the emo- 
 tional powers of the mind. Knowing and will- 
 ing are forced to a secondary position and In 
 some instances seem to disappear. This type 
 
46 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 varies from one extreme in which the intellectual 
 and emotional seem to be almost equal. It is 
 scarcely discernible which is in the foreground. 
 On the other extreme we find seemingly none of 
 the intellectual while the consciousness of feeling 
 seems to occupy the entire field. Decision is 
 not reached in this second type by the same course 
 as in the first; the method used is pecuhar to 
 this type of mind. The appeal must accord some- 
 what with the former experience of the individ- 
 ual, that is, it must find an associational setting 
 in his own mind and when this condition is ful- 
 filled a cord seems to have been struck which 
 sympathetically arouses the emotional state of 
 mind. In making the appeal we usually find some 
 instinctive characteristic of the mind is used as 
 a foundation. The individual cannot relate why 
 he has reached his decision by giving logical rea- 
 sons which will support it as is the case in the 
 first type, but will usually recite an instance or 
 experience and then follow it with some remark 
 which indicates that it was an emotion thus 
 aroused which supports his position. 
 
 The third type depends in the main on will or 
 action, while knowing and feeling are pushed to 
 secondary positions. The manner in which the 
 appeal is made in this instance is different from 
 the two just mentioned. An emotional situation 
 makes Httle or no appeal, a series of logical rea- 
 
Psychology of Conversion 47 
 
 sons in the main passes by unheard. The at- 
 tention of this individual is secured by stating 
 some practical task which he can picture in his 
 own environment and which he himself desires to 
 see put into action. In this third type knowing 
 and feeling may be in the periphery of conscious- 
 ness, but the focus is directed to the action which 
 he desires to see accomplished and in which he 
 wishes to have a part. 
 
 The ideal situation is where a balance is main- 
 tained between these three powers of the mind, 
 knowing, feeling and willing being united in an 
 organic decision which is related to an individ- 
 ual basis in the mind of each person. No one of 
 these powers of mind can exist for any time iso- 
 lated, but the type of decision which overempha- 
 sizes the intellectual, the emotional or the ac- 
 tional is lame and inefficient when compared with 
 that which maintains a balance. The ideal is 
 where all three are brought into play — difference 
 being allowed, of course, for individuality, ex- 
 perience and the like. 
 
 The experience and type of mind also cause 
 differences which may be classified in another 
 manner. Some minds make their approach from 
 a visual-descriptive, others from a motor-descrip- 
 tive basis. Both of these deal with the situa- 
 tion much as one would view a series of pictures 
 and afterwards describe that which they had seen. 
 
48 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 The emphasis is on the sensory qualities of con- 
 sciousness. A second group is the motor type. 
 These relate personal motives and situations and 
 connect them with actions which they themselves 
 have gone thru with in their own personal life 
 or which they can appreciate because they have 
 experienced situations which are somewhat simi- 
 lar. In this group the emphasis is on the motor 
 powers of the mind. In the third type we find 
 the associational or analytical group who ap- 
 proach the subject more from the philosophical 
 viewpoint, having accumulated logical proposi- 
 tions from all sources and united these into a 
 system. This is primarily a relationship process 
 which is based on the sensory as well as the motor 
 factors of consciousness. In this group the em- 
 phasis is on the associational powers of the mind 
 which are immediately dependent upon experi- 
 ence and the classification thereof. 
 
 Another characteristic concerning which there 
 seems to be some difference is the speed with 
 which the conversion takes place. We have a 
 tendency to think of these as falling into three 
 classes — sudden, medium and slow. Probably 
 most of the sudden are those which place great 
 emphasis on the emotional while most of the slow 
 consider the logical element of great importance. 
 The medium may belong to either class. The 
 chances are that in those which we list as being 
 
Psychology of Conversion 49 
 
 sudden the change Is often not as quick as 
 we may estimate. In many cases there has been 
 a preparation extending over a considerable 
 period of which the individual is not fully con- 
 scious and sometimes its relation with the conver- 
 sion itself is not clear in his mind. A dissatis- 
 faction may have been slowly growing and this is 
 expressed suddenly when a new line of thot is 
 presented. Other conditions enter which deter- 
 mine the time required such as the earlier experi- 
 ence of the individual, his temperament, his previ- 
 ous moral life and whether it is a major or minor 
 conversion. 
 
 We may retrospect by saying that conversion 
 is really a series of conversions or a chain of 
 mental growths. These must be personal and 
 hence individualistic. They will be expressed In 
 different ways as minds are not the same. This 
 difference may be subdivided into those which em- 
 phasize In turn knowing, feehng and willing or 
 on another line of consideration the sensory, 
 motor and associational types of mind and finally 
 with reference to the time we may classify them 
 as sudden, medium and slow. This all points 
 out a fundamental which is that no one can plan 
 a conversion for another but each must work out 
 his own to suit his type of mind, his earlier ex- 
 periences and other qualities which determine in- 
 dividuality. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF WORSHIP 
 
 PHYSICAL security and material luxury 
 which mother earth supplies are not sufficient 
 for the mind of man. After these have been 
 grasped to their fullest extent there still remains 
 a lack. To express it in a different manner we 
 may say that religion of some sort is a psychical 
 necessity. If a man has an instinct to be religious 
 and is at the same time a social being, it fol- 
 lows that worship is a natural expression of the 
 mind. Christianity opens higher fields for con- 
 sciousness to feed upon than any other religion. 
 And one means of stimulating and providing for 
 the fullest expression of these is found in true 
 worship. If we are consistent, the same spirit 
 which we manifest in worship will be reflected in 
 our everyday actions as we deal with the com- 
 monplace matters of life and, conversely, the 
 spirit which characterizes our work during the six 
 days of the week will reflect itself in the worship 
 on the seventh. Otherwise, inconsistency would 
 be the result. 
 
