tal, and
preponderating element" in the sexual emotion. Dr. Mercier further
believes that the benevolence founded on religious emotion has its
origin in sexual emotion, which is, again, extremely likely. This
community of origin would allow for the transformation of one into the
other, and supplies a key to the language of lover-like devotion and
self-abnegation which is so prominent in religious devotional
literature. The importance attached to dress is also very suggestive;
for here, again, the element of sacrifice expresses itself in the
cultivation of a studied repulsiveness to the normal attractiveness of
costume. "Thus," says Dr. Mercier, "we find that the self-sacrificial
vagaries of the rejected lover and of the religious devotee own a common
origin and nature. The hook and spiny kennel of the fakir, the pillar of
St. Simeon Stylites, the flagellum of the monk, the sombre garments of
the nun, the silence of the Trappists, the defiantly hideous costume of
the hallelujah lass, and the mortified sobriety of the district visitor,
have at bottom the same origin as the rags of Cardenio, the cage of Don
Quixote de la Mancha, and the yellow stockings and crossed garters of
Malvolio."[119]

Professor Granger, who at times comes very near the truth, says:--

"There is something profoundly philosophical in the use of _The Song of
Songs_ to typify the communion of the soul with its ideal. The passion
which is expressed by the Shulamite for her earthly lover in such
glowing phrases becomes the type of the love of the soul towards
God."[120]

One fails to see the profoundly philosophic nature of the selection. The
_Song of Songs_ is a frankly erotic love poem, written with no other aim
than is common to such poetry, and its spiritualisation is due to the
same process of reinterpretation that is applied to other parts of the
Bible in order to make them agreeable to modern thought. Had it not been
in the Bible, Christians would have found it neither profoundly
philosophical nor spiritually illuminating; and, as a matter of fact,
similar effusions are selected by Christians from non-Christian writings
as proofs of their sensual character. The real significance of its use
in religious worship is that it gives a marked expression to feelings
that crave an outlet. And the lesson is that sexual feeling cannot be
eliminated from life; it can only be diverted or disguised. Some
expression it will find--here in open perversion resul