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9. Identify differences in accounting between IFRS and ASPE,
and what changes are expected in the near future.
Summary of Questions by Learning Objectives and Bloom’s Taxonomy

Item LO BT Item LO BT Item LO BT Item LO BT Item LO BT


Brief Exercises
1. 1 C 8. 3 AP 15. 4 AP 22. 5,9 AP 29. 6,9 AP
2. 3 AP 9. 3 AP 16. 4 AP 23. 6 AP 30. 7,9 AP
3. 3 AP 10. 3 AP 17. 4 AP 24. 6 AP 31. 7 AP
4. 3 AP 11. 3 AP 18. 4 AP 25. 6 AP 32. 8 AN
5. 3 AP 12. 3 AP 19. 4 AP 26. 6 AP
6. 2,3 AP 13. 3,9 C 20. 2,5 AP 27. 6 AP
7. 3 AP 14. 3,9 C 21. 5,9 AP 28. 6 AP
Exercises
1. 2,9 C 8. 3,8,9 AP 15. 5,9 AP 22. 6,9 AP 29. 7,9 C
2. 3 AP 9. 3,8,9 AP 16. 5,9 AP 23. 6,9 AP 30. 8 AN
3. 3 AP 10. 4 AP 17. 6 AP 24. 6,9 AP 31. 8 AN
4. 3,9 AP 11. 4 AP 18. 3,4,6 AP 25. 6 AP 32. 8 AN
5. 3 AP 12. 4 AP 19. 6,9 AP 26. 6,9 AP
6. 3,9 AP 13. 4 AP 20. 6,9 AP 27. 6 AP
7. 3,4,6,7,9 C 14. 4,9 AN 21. 6,9 AP 28. 6 AP
Problems
1. 2,3,5,9 AP 5. 4 AP 9. 6,7,9 AP 13. 6,9 AP 17. 7,8,9 AP
2. 2,3 AP 6. 4 AP 10. 6,7,10 AP 14. 6,8,9 AP
3. 2,3,4,6,9 AP 7. 4,9 AN 11. 6,8 AP 15. 6,9 AP
4. 2,3,5,6 AP 8. 5,7 AP 12. 6,7,9 AP 16. 7,8 AP
Cases
1. 6,9 AN 2. 3.
Integrated Cases
1. 7 AN 2. 7 AP 3. 7 AP
Research and Analysis
1. 5,6,7 AP 3. 6,7,8 AP 5. 6,7 AP 6. 4,8 AP 7. 2,6,7 AN
2. 3,7,8 AP 4. 3,5,6,8 AP
Legend: The following abbreviations will appear throughout the solutions
manual file.

LO Learning objective
Bloom's
BT Taxonomy
K Knowledge
C Comprehension
AP Application
AN Analysis
S Synthesis
E Evaluation
Difficulty: Level of difficulty
S Simple
M Moderate
C Complex
Time: Estimated time to complete in minutes
AACSB Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business
Communication Communication
Ethics Ethics
Analytic Analytic
Tech. Technology
Diversity Diversity
Reflec. Thinking Reflective Thinking
CPA CM CPA Canada Competency Map
Ethics Professional and Ethical Behaviour
PS and DM Problem-Solving and Decision-Making
Comm. Communication
Self-Mgt. Self-Management
Team & Lead Teamwork and Leadership
Reporting Financial Reporting
Stat. & Gov. Strategy and Governance
Mgt. Accounting Management Accounting
Audit Audit and Assurance
Finance Finance
Tax Taxation
ASSIGNMENT CLASSIFICATION TABLE
Brief
Topics Exercises Exercises Problems

1& Concept of liabilities; 1, 6, 20 1 1, 2, 3, 4, 7


2. definition, measurement, and
classification.

3. Current liabilities including 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4


accounts and notes payable, 7, 8, 9, 10, 9,18
dividends payable, sales and 11, 12, 13,
income tax payable, refund 14
liabilities, and short-term
obligations expected to be
refinanced.

4. Employee-related liabilities. 15, 16, 17, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 3, 5, 6, 7


18, 19 13, 14, 18

5. Asset retirement obligations. 20, 21, 22 15, 16 1, 4, 8

6. Unearned revenue. 23, 24 7, 17, 18 8, 9, 16

6. Product guarantees, 25, 26, 27, 7, 19, 20, 21, 22, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12,
warranties, and other 28, 29 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 13, 14, 15
customer programs 28

7. Contingencies, guarantees, 30, 31 7, 29 8, 9, 12, 16, 17


and uncertain commitments.

