n favor, but he
seriously objects to excessive emotionalism for the following reasons:

(1) It fails to recognize the moral and ethical judgment.

(2) It fails to recognize the volitional side of human nature. "With a
man's will-power dormant, undeveloped, unknown, all attempt at really
training and moulding the character is foolish because impossible. Man
sometimes attempts it; God never does. He calls into activity first of
all a man's will. He seeks to know what a man's own free choice is. Then
he knows what course to follow in his schooling of the soul."[1]

(3) It fails to recognize the rational side of human nature.

(4) It is at variance with our concrete experience of life. In our daily
experience we think, feel and will for action.

(5) It is sickly feminine and appeals to neurotics.

There are some general facts in connection with the philosophy of
religion which are often overlooked in the study of the Negro religion.
Two stages may be noticed in the history of the religious development of
peoples, the primitive and the rational. The primitive stage is poetical
and imaginative, in fact religion is then in its barbaric state. In its
rational stage we see the religious man under a developed rule of
conduct. He still feels but his feelings are controlled by reason. There
is nothing new in the religion of the Negro. He is by no means a
peculiar man from a religious standpoint. The physical contortions and
gyrations noticed in his Christian worship are as old as the history of
religion itself, if not older than it. In his worship we may see things
which are found in the heathen rites of the native African, in the
Bacchanalia of the Greeks, among the Sali or dancing priests of the
Romans, and among the Corybantes. The same effect which is produced on
the feelings of the Negro has been produced on the feelings of the
American Indian, as well as on the ancient bards of Scotland, Ireland,
Wales, and Germany. Lord Macaulay, describing the Puritan, says: "In his
devotional retirement he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears.
He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the
lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of friends. He caught a gleam
of the Beautific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting
fire." In the girlhood days of the late Elizabeth Cady Stanton her
sensitive mind was nearly overbalanced, and she suffered terribly from
the too vivid description of future puni