 50 
 
Psychology of Worship 51 
 
 The setting up of a goal which is worthy in 
 the mind of each individual is a prerequisite for 
 all worship which is sincere. This goal must be 
 personal in the sense that each individual has his 
 own objective in mind and at the same time it 
 will be social in that one person can partly ap- 
 preciate and share the goal of another. This 
 fact is not peculiar to religion but is a common- 
 place with all mentality in its social atmosphere. 
 A group of fault-finding politicians never can ex- 
 press unity, neither can a church composed of nag- 
 gers express religion in its highest level. 
 
 Some worship may be unconscious or imitative, 
 that is doing what is prescribed or formal with 
 little or no idea of the meaning which should 
 be attached to it. But real worship is conscious, 
 which means that it is also personal. In other 
 words, it must be for each mind a means of com- 
 ing closer to some goal or of satisfying a long- 
 ing which exists in the human soul. These goals 
 will not always be identical for each mind, neither 
 will all individuals have the same, but there will 
 be considerable coincidence as we all have much 
 the same instinctive tendencies and in many cases 
 experiences which are similar. 
 
 Two minds (a) and (b) are separate; but 
 when they come into communication it is not 
 (a) + (b) but (a) + (b) + (x). Some addi- 
 tional factor (x), which we have not been able to 
 
52 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 diagnose exactly, functions in addition to (a) and 
 (b). This is true in worship as well as in all 
 phases of social life. The social participation 
 of the individual is necessary in real worship. 
 Giving and taking are both necessary for spirit- 
 ual growth because we are made that way. This 
 point was referred to in the discussion of prayer. 
 True worship is not only characterized by the 
 spirit of service but the individual is also willing 
 to have others serve him should the opportunity 
 present itself. But the spirit of being helped 
 by some one else should never be the attitude of 
 a lazy man who lets some one else do the work 
 which he is paid for and professes to be doing 
 himself. It should be the spirit of a pupil who 
 desires to know how to work a problem and, hav- 
 ing tried every solution of which he can conceive, 
 is ready to accept the help of the teacher in or- 
 der that his own capacity for work may be in- 
 creased. Real personality runs on a track of so- 
 cial helpfulness and attempting any narrower 
 gauge impairs its efficiency. 
 
 A potent power which worship uses, is sug- 
 gestion. This may be direct or indirect, con- 
 scious or unconscious. This use of suggestion in 
 the social world is one of the fundamentals on 
 which worship rests. By this means a new world 
 is often opened to the individual and its sunshine 
 often clears even the darkest corner of the mind. 
 
Psychology of Worship 53 
 
 When group consciousness is of the right sort a 
 powerful influence is exerted by means of sugges- 
 tion. This should be regulated by the intellec- 
 tual powers of the mind; it should be amplified 
 in the mind of each and intimately related to his 
 own experience; it should always be encouraged 
 to terminate in action. And this action should 
 have a definite purpose in the mind of the one 
 performing it. It should not only be related to 
 his previous experience but should also be strongly 
 fortified by a backing of individual ideals. Blind 
 imitation or the doing of an act because another 
 has done so should not be encouraged to any ex- 
 tent. This has in many cases a tendency to en- 
 courage the development of a mob mind which 
 is flighty, changeable and erratic and is not a 
 basis on which personality or character of a strong 
 type can be built. In some instances, it may be 
 justifiable for a person to blindly imitate another 
 but it should never end here. It should be imme- 
 diately followed by a determined effort to sup- 
 port this act with a mental foundation of its own, 
 this being amplified by many and varied associa- 
 tions. Then the act will become permanent be- 
 cause it is rooted in his own mind. 
 
 There are many emotions, especially those of 
 a higher sort, which are expressed only in a so- 
 cial world. Worship is of special value in the 
 development of these. There are some phases of 
 
54 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 worship which are expressions of a mob mind, but 
 true worship is an expression of the rational pow- 
 ers of mind in a social atmosphere, which is 
 its normal environment. I remember a notable 
 singer who said that he was unable to sing when 
 practicing, he could only hum his tunes because 
 he had no audience. He was unable to put any 
 feeling into his singing unless he had listeners. 
 Feelings of certain kinds are only released in the 
 presence of others. Imagine faith, hope and love 
 of a high degree developed in a man of a non- 
 social type. Imagine a minister going to a phone 
 in his study and the various members of his 
 church connected with that phone. The minister 
 preaches his sermon, the choir sings and the peo- 
 ple listen. Would this be worship of the high- 
 est kind? No, not in the same degree as when 
 all were in the same room, doing certain things 
 in cooperation and each realizing that he was a 
 part of a large social unit. This is not only the 
 case in the religious world but is just as true in 
 other phases of human endeavor. 
 