8. Presentation and analysis. 32 8, 9, 30, 31, 32 3, 8, 9, 11, 16,


17

9. IFRS and ASPE compared 13,14, 21, 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 1, 3, 7, 9, 12,


22, 29, 30, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 13, 14, 15, 17
31 22, 24, 29
ASSIGNMENT CHARACTERISTICS TABLE
Level of Time
Item Description Difficulty (minutes)

E13.1 Balance sheet classification of various Simple 10-15


liabilities
E13.2 Accounts and notes payable Simple 10-15
E13.3 Notes payable and reversing entry Moderate 15-20
E13.4 Liability for returnable containers Moderate 15-20
E13.5 Entries for sales taxes Moderate 25-35
E13.6 Income tax Moderate 15-20
E13.7 Financial statement impact of liability Moderate 30-35
transactions
E13.8 Refinancing of short-term debt Moderate 20-25
E13.9 Refinancing of short-term debt Simple 10-15
E13.10 Payroll tax entries Moderate 15-20
E13.11 Compensated absences–vacation and Moderate 40-45
sick pay
E13.12 Compensated absences–vacation and Moderate 25-30
sick pay
E13.13 Compensated absences–parental Moderate 20-25
benefits
E13.14 Bonus calculation and income Complex 15-20
statement preparation
E13.15 Asset retirement obligation Moderate 40-45
E13.16 Asset retirement obligation Moderate 40-50
E13.17 Unearned revenue Simple 10-15
E13.18 HST and payroll Moderate 15-20
E13.19 Warranties–assurance-type and cash Simple 10-15
basis
E13.20 Warranties–assurance-type Moderate 15-20
E13.21 Warranties–assurance-type and Moderate 20-25
service-type
E13.22 Warranties–assurance-type and Moderate 25-30
service-type
E13.23 Customer loyalty programs Moderate 15-20
E13.24 Premium entries Moderate 15-20
E13.25 Premiums Moderate 20-30
E13.26 Premiums Simple 10-15
E13.27 Coupons and rebates Moderate 15-20
E13.28 Customer returns Simple 10-15
E13.29 Contingencies and commitments Moderate 20-30
E13.30 Ratio calculations and discussion Simple 15-20
E13.31 Ratio calculations and analysis Simple 20-25
E13.32 Ratio calculations and effect of Moderate 15-25
transactions
ASSIGNMENT CHARACTERISTICS TABLE (CONTINUED)
Level of Time
Item Description Difficulty (minutes)

P13.1 Current liability entries and adjustments. Simple 40-50


P13.2 Instalment notes. Moderate 40-45
P13.3 Current liabilities: various. Complex 45-55
P13.4 Asset retirement obligation and Moderate 25-35
warranties.
P13.5 Payroll tax entries. Moderate 25-35
P13.6 Payroll tax entries. Moderate 35-45
P13.7 Bonus calculation. Moderate 35-40
P13.8 Loss contingencies: entries and essay. Moderate 45-50
P13.9 Advances, self-insurance, loss Moderate 35-40
contingencies, guarantees, and
commitments.
P13.10 Assurance-type warranties and cash Simple 25-30
basis.
P13.11 Assurance-type and service-type Moderate 20-30
warranties.
P13.12 Warranty calculations. Moderate 30-35
P13.13 Premium entries. Moderate 30-45
P13.14 Premium entries and financial statement Moderate 30-45
presentation.
P13.15 Warranties and premiums. Simple 35-40
P13.16 Guarantees and contingencies. Complex 35-45
P13.17 Loss contingencies: entries and essays. Moderate 45-50
SOLUTIONS TO BRIEF EXERCISES

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.1

(a) Working capital is the excess of total current assets over total
current liabilities. It represents the liquid buffer that is available
to meet the financial demands of the company’s operating cycle.
Current liabilities place a demand on the company’s current
assets. Management of the due dates of current liabilities and
management of current assets to generate cash on a timely basis
are important for effective management of business operations.
Effective management of working capital to achieve high liquidity
may also contribute to positive cash from operating activities, as
seen on the statement of cash flows.

