ual with religious excitement. The
appeal made during a religious revival to an unconverted person has
psychologically some resemblance to the attempt of the male to overcome
the hesitancy of the female. In each case the will has to be set aside,
and strong suggestive means are used; and in both cases the appeal is
not of the conflict type, but of an intimate, sympathetic, and pleading
kind. In the effort to make a moral adjustment, it consequently turns
out that a technique is used which was derived originally from sexual
life, and the use, so to speak, of the sexual machinery for a moral
adjustment involves, in some cases, the carrying over into the general
process of some sexual manifestations."[150]

The important questions, why religion should so powerfully appeal to
people at adolescence, why its strength should reside so largely in the
appeal to feelings associated with sexual development, and why
conversion should be so rarely experienced when the period of sexual
crisis is past, are quite ignored by Mr. Thomas. Yet it is precisely
these questions that call most loudly for answers, and which, I believe,
contain the key of the situation.

From many points of view adolescence is perhaps the most important epoch
in the life of every individual. It is a time of great and significant
organic growth, with the development of new organs and functions, and a
corresponding transformation of both the emotional and intellectual
output. So far as the brain, the most important organ of all, is
concerned, one may safely say that before puberty its main function has
been acquisition. After puberty vast tracts of brain tissue become
active, and an era of rapid development sets in. There is a rapid growth
of new nerve connections which occasions both physiological and
psychological unrest.[151] An important point to bear in mind, also, is
that all periods of rapid development involve conditions of relative
instability--one is, in fact, only the obverse side of the other. Dr.
Mercier says that with girls "more or less decided manifestations of
hysteria are the rule," and with both sexes this instability involves a
peculiar susceptibility to suggestions and impressions. Accompanying the
purely physical changes the mental and emotional nature undergoes what
is little less than a transformation. There is less direct concern with
self, and a more conscious concern with others. There is a craving for
sympathy, for fellowship, a tenden