 Like-mindedness in a religious group intensi- 
 fies feeling and broadens social consciousness. 
 This quahty is manifested in religious, political 
 and all social phases of life. It is very different 
 than the mind of a mob. The latter is excessively 
 emotional and is lacking in an intellectual basis. 
 The former has an emotional element but it is 
 
Psychology of Worship ^^ 
 
 balanced by the Intellectual. Like-mindedness is 
 also different from a mob mind in that each in- 
 dividual reserves his own personality. The mind 
 of a mob is not directed consciously by each in- 
 dividual mind but follows in a non-intellectual way 
 the mind of the leader. Emotions will be mani- 
 fested when like-minded individuals get together 
 because under these conditions social conscious- 
 ness cannot operate in any other way. But feel- 
 ings should always be controlled by as high a de- 
 gree of rationality as is possible, no matter 
 whether the individual is alone or is a part of a 
 group. Worship may change as to its form and 
 manner of expression but its fundamentals will 
 remain the same and it will always be a necessary 
 part of religion. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF IDEALS 
 
 DEVELOPMENT in the various lines of 
 human thot and activity Is significant in that 
 it points out a shifting emphasis or rather a widen- 
 ing viewpoint. Formerly in the world of finance, 
 security was looked upon as a material matter, 
 but in recent times other features which are non- 
 materialistic have come to the forefront such as 
 the character of the individual wishing to borrow 
 money. A noted financier has said that one man 
 might come with all the security you can think 
 of in a material sense and I would not feel safe 
 in lending him a dollar. Another may come 
 with almost no security as far as dollars and cents 
 go and I would feel safe in loaning him a mil- 
 lion. The basis is not materialistic, it is in an- 
 other world. The real security is character. 
 
 Also in the world of social thot crimes, social 
 diseases and the like are no longer looked upon 
 as being purely physical but as having mental 
 qualities as well. Again, in the political world 
 government is no longer conceived of as being a 
 
 56 
 
Psychology of Ideals 57 
 
 mechanical machine but mental characteristics are 
 attributed to it. In the realm of education the 
 advance in recent years has been due in a measure 
 to the recognition of the mental and getting away 
 from the concept that the child is so much matter 
 to be put thru a mechanical process which should 
 be uniform for all. Also in the religious world 
 sin is conceived of not as being altogether physi- 
 cal but as having a mental quality as well. And 
 religion in its entirety is not looked upon as the 
 performance of certain actions which are the re- 
 sult of the following of certain rules or the like. 
 Actions are of no avail In the moral or religious 
 world unless the proper psychical attitude is back 
 of them. And in the world of philosophy, ever 
 since the Reformation, in certain schools the ten- 
 dency has been strongly In the direction of an in- 
 creased emphasis on the mental and psychical as 
 contrasted with a decreasing emphasis on the 
 physical and materialistic. 
 
 The modern view is to recognize the physical 
 and the mental and admit their relationship but 
 to emphasize the mental. While related, each has 
 in a sense a separate and distinct world and each 
 works under Its own set of laws. In the physical 
 world the more you get the more you have, but 
 In the psychical the more you give the more you 
 have. To illustrate, the boy who divides his mar- 
 bles with his playmate has fewer marbles than 
 
58 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 before but he has more of a feeling of friend- 
 ship. In the material world force is supreme, 
 while in the mental, love and kindness are su- 
 preme. To illustrate, two particles of matter 
 meet, one having four times the force of the other, 
 the result is that the lesser is smothered by the 
 greater. But in the mental and spiritual world 
 the individual in your community who has the 
 greatest influence among other qualities has kind- 
 ness and consideration for others in his mental 
 makeup. It is not the man who has the greatest 
 physical force. Numerical computation is a means 
 of measuring, but it is so only in the physical 
 world. The largest army does not always win 
 the battle, the mental attitude must also be con- 
 sidered. We see in the present war that the 
 morale of the troops is an important factor which 
 all attempt to keep as high as possible. This 
 is not a physical but a mental entity. No one 
 has ever seen an idea or felt one or held one in 
 his hand but in all the world there is nothing so 
 powerful. 
 
 Ideals are ideas not yet realized in practice. 
 They are always personal and are directly related 
 to the consciousness of the individual who has 
 them. What would be ideals to one may not be 
 to another mind at all. Ideals also change as 
 the experience of the individual changes. The 
 ideals of a man of forty are related to his ideals 
 
Psychology of Ideals 59 
 
 at the age of twenty, but they are not Identical; 
 they have changed. An idea is, in the main, the 
 result of experiences in themselves disconnected 
 from each other but which consciousness has asso- 
 ciated or related together until they merge. Con- 
 sciousness is never content with what is presented 
 thru the senses; it runs on a much broader gauge. 
 In turn ideas are related and worked over until 
 they evolve into an ideal which is an idea dreamed 
 of but not yet realized. The order of the process- 
 es mentioned here may vary somewhat, but we 
 find they are all present. For instance, ideals 
 may seem to flash on consciousness without any 
 warning. But in case they do, to become a part 
 of our mind takes time as we must relate them to 
 our previous experiences. Ideals are directly de- 
 pendent on the experience of the individual. To 
 illustrate, take the ideal of God's love. Let any 
 person imagine, if he can, what would be left of 
 his ideal of God's love after his experience of 
 father and m.other and his six best friends has 
 been obliterated. When we want to find an illus- 
 tration of God's love where do we go? We be- 
 lieve that all ideals are just as dependent upon 
 experience. 
 
 Concerning the basis upon which ideals are con- 
 structed, three suggestions may be made. First, 
 have as wide an experience as possible of a kind 
 related to the ideal. Not a promiscuous accumu- 
 
6o Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 lation but a selection of those situations which 
 have a bearing on the direction of consciousness 
 under consideration. For instance in the build- 
 ing of the ideals of a lawyer the experience of a 
 fireman would be of little avail. What is wanted 
 is practice in law and related callings. 
 