(b) Wellson can improve its management of working capital by


focusing on management of current liabilities as well as current
assets. For example, if Wellson has a cash flow shortage, it can
take advantage of the full credit period extended by its suppliers.
As another example, Wellson may also time the due dates of
short-term notes payable to coincide with expected periods of
positive cash flow.
LO 1 BT: C Difficulty: M Time: 10 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.2

07/01 Purchases................................................. 60,000


Accounts Payable ........................... 60,000
To record purchase on account

Freight in .................................................. 1,200


Cash ................................................. 1,200
To record freight on purchase

07/03 Accounts Payable .................................... 6,000


Purchase Returns and Allowances 6,000

07/10 Accounts Payable .................................... 54,000


Cash ($54,000 X 98%) ..................... 52,920
Purchase Discounts ....................... 1,080
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.3

07/01 Inventory .................................................. 60,000


Accounts Payable ........................... 60,000
To record purchase on account

Inventory .................................................. 1,200


Cash ................................................. 1,200
To record freight on purchase

07/03 Accounts Payable .................................... 6,000


Inventory ......................................... 6,000

07/10 Accounts Payable .................................... 54,000


Cash ($54,000 X 98%) ..................... 52,920
Inventory ......................................... 1,080
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.4

11/01/20 Cash .................................................... 40,000


Notes Payable ........................... 40,000

12/31/20 Interest Expense1 ............................... 600


Interest Payable ........................ 600
1
($40,000 X 9% X 2/12)

02/01/21 Notes Payable..................................... 40,000


Interest Payable.................................. 600
Interest Expense2 ............................... 300
Cash ........................................... 40,900
2
($40,000 X 9% X 1/12)
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.5

01/01/21 Interest Payable.................................. 600


Interest Expense ....................... 600

02/01/21 Notes Payable..................................... 40,000


Interest Expense1 ............................... 900
Cash ........................................... 40,900
1
($40,000 X 9% X 3/12)

LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.6

(a)
Using a financial calculator:
PV $ 60,000
I ? % Yields .744 % per month or 8.9% per year
N 3
PMT 0
FV $ (61,350)
Type 0

Excel formula =RATE(nper,pmt,pv,fv,type)

Result: .0074444
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BRIEF EXERCISE 13.6 (Continued)

(b)
11/01/20 Cash .................................................... 60,000
Notes Payable ........................... 60,000

12/31/20 Interest Expense1 ............................... 897


Notes Payable ........................... 897
1
($60,000 x .00744) = $447
($60,447 x .00744) = $450
($447 + $450) = $897
(alternately could record $1,350 X 2/3 = $900)

02/01/20 Interest Expense2 ............................... 453


Notes Payable ........................... 453
2
($1,350 – $897)
To accrue interest expense

Notes Payable..................................... 61,350


Cash ........................................... 61,350
To record note repayment
LO 2,3 BT: AP Difficulty: M Time: 15 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.7

(a) Cash.................................................... 13,000


Sales ............................................ 8,000
Refund Liability........................... 5,000

(b) Refund Liability ($5,000 x 60%)......... 3,000


Container Sales Revenue........... 3,000
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.8

Accounts Receivable ................................... 42,375.00


Sales Revenue ..................................... 37,500.00
HST Payable ($37,500 X 13%) ............. 4,875.00
To record sales on account

Furniture ...................................................... 2,860.00


HST Receivable ($2,860 X 13%) ................... 371.80
Cash ..................................................... 3,231.80
To record cash purchase of furniture
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.9

Accounts Receivable ................................. 37,500.00


Sales Revenue ($37,500 ÷ 1.13) ........ 33,185.84
HST Payable ($37,500 ÷ 1.13 X .13) .. 4,314.16
To record sales on account

Furniture ($2,860 ÷ 1.13)............................... 2,530.97


HST Receivable ($2,860 ÷ 1.13 X .13) ........ 329.03
Cash ................................................... 2,860.00
To record cash purchase of furniture
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.10

(a) Purchases ................................................. 29,400


GST Receivable ($29,400 X 5%) ............... 1,470
Accounts Payable ............................... 30,870
(b) Accounts Receivable ............................... 47,250
Sales Revenue .................................... 45,000
GST Payable........................................ 2,250

(c) GST Payable ............................................. 2,250


Cash.................................................... 780
GST Receivable ................................. 1,470
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.11

(a) Income Tax Expense ............................... 12,800


Cash ($3,200 X 4) .............................. 12,800
To record income tax payments

