shment by the emotional Finney.
The imagery of the Book of Revelation has a peculiar effect on the
feelings of the Negro. Its mysticism acts like a spell over him. Says
Macaulay, "The Greek Rhapsodists, according to Plato, could not recite
Homer without almost falling into convulsions." The Mohawk hardly feels
the scalping knife while he shouts his death song. The Dijazerti in the
region of the Sahara believe that communication with Allah is only
possible in a state of trance, and accordingly they work themselves into
a religious frenzy, while the ignorant among them repeat the name of
Allah many thousand times till they fall into a state of unconsciousness.

We do not wonder, considering the primitive state of religion, why men
were spell-bound under its influence. It is all the more conspicuous in
tropical natures, for there youth is exuberant. In all primitive states
of religion we notice the same abandonment, the same illusions produced
on the imagination, the contortions of the body, the child-like
credulity, the superstition, the depression, and exaltations of the
feelings, "the agony, the ecstasy, the plentitude of belief." They are
the complement of barbaric faith, and not a peculiarity of the Negro. If
in these primitive conditions we see the Negro tickled by a straw, or
frightened by a ghost, or in moments of ecstasy spreading out his hands
in an attempt to fly up to heaven without dying, these are the natural
concomitants of such conditions. We pity, rather than censure him, more
especially when we remember that for two hundred years in the house of
bondage, his wild, primitive nature was left untrained.

What is needed for the proper religious development of the Negro is
education, not repression or subjugation of his feelings. We cannot
emphasize this fact too much. There is the danger, in the zeal of
preserving the holy ark, of defiling it by unholy contact. The Negro
needs more thought in his religion, but religion is not all thought. To
have a proper balance in religion as in every-day life, the faculties of
thought, feeling, and volition must be present, distributed in fair
proportions. When reason is overfed in the exercise of religion, the
result is a dry and barren rationalism. When the emotions are overfed
the result is a wild and sickly sentimentalism, a neurotic religion.

Footnote:

[1] The divine method of Inquiry. Biblical World. Dec. 1902, p. 450.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passa