 In the second place, the accumulation of ex- 
 periences, even if they are well chosen, is not all 
 that is necessary. These must be analyzed and 
 worked over mentally or confusion will be the 
 result. A traveler may have seen all the sights 
 in America and yet have confusion of mind when 
 it comes to the making of statements regarding 
 these because of a lack of analysis and synthesis. 
 Certain features of related situations must be se- 
 lected, others rejected and the result worked over 
 until it becomes clear in consciousness. 
 
 In the third place, the results should be stated 
 in personal terms. In this condition the ideal is 
 of real value; it is of a type which can be used 
 and applied. This means that the ideal is your 
 own. Some other individual may agree with you 
 in your findings but you still retain certain per- 
 sonal characteristics which he does not appreciate 
 as well as you do. 
 
 The first, second and oftentimes the third sug- 
 gestion just made do not work separately but are 
 usually closely interwoven. The order may not 
 always follow that named but, when an ideal has 
 
Psychology of Ideals 6i 
 
 been evolved in consciousness, these three proc- 
 esses have been the gateway to its formation. 
 Ideals are not stars that are disconnected from 
 the affairs of ordinary life. If real they are like 
 guide-posts along the way which point to an ob- 
 jective beyond. Without ideals the way would be 
 vague and cloudy. 
 
 Every normal individual has ideals. All 
 healthy minds have certain objectives which they 
 desire but have not yet attained unto. It is not 
 a problem of teaching people to form ideals; it 
 is a question of having individuals so direct their 
 attention, so regulate their interests, so guide their 
 hopes, that the ideals they form will be of the 
 highest type of which they are capable at that 
 time. Ideals give direction and balance to con- 
 sciousness. Some have said that a man without 
 ideals is like a ship without a rudder. Not so. 
 He is like a skyscraper in mid-Pacific — it does not 
 exist. The cases which are often explained by 
 a so-called lack of ideals should be accounted for 
 by saying that the individual had a lower ideal 
 than he was judged to be capable of at that time. 
 We would not minimize the value of acquaint- 
 ance with minds of a high type and the benefits to 
 be derived therefrom, but this contact Is of little 
 value unless It is in accordance with the points 
 just mentioned. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS 
 
 IN the discussion of this topic we shall attempt 
 to point out some of the fundamental differ- 
 ences between the man who succeeds and the man 
 who falls. We mean success not In the selfish, 
 worldly aspect, not power In the sense of having 
 men under your control, or being a millionaire, 
 or holding a high political office — not any of these 
 In themselves. But success means achievement 
 In the mental and social sense of the term. A 
 man who really succeeds Is one to whom many 
 are Indebted because they realize that he has 
 helped them. This man has power In the sense 
 that his life has gone out and touched many lives 
 and helped them but not power In the sense that 
 he compels many to follow his dictates. 
 
 To achieve anything worth while each Individ- 
 ual must have a goal. This goal must be as high 
 as possible and the individual must hold to his 
 ideal. This point has been touched upon in deal- 
 ing with the subject of ideals. There Is only one 
 road to real success and along this we find slgn- 
 
 62 
 
Psychology of Success 63 
 
 boards with two words on them, these being re- 
 lated in meaning — concentration and endurance. 
 We may think that exceptions to these conditions 
 just mentioned are found but upon looking further 
 we usually find seeming sudden success preceded 
 by years of preparation and quiet work or that the 
 individual has not achieved success in the real 
 sense of the word. 
 
 Trite sayings are often means of confusing or 
 mistaking the truth. "Familiarity breeds con- 
 tempt." Many people accept this as true without 
 thinking. As has been said: "Among honest men 
 familiarity breeds confidence, not contempt." A 
 quotation with reference to success which also 
 causes many illusions is the following: "Some men 
 are born great, some achieve greatness, while 
 others have greatness thrust upon them." Being 
 born great gives the impression that all the con- 
 ditions were set before the individual knew any- 
 thing about them. Having greatness thrust upon 
 one gives the impression that you are to act like 
 a sponge and just absorb and take on that which 
 is around you. If we mean real success, these two 
 phases of the quotation are false. Some men ex- 
 plain their failure by saying that they were not 
 born great — a lazy way of meeting the situation. 
 I recall one individual who had an oversupply of 
 talents. There seemed to be almost nothing which 
 he could not do better than those around him» 
 
64 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 and I know he was often envied by those who 
 knew him. This was the situation in his early 
 years in college, but one year after he had gradu- 
 ated he would have been classed as an absolute 
 failure. He was an ill-paid clerk in a small gro- 
 cery in a backwoods village. On the other hand, 
 we see men who in the early years of life seem to 
 possess no unusual abilities, but after a time 
 achieve success. Others look at success as com- 
 ing to those who were lucky as in a gambling 
 game, they were not lucky so did not achieve it — 
 a soft and weak explanation. The only real great- 
 ness which comes to any man is that which he 
 achieves, that which he works out himself. Con- 
 centration, constant application, oftentimes re- 
 fraining from some things you would like to do, 
 are necessary conditions which must be complied 
 with if success is to be attained. The eight-hour 
 laws are fair and just as a protection for labor, 
 but any man who has achieved real success will 
 have worked over eight hours more than one day 
 in his life. Opposition is the law of growth in 
 all the organic world. Imagine an animal born 
 with every thing that it desired within reach. No 
 exertion being necessary for life and the attaining 
 of pleasure, we can readily imagine what sort of 
 an animal would be the result. The same would 
 be the result in the mental world if conditions were 
 similar. Many people make every obstacle they 
 
Psychology of Success 65 
 
 meet with a stopping place and, of course, indi- 
 viduals of this kind will never arrive at any goal 
 worth while. 
 