Income Tax Expense ($20,000–$12,800) 7,200


Income Tax Payable ........................ 7,200
To accrue income tax expense

(b) At year end, the company would report Income Tax Payable of
$7,200 in current liabilities.
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.12

(a) Income Tax Receivable ............................ 2,600


Income Tax Expense1 .......................... 2,600
1
($12,800 – $10,200)

(b) At year end, the company would report Income Tax Receivable of
$2,600 in current assets.
LO 3 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.13

(a) Under IFRS, the $700,000 debt is reclassified as current because


the long-term debt agreement is violated and the liability becomes
payable on demand. It should be noted that under IFRS, the debt
is reclassified as current, even if the lender agrees between the
date of the SFP and the date the financial statements are released
that it will not demand repayment because of the violation.

(b) Under ASPE, the $700,000 debt is reclassified as current unless


the creditor waives, in writing, the covenant (agreement)
requirements, or the violation has been corrected within the grace
period that is usually given in these agreements and it is likely
that the company will not violate the covenant requirements
within a year from the balance sheet date.
LO 3,9 BT: C Difficulty: M Time: 10 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.14

(a) Under IFRS, since the debt is due within 12 months from the
reporting date, it is classified as a current liability. This
classification holds even if long-term refinancing has been
completed before the financial statements are released. The only
exception for continuing long-term classification is if, at the
balance sheet date, the entity expects to refinance it or roll it over
under an existing agreement for at least 12 months and the
decision is solely at its discretion.

(b) Under IFRS, the whole $500,000 of maturing debt would still be
classified as a current obligation at December 31, 2020. The
international standard has a stringent requirement that the
agreement must be firm at the date of the SFP in order to qualify
for classification as long-term. (This assumes Burr had not
entered into a long-term agreement prior to the SFP date of Dec.
31, 2020.)

(c) For part (a), under ASPE, the debt would be classified as a long-
term liability. If there is irrefutable evidence by the time the
financial statements are completed and released that the debt has
been or will be converted into a long-term obligation, ASPE
allows currently maturing debt to be classified as long-term on
the balance sheet. In this case, the debt was refinanced before
the financial statements were completed and released.

For part (b), under ASPE, the debt would be classified as a current
liability since there was not irrefutable evidence by the time the
financial statements were completed that the debt has been or will
be converted into a long-term obligation. (This assumes Burr had
not entered into a long-term agreement prior to the release of the
financial statements of Dec. 31, 2020.) In addition, since
repayment occurred before funds were obtained through long-
term financing, the repayment used existing current assets.
LO 3,9 BT: C Difficulty: M Time: 15 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.15

Salaries and Wages Expense ........................... 23,000


Employee Income Tax Deductions
Payable.................................................. 3,426
CPP Contributions Payable ..................... 990
EI Premiums Payable ............................... 420
Cash .......................................................... 18,164
LO 4 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.16

(a)
Payroll Tax Expense.......................................... 1,578
EI Premiums Payable ($420 X 1.4) ........... 588
CPP Contributions Payable ..................... 990

(b)
Employee Income Tax Deductions Payable .... 3,426
CPP Contributions Payable ($990 X 2) ............. 1,980
EI Premiums Payable ($420 + $588) ................. 1,008
Cash .......................................................... 6,414
LO 4 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.17

Salaries and Wages Expense1 .......................... 30,000


Vacation Wages Payable ......................... 30,000
1
(30 X 1 X $1,000)
LO 4 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.18

December 1, 2020:
Employee Benefit Expense1.............................. 11,952
Parental Leave Benefits Payable............. 11,952
To record expense for parental leave
1
Salary for 17 weeks ($74,000 ÷ 52 X 17) $24,192
Less: employment insurance
payments ($720/week X 17 weeks) (12,240)
Employee Benefit Expense $11,952

For each of the 4 weeks in December 2020, Laurin Corporation will pay
Ruzbeh Awad a top-up amount and record the payments as follows:

Parental Leave Benefits Payable ...................... 703.08


Cash .......................................................... 703.08
($74,000 ÷ 52 weeks) = $1,423.08;
$1,423.08 – $720.00 = $703.08
To record parental leave payment
LO 4 BT: AP Difficulty: M Time: 10 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting

BRIEF EXERCISE 13.19

12/31/20 Bonus Expense ................................ 350,000


Bonus Payable ........................ 350,000

2/15/21 Bonus Payable ................................. 350,000


Cash ......................................... 350,000
LO 4 BT: AP Difficulty: S Time: 5 min. AACSB: None CPA: cpa-t001 CM: Reporting
BRIEF EXERCISE 13.20

Drilling Platform ................................................ 500,249


Asset Retirement Obligation1 .................. 500,249

(a) Using Table A.2: ($1,000,000 X .50025)

(b) Using a financial calculator:


PV ? Yields $ 500,248.97
I 8%
N 9
PMT 0
FV $ (1,000,000)
Type 0

(c) Using Excel: =PV(rate,nper,pmt,fv,type)

Result: $500,248.97
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Title: Spiritual Energies in Daily Life

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPIRITUAL


ENERGIES IN DAILY LIFE ***
SPIRITUAL ENERGIES IN DAILY LIFE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY


NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited


LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.


TORONTO

SPIRITUAL ENERGIES
IN DAILY LIFE

BY
RUFUS M. JONES, Litt.D., D.D.
Professor of Philosophy in Haverford College
Author of Studies in Mystical Religion; The Inner Life;
The World Within, etc.

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1922,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1922

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


PREFACE
I wish to thank the editor of The Atlantic Monthly for his
permission to print in this volume the chapter entitled “The Mystic’s
Experience of God,” also the editors of The Journal of Religion for
their permission to use the article on “Psychology and the Spiritual
Life.” Some of the shorter essays have been printed in The (London)
Friend and in The Homiletic Review. Kind permission has been
granted for their reproduction.
INTRODUCTION
RELIGION AS ENERGY

Religion is an experience which no definition exhausts. One writer


with expert knowledge of anthropology tells us what it is, and we
know as we read his account that, however true it may be as far as
it goes, it yet leaves untouched much undiscovered territory. We turn
next to the trained psychologist, who leads us “down the
labyrinthine ways of our own mind” and tells us why the human race
has always been seeking God and worshiping Him. We are thankful
for his Ariadne thread which guides us within the maze, but we feel
convinced that there are doors which he has not opened—“doors to
which he had no key.” The theologian, with great assurance and
without “ifs and buts,” offers us the answer to all mysteries and the
solution of all problems, but when we have gone “up the hill all the
way to the very top” with him, we find it a “homesick peak”—
Heimwehfluh—and we still wonder over the real meaning of religion.
We are evidently dealing here with something like that drinking
horn which the Norse God Thor tried to drain. He failed to do it
because the horn which he assayed to empty debouched into the
endless ocean, and therefore to drain the horn meant drinking the
ocean dry. To probe religion down to the bottom means knowing
“what God and man is.” Each one of us, in his own tongue and in
terms of his own field of knowledge, gives his partial word, his tiny
glimpse of insight. But the returns are never all in. There is always
more to say. “Man is incurably religious,” that fine scholar, Auguste
Sabatier, said. Yes, he is. It is often wild and erratic religion which
we find, no doubt, but the hunger and thirst of the human soul are
an indubitable fact. In different forms of speech we can all say with
St. Augustine of Hippo: “Thou hast touched me and I am on fire for
thy peace.”
In saying that religion is energy I am only seizing one aspect of
this great experience of the human heart. It is, however, I believe,
an essential aspect. A religion that makes no difference to a person’s
life, a religion that does nothing, a religion that is utterly devoid of
power, may for all practical purposes be treated as though it did not
exist. The great experts—those who know from the inside what
religion is—always make much of its dynamic power, its energizing
and propulsive power. Power is a word often on the lips of Jesus;
never used, it should be said, in the sense of extrinsic authority or
the right to command and govern, but always in reference to an
intrinsic and interior moral and spiritual energy of life. The kingdom
of God comes with power, not because the Messiah is supplied with
ten legions of angels and can sweep the Roman eagles back to the
frontiers of the Holy Land, but it “comes with power” because it is a
divine and life-transforming energy, working in the moral and
spiritual nature of man, as the expanding yeast works in the flour or
as the forces of life push the seed into germination and on into the
successive stages toward the maturity of the full-grown plant and
grain.
The little fellowship of followers and witnesses who formed the
nucleus of the new-born Church felt themselves “endued with
power” on the day of Pentecost. Something new and dynamic
entered the consciousness of the feeble band and left them no
longer feeble. There was an in-rushing, up-welling sense of invasion.
They passed over from a visible Leader and Master to an invisible
and inward Presence revealed to them as an unwonted energy.
Ecstatic utterance, which seems to have followed, is not the all-
important thing. The important thing is heightened moral quality,
intensified fellowship, a fused and undying loyalty, an irresistible
boldness in the face of danger and opposition, a fortification of spirit
which nothing could break. This energy which came with their
experience is what marks the event as an epoch.
St. Paul writes as though he were an expert in dynamics.
“Dynamos,” the Greek word for power, is one of his favorite words.
He seems to have found out how to draw upon energies in the
universe which nobody else had suspected were even there. It is a
fundamental feature of his “Aegean gospel” that God is not self-
contained but self-giving, that He circulates, as does the sun, as
does the sea, and comes into us as an energy. This incoming energy
he calls by many names: “The Spirit,” “holy Spirit,” “Christ,” “the
Spirit of Christ,” “Christ in you,” “God that worketh in us.” Whatever
his word or term is, he is always declaring, and he bases his
testimony on experience, that God, as Christ reveals Him, is an
active energy working with us and in us for the complete
transformation of our fundamental nature and for a new creation in
us.
All this perhaps sounds too grand and lofty, too remote and far
away, to touch us with reality. We assume that it is for saints or
apostles, but not for common everyday people like ourselves. Well,
that is where we are wrong. The accounts which St. Paul gives of
the energies of religion are not for his own sake, or for persons who
are bien né and naturally saintly. They are for the rank and file of
humans. In fact his Corinthian fellowship was raised by these
energies out of the lowest stratum of society. The words which he
uses to describe them are probably not over strong: “Be not
deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves,
nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall
inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are
washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name [i.e.
the power] of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”[1]
It is to be noticed, further, that St. Paul does not confine his list of
energies to those mighty spiritual forces which come down from
above and work upon us from the outside. Much more often our
attention is directed to energies which are potential within ourselves
—even in the most ordinary of us—energies which work as silently
as molecular forces or as “the capillary oozing of water,” but which
nevertheless are as reconstructive as the forces of springtime,
following the winter’s havoc. If the grace of God—the unlimited
sacrificing love of God revealed in Christ—is for St. Paul the supreme
spiritual energy of the universe, hardly less important is the simple
human energy which meets that centrifugal energy and makes it
operate within the sphere of the moral will. That dynamic energy, by
which the man responds to God’s upward pull and which makes all
the difference, St. Paul calls faith.
We are so accustomed to the use of the word in a spurious sense
that we are slow to apprehend the immense significance of this
human energy which lies potentially within us. Unfortunately trained
young folks and scientifically minded people are apt to shy away
from the word and put themselves on the defensive, as though they
were about to be asked to believe the impossible or the dubious or