 Preparation for real success is often long and 
 trying. We often become discouraged and won- 
 der if it pays. But we should remember that every 
 period of real achievement in a man's life has been 
 preceded by a period of quiet and oftentimes un- 
 known preparation. This quiet time is the trying 
 period and is the place where most men fail. 
 President Lincoln's success is not explained by 
 what happened after he became President. That 
 is the effect following the cause which is found 
 in the years of study and training of the mind, 
 which preceded. He made use of opportunities 
 which others of his time belittled or counted of no 
 value in themselves. "There is no more sad ex- 
 perience than that of a man who faces an oppor- 
 tunity that he would like to use and finds himself 
 unable to use it because he did not prepare for it 
 when he had a chance to do so. A piece of work 
 that he would like to do lies before him but he 
 must give it to another because he has failed to 
 make the requisite preparation, and it is now too 
 late to do what could easily have been done earlier. 
 The door is shut in his face." Success is partly 
 dependent upon the opportunities we have, but 
 it is many more times dependent on the use we 
 make of these. The man who will not sacrifice 
 
66 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 will never succeed as self-sacrifice is a universal 
 law of success. 
 
 Concentration and staying by the job we tackle 
 are necessary but more must be added before real 
 success comes — we must stick to one thing long 
 enough to become proficient. This is the differ- 
 ence between a jack-of-all-trades and a specialist. 
 Each may have expended the aggregate amount 
 of energy but one expended it on a dozen callings 
 while the other centered it on his specialty. 
 
 Another difference between the man who suc- 
 ceeds and the one who fails is that the former 
 makes continuous application while that of the^ lat- 
 ter is often spasmodic. A good clerk is not the 
 man who tries to apply the best he knows one day 
 in the week or two months in the year but the 
 one who does his best every day. A good lawyer 
 is not the man who shows a tremendous interest, 
 high concentration here and there, but the one who 
 is at it all the time. The same is true of a stu- 
 dent; careful continuous preparation day by day 
 is the only road to being a real student. The same 
 is true of the person who would achieve any 
 thing worth while in the moral and rehgious 
 world. 
 
 Progress in any line is not even. There are peri- 
 ods when we can see ourselves move, followed by 
 those where we seem to be at a standstill. These 
 are followed again by rapid improvement. Any 
 
Psychology of Success 67 
 
 new task we take up shows rapid gains at first 
 followed by a stage where we make no gain. This 
 is the place we find a large number dropping out 
 and turning to some other line. But true suc- 
 cess is never achieved so easily as this. Real 
 achievement requires that the individual carry 
 himself thru these periods of seeming stagnation 
 which are followed by subsequent improvement. 
 Interest in improvement is a necessary condition 
 which must be complied with. Being satisfied with 
 what you have achieved is certain evidence that 
 progress has ceased. 
 
 Another aid to improvement is that we fix our 
 minds on the positive and not the negative, think 
 of what you wish to do and not what you want to 
 avoid. This fact has been mentioned in the dis- 
 cussion of temptation. 
 
 Real success is not an achievement which is at- 
 tained in a moment of time, it is a series of 
 growths which are slow and gradual. These are 
 interspersed with periods of little or no progress. 
 Real success calls for the expenditure of the high- 
 est mental energy of which we are capable, but 
 when it has been achieved we have something 
 that is our own. No one can steal or destroy it. 
 Real success is a pearl of great price, an attain- 
 ment to be desired by any vigorous mind. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF FAITH 
 
 FAITH is not peculiar to religion; the ex- 
 pression of it can be seen in all phases of 
 life's activities. It is a necessity not only in the 
 religious world, but in all pursuits which mankind 
 undertakes. To illustrate, subtract faith from 
 the home and what do we have left? We would 
 not dare use the terms we do at present. Father, 
 mother, son, daughter, brother and sister would 
 all have a changed meaning, if faith was to be 
 taken from the relationship implied. In the fac- 
 tory, if the best results are to be gained for both 
 labor and capital, confidence must be mutual be- 
 tween the employer and the employee. Confi- 
 dence is, in a sense, another way of saying that 
 the worker has faith in the man for whom he 
 works or that the employer has faith in the man 
 who works for him. The same fact applies to 
 the business world. Take faith, which at times 
 may be restricted, from the economic affairs of 
 life and they would be very much crippled and 
 in some instances completely ruined. The indi- 
 
 68 
 
Psychology of Faith 69 
 
 vidual would no longer be satisfied to go to the 
 bank, leave his money and come away with noth- 
 ing but a few scratches in his bank book. Neither 
 would any one be content to take a twenty dollar 
 bin which is a piece of paper with certain marks 
 on it and believe that it is worth the value which 
 we at present assign to it. The merchant, with- 
 out faith in his customers, would not dare load 
 his shelves with goods. These illustrations might 
 be continued indefinitely but they are sufficient to 
 bring out the fact that faith is a necessity in the 
 world of business. In the world of education the 
 teacher who is awake to the opportunities that are 
 to be developed, will seek, during the early part 
 of the course, to arouse and develop faith on the 
 part of the pupils. The teacher-pupil relationship 
 could never be maintained, as modern education 
 specifies, without faith on the part of the teacher 
 as well as the pupil. In fact, in all the world of 
 social intercourse faith is an important foundation 
 stone which supports life as it exists in its highly 
 developed state. 
 
 All science rests on faith. No man has the time 
 nor the capacity in any science to prove and satisfy 
 himself with regard to all that which is expressed 
 at present as truth. He must, even in his re- 
 stricted field of interest, take the word of another 
 in whom he has faith. The extension of any 
 science is too broad for the capacity of any human 
 
70 Applied Religions Psychology 
 
 mind. Unless faith enters, which enables one to 
 take the conclusions of a fellow scientist, one's 
 knowledge would be very limited. If faith is 
 called for in the narrow field of one science, is 
 it is not still more of a necessity if we extend our 
 viewpoint to include all sciences? Remove the 
 belief in the "uniformity of nature" and we have 
 eliminated science as we conceive of it. The par- 
 ticles of matter, the thots of the mind would be 
 stripped of all recognition and, of course, all or- 
 ganization. Even with experience we would be 
 unable to predict what the future has in store for 
 us. The belief in the "uniformity of nature" can 
 be expressed in another way by saying that we 
 have faith in the constancy of nature. If we 
 knew all, past, present and future included, if we 
 could prove all, then faith would not be needed. 
 This would mean that we must experience all, un- 
 derstand all, remember all, relate all and organize 
 all perfectly. This is, of course, impossible with 
 our present limitations. 
 
 Faith is very necessary in the world of religion 
 because it involves mental and social relationships 
 of a higher and wider degree. Religion also 
 deals with the supernatural and in this relation 
 it calls for faith of a highly developed sort. As 
 we shall attempt to bring out later, these higher 
 types of faith are built on the lower and more ele- 
 
Psychology of Faith 71 
 
 mentary types which unfold themselves in our 
 dealings with the more tangible affairs of life. 
 
 "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped 
 for, a conviction of things not seen." It is a be- 
 lief in the future which is related to the experience 
 of the past; it is an expectation looked for in the 
 time to come which is not contradicted by our 
 memory of that which has gone before. In other 
 words, faith is a conviction in something antici- 
 pated which, because of its futurity, experience is 
 unable to establish by proof; it is a feeling of se- 
 curity which is attached to something beyond. 
 
 Faith is mental; it is intangible and unmeasur- 
 able, if we use these terms in the same sense that 
 we apply them in the material world. But it is 
 just as measurable and definite as any mental phe- 
 nomenon. We are unable to say that one person 
 has twice as much faith as another with the same 
 accuracy as we say that sixteen is twice eight. With 
 our present limitations we probably never can be as 
 definite in quantitative estimates in the mental as 
 we are in the material world. Memory exists and 
 different individuals have quantitative differences 
 which we discern but are unable to compare ex- 
 actly. We cannot prov^e friendship in the same 
 manner that we prove that water is H-0, but it 
 can be established by a different proof which is just 
 as legitimate. The actions of a friend and his at- 
 
72 Applied Religions Psychology 
 
 titude revealed thereby, especially under adverse 
 conditions, are the basis on which we build our con- 
 clusions. So it is with regard to faith; it is not 
 guesswork but it can be proven and there is a 
 basis for the establishment thereof. The mental 
 attitude as revealed in the actions of the individual 
 is the evidence of faith. 
 
 Faith has been subdivided into three groups, as 
 follows : 
 
 I — Belief in a proposition which cannot be 
 established by complete evidence. 
 
 2 — Belief which is based on the authority of 
 another. 
 
 3 — Doctrines which are the subjects of be- 
 lief, especially those of a religious kind. 
 We beg to submit another classification: 
 
 /Materialistic< T,. , 
 TVT 1 / \Higher 
 
 Natural/ ^ 
 
 \Non-materialistic< TT- i 
 
 \Higher 
 
 \Non-materialistic 
 
 We shall now attempt an explanation of the 
 above outline. The term natural refers to all 
 that which we group under the laws of nature. 
 These are the results of the cumulative experi- 
 
Psychology of Faith 73 
 
 ences of students from the beginning to the pres- 
 ent. In contrast to this, the term supernatural 
 is used to express that which is beyond the laws of 
 nature. The two terms are not in opposition and, 
 in a sense, we should not use the word contrast 
 to explain the relationship. It is not the same re- 
 lationship as that which exists between up and 
 down — these are opposites; but it more closely re- 
 sembles that which exists between a mile and a 
 million miles. One carries the other further, one 
 is beyond the other. We can comprehend the first 
 with a feeling of definiteness but when we speak 
 of the latter we have a feeling of trying to grasp 
 something which is beyond. 
 
 Returning again to the natural world, we may 
 subdivide it into the materialistic and the non- 
 materialistic. The materialistic refers to the 
 world of matter. Viewing it from the standpoint 
 of consciousness we speak of it as the objective 
 world. The science of chemistry deals with this 
 world as do all the other physical sciences. We 
 may divide this materialistic subdivision of the 
 natural world into the lower and higher world of 
 knowledge. The terms lower and higher are not 
 used in the sense that one despises the other but 
 in the sense that one is earlier and more elemen- 
 tary in its development. To illustrate — a lower 
 form of faith in this world is expressed in the 
 
74 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 statement that coal burns, while a higher form is 
 embodied in the assertion that most coal is of a 
 carboniferous formation. 
 
 The non-materialistic natural world refers to 
 that which we usually term the mental. We could 
 use the term spiritual to refer to this, excluding, 
 of course, that meaning of the term which refers 
 to the supernatural world. This non-materialistic, 
 natural world may be divided into the higher and. 
 lower, these terms being used in the same sense 
 as indicated above. To illustrate, that of the 
 lower type would be faith in a certain friend, 
 while that of the higher type would be faith in 
 society. 
 
 We have attempted in a feeble way to explain 
 the supernatural world, but, as you have noted, in- 
 stead of speaking of it in definite, positive terms 
 we have simply implied the direction in which it 
 lies. In considerations of this kind we are im- 
 pressed with our inability and limitations. We 
 are transgressing into the realm of philosophy but 
 it can, in a way, be pardoned. There are few 
 tasks which we attempt and to which we continue 
 to apply ourselves but that will reveal our phi- 
 losophy of life. We have subdivided the super- 
 natural world into the materialistic and the non- 
 materialistic. These terms are used with the same 
 meaning as previously described except that they 
 apply to the supernatural world. In considering 
 
Psychology of Faith 75 
 
 the materialistic, supernatural world we are con- 
 fronted at once by the belief in the "uniformity of 
 nature." This implies that there is a force or a 
 something behind phenomena in the material 
 world. Our experience with the sciences is evi- 
 dence to support our belief in this principle. The 
 constancy of nature, the complex organization with 
 which we are confronted, leads us to believe that 
 something must be the cause. This view is natural 
 and at the same time logical. Upon walking into 
 a barn you see grains of corn scattered promiscu- 
 ously upon the floor, you do not pay any particu- 
 lar attention but estimate it as being accidental. 
 But let us suppose that these grains of corn were 
 arranged in such a manner as to form a five- 
 pointed star; you would immediately imply that 
 some one had placed them in that orderly fashion. 
 So it is when we turn our minds to the materialis- 
 tic world, we cannot be content to say that it was 
 accidental. We feel that some directive force 
 must be behind it all. 
 
 On the other hand, turning to the non-material- 
 istic, supernatural world, we are brought face to 
 face with a feeling that there is a force behind 
 the mental world. This force is not included in 
 our previous diagnosis and explanation of the men- 
 tal world, it is beyond. We, of course, cannot de- 
 scribe this force but we feel that it exists and also 
 that we have some connection with it. This force 
 
76 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 is usually spoken of as God. It is natural for us 
 to ascribe mentality to the force behind the ma- 
 terialistic world. We have a tendency to think 
 of the world as a unitary system, and experience 
 in the various activities of life tends to confirm 
 this, so we feel that there must be a power behind 
 it all. Carrying out this idea, it seems most logi- 
 cal to unite these forces which we have spoken of 
 separately into one which we term God, The 
 M aster-Mind and the like. 
 
 Faith in this supernatural world is an outgrowth 
 from faith in the natural. This must be so for the 
 same reason that a child must be able to recognize 
 an individual before he can know of society as 
 being composed of individuals. The materialistic 
 and the non-materialistic-supernatural, if viewed 
 in the light previously spoken of, should reinforce 
 and aid one another. For instance, if you want an 
 idea of the beauty of God, it can be found in the 
 scenery of the natural world; if you are thinking 
 of the strength of God, look at a volcano in ac- 
 tion; the symmetry of God is revealed in the body 
 of man with its congruity; but if you are looking 
 for God's ideal of character, God's love and the 
 like, we must turn from the materialistic world 
 and attempt to evolve ideas from the non-ma- 
 terialistic things of life. The actions of Christ 
 and the motives which we believe were behind 
 these are the primary source of information in 
 
Psychology of Faith 77 
 
 this respect. It follows that if one's philosophy of 
 life relates these two forces under the concept of 
 God the faith which is expressed in the super- 
 natural world will be influenced thereby. As we 
 view the materialistic world it will strengthen our 
 faith in the non-materialistic and, conversely, as 
 we meditate on the non-materialistic our faith in 
 the materiaHstic will also be built up and strength- 
 ened. 
 
 Faith is a reflection from the experiences thru 
 which each individual has passed. It cannot be 
 handed from one to another; it is impossible for 
 the faithless to consistently imitate the actions of 
 one who has faith; nor can it be forced on the 
 mind from without. The germ of development 
 must come from within the mind itself. Faith 
 can only make its appearance and develop as the 
 result of volition on the part of the individual 
 himself; it can only grow when he desires it to do 
 so. The adding of new experiences and help in 
 the interpretation of these will aid in the upbuild- 
 ing of faith, but this does not violate the fact that 
 the fundamental cause is within the mind. All 
 faith is dependent upon experience thru which the 
 individual has passed. Faith pushes beyond the 
 immediate realm of experience but it is indebted 
 to that for its existence. To make it more con- 
 crete, imagine a child whose parents and immedi- 
 ate associates are such that he has no faith in their 
 
78 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 honesty or sincerity. If this child could have a 
 concept to which we would dare attach the name 
 of God, we are certain that his faith in God's 
 honesty would not be of as high a type as that of 
 a child whose environment has been such that, 
 when he reaches the age where he is thrown on 
 his own responsibility, he must be taught that some 
 people are not honest in order that he himself 
 may not be trapped. We also see ample evidence 
 of this in the relationships of the business world. 
 A man who has dealt with a group of individuals 
 who are honest will have a different faith in hu- 
 manity than the man who has associated with men 
 of shady character. Environment and the inter- 
 pretation which each individual places upon the 
 same are factors which must be recognized in the 
 construction of faith. 
 
 In the mental development of the child, the 
 elementary mental stages, such as perception of 
 objects and the like, must have made their start 
 before faith can consciously appear. In a like 
 manner, imagination follows and is dependent 
 upon these for its development. These facts are 
 true for the same reason that a foundation must 
 precede the superstructure ; it is that on which the 
 building rests. Faith does not contradict percep- 
 tion, memory, reasoning and the like. It rests on 
 that which they have produced but is not content 
 with it. Faith is that which makes us feel that 
 
Psychology of Faith 79 
 
 we must push beyond the immediate limitations 
 under which these mental powers operate. Faith 
 functions in much the same manner as a sign on a 
 crossroad. Without the sign, to a stranger it is 
 simply an intersection of two roads, that is all, 
 but with the sign "Fifty miles to New York" on 
 the right and "Four hundred and fifty to Pitts- 
 burgh" on the left it is more than a cross-road. 
 In a like manner faith takes the results of the 
 other powers of the mind and completes them. 
 The mind is not content to operate in a world of 
 narrow limitations. Imagine how you would feel 
 if it were possible to talk and think only of that 
 which you see at the present moment in the phys- 
 ical world. It is, of course, impossible, because 
 it is entirely too narrow a range for the mind. 
 
 Intellectual achievement conveys us so far but 
 it has certain limitations. At this point faith steps 
 in and carries us a step beyond. It, in a sense, 
 completes and rounds out the intellectual develop- 
 ment. However, a friendly relation must always 
 be maintained between these two. Otherwise 
 superstition and irrationality would show them- 
 selves. For instance, if a person should say that 
 he had faith to believe that a certain drunkard 
 could be reformed it would be rational, because 
 experience has produced many instances to sup- 
 port his belief. Of course, some drunkards have 
 not been reformed but many have been and there 
 
8o Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 is a possibility that this individual may belong to 
 the latter group. But suppose a person should 
 go to the top of a skyscraper and say he had faith 
 to believe that he could jump off and not receive 
 any injury or imagine a person going into a sick 
 room and taking no precautions but exposing him- 
 self in every way possible and at the same time 
 saying, "There is no danger, I have faith to be- 
 lieve that I will not contract the disease, I am 
 immune." These latter would be examples of ir- 
 rational faith or a better term to apply would be 
 foolishness. Some individuals are restricted in 
 the development of faith because of the limita- 
 tions of environment over which they have no con- 
 trol. Such persons are not to be censured. But 
 those who are not forced to a narrow environ- 
 ment, or those who disregard a possible experi- 
 ence, or those who misinterpret an experience are 
 to be censured. Real faith is that which is built 
 on the experiences of the individual and accords 
 as far as it can with them. It is rational, involving 
 the higher powers of the mind for its develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Differences in faith are to be expected just as 
 we look for dissimilarities with respect to other 
 mental powers. This condition does not disprove 
 faith but rather strengthens our belief in it. It 
 also confirms the fact that it comes primarily from 
 within and not from without. It emphasizes the 
 
Psychology of Faith 81 
 
 fact that faith is built on experience and the in- 
 terpretation of it. Memory differs as experiences 
 differ; so it is with faith. Even tho the environ- 
 mental conditions may be the same, we find dif- 
 ferences which are caused by interpretations which 
 are not similar. On the other hand, we expect and 
 do find numerous points of agreement in regard 
 to faith. This agreement increases as the environ- 
 ments and the mental temperaments compared be- 
 come more nearly the same. 
 
 Faith is closely related to the ideals which one 
 has in life. The two are interwoven and are often 
 hard to separate. Ideals in many instances are 
 closely related to the world of action but faith 
 even here makes itself felt. Ideals in some cases 
 are further removed from actual conditions, but 
 these again could not exist long, if faith was to 
 be taken away. Both faith and ideals are depend- 
 ent upon experience on the one side and the per- 
 sonality of the individual on the other, so it is 
 natural that there should be a relationship between 
 them. 
 
 Errors occur in connection with faith just as 
 they do in connection with the other mental pow- 
 ers. These, however, are not any more numerous 
 here than in other fields, and their causes are much 
 the same. Limitations of environment which the 
 individual could have removed had he desired to 
 do so must be classed as errors. An individual 
 
82 Applied Religious Psychology 
 
 who has failed to acquire as wide an experience 
 for the upbuilding of faith as was in his power to 
 acquire is at fault. Lack of mental powers such 
 as perception, memory, reasoning, imagination 
 and the like, which are necessary for the develop- 
 ment of faith, must be classed as errors if it was 
 in the power of the individual to avoid the defi- 
 ciency. Certain individuals have natural imper- 
 fections over which they have no control, these 
 cannot be looked upon as errors. Cultivating the 
 best and as many friendships as possible is an aid 
 in the upbuilding of faith which no one can afford 
 to overlook. 
 
 Faith is closely related to action. It must pre- 
 cede actions of a conscious sort if they are to be 
 definite and determined. The two are not sepa- 
 rate but in a sense the relationship is reciprocal. 
 Faith which has expressed itself in action is not 
 content to remain the same but when a second 
 opportunity is presented it can make itself felt in 
 stronger terms; it has grown. Faith is exercised 
 and made stronger by casting its light on the path- 
 way before one and thereby influencing action. An 
 ideal is an objective toward which we try to move 
 but faith is the light which not only enables us to 
 see the ups and downs of the path but also gives 
 strength and confidence to our step. It is an 
 ever-present friend whose encouragement is al- 
 ways with us. Without this companion, we would 
 
Psychology of Faith 83 
 
 be weak and helpless. Faith Is necessary if con- 
 sistency of action is to be maintained and faith 
 must make itself felt in the world of action, if it 
 is to live. 
 
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