the unprovable. Faith in the sense in which St. Paul uses it does not
mean believing something. It is a moral attitude and response of will
to the character of God as He has been revealed in Christ. It is like
the act which closes the electric circuit, which act at once releases
power. The dynamic effect which follows the act is the best possible
verification of the rationality of the act. So, too, faith as a moral
response is no blind leap, no wild venture; it is an act which can be
tested and verified by moral and spiritual effects, which are as real
as the heat, light, and horse power of the dynamo.
Faith has come to be recognized as an energy in many spheres of
life. We know what a stabilizer it is in the sphere of finance. Stocks
and bonds and banks shift their values as faith in them rises or falls.
Morale is only another name for faith. Our human relationships, our
social structures, our enjoyment of one another, our satisfaction in
books and in lectures rest upon faith and when that energy fails,
collapses of the most serious sort follow. We might as well try to
build a world without cohesion as to maintain society without the
energy of faith.
We have many illustrations of the important part which faith plays
in the sphere of physical health. The corpuscles of the blood and the
molecules of the body are altered by it. The tension of the arteries
and the efficiency of the digestive tract are affected by it. Nerves are
in close sympathetic rapport with faith. It is never safe to tell a
strong man that he is pale and that he looks ill. If two or three
persons in succession give him a pessimistic account of his
appearance, he will soon begin to have the condition which has been
imagined. Dr. William McDougall gives the case of a boy who was
being chased by a furious animal and under the impulse of the
emergency he leaped a fence which he could never afterwards jump,
even after long athletic training. The list of similar instances is a very
long one. Every reader knows a case as impressive as the one I have
given. The varieties of “shell-shock” have furnished volumes of
illustrations of the energy of faith, its dynamic influence upon health
and life and efficiency.
Faith in the sphere of religion works the greatest miracles of life
that are ever worked. It makes the saint out of Magdalene, the
heroic missionary and martyr out of Paul, the spiritual statesman of
the ages out of Carthaginian Augustine, the illuminated leader of
men out of Francis of Assisi, the maker of a new world epoch out of
the nervously unstable monk Luther, the creator of a new type of
spiritual society out of the untaught Leicestershire weaver, George
Fox. Why do we not all experience the miracle and find the rest of
ourselves through faith? The main trouble is that we live victims of
limiting inhibitions. We hold intellectual theories which keep back or
check the outflow of the energy of faith. We have a nice system of
thought which accounts for everything and explains everything and
which leaves no place for faith. We know too much. We say to
ourselves that only the ignorant and uncultured are led by faith. And
this same wise man, who is too proud to have faith, holds all his
inhibitory theories on a basis of faith! Every one of them starts out
on faith, gathers standing ground by faith, and becomes a
controlling force through faith!
There are many other spiritual energies, some of which will be
dealt with specifically or implicitly in the later chapters of this book.
Not often in the history of the modern world certainly have spiritual
energies seemed more urgently needed than to-day. Our troubles
consist largely now of failure to lay hold of moral and spiritual forces
that lie near at hand and to utilize powers that are within our easy
reach. Our stock of faith and hope and love has run low and we
realize only feebly what mighty energies they can be.
I hope that these short essays may help in some slight way to
indicate that the ancient realities by which men live still abide, and
that the invisible energies of the spirit are real, as they have always
been real. We have had an impressive demonstration that a
civilization built on external force and measured in terms of
economic achievements cannot stand its ground and is unable to
speak to the condition of persons endowed and equipped as we are.
We are bound to build a higher civilization, to create a greater
culture, and to form a truer kingdom of life or we must write “Mene”
on all human undertakings. That is our task now, and it is a serious
one for which we shall need all the energies that the universe puts
at our disposal. I am told that when the great Hellgate bridge was
being built over the East River in New York the engineers came upon
an old derelict ship, lying embedded in the river mud, just where one
of the central piers of the bridge was to go down through to its
bedrock foundation. No tug boat could be found that was able to
start the derelict from its ancient bed in the ooze. It would not
move, no matter what force was applied. Finally, with a sudden
inspiration one of the workers hit upon this scheme. He took a large
flat-boat, which had been used to bring stone down the river, and he
chained it to the old sunken ship when the tide was low. Then he
waited for the great tidal energies to do their work. Slowly the rising
tide, with all the forces of the ocean behind it and the moon above
it, came up under the flat-boat, raising it inch by inch. And as it
came up, lifted by irresistible power, the derelict came up with it,
until it was entirely out of the mud that had held it. Then the boat,
with its subterranean load, was towed out to sea where the old
waterlogged ship was unchained and allowed to drop forever out of
sight and reach.
There are greater forces than those tidal energies waiting for us to
use for our tasks. They have always been there. They are there now.
But they do not work, they do not operate, until we lay hold of them
and use them for our present purposes. We must be co-workers with
God.
Haverford, Pennsylvania.
Mid Winter, 1922.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction: Religion as Energy vii

CHAPTER I
THE CENTRAL PEACE
I. Peace That Passes Understanding 1
II. The Search for a Refuge 5
III. What We Want Most 10

CHAPTER II
THE GREAT ENERGIES THAT WORK
I. Trying the Better Way 15
II. He Came to Himself 23
III. Some New Reasons for “Loving Enemies” 29

CHAPTER III
THE POWER THAT WORKETH IN US
I. Where the Beyond Breaks Through 35
II. Conquering by an Inner Force 41
III. Living in the Presence of the Eternal 46
CHAPTER IV
THE WAY OF VISION
I. Days of Greater Visibility 50
II. The Prophet and His Tragedies 54
III. A Long Distance Call 60
CHAPTER V
THE WAY OF PERSONALITY
I. Another Kind of Hero 65
II. The Better Possession 69
III. The Greatest Rivalries of Life 74
CHAPTER VI
AGENCIES OF CONSTRUCTION
I. The Church of the Living God 79
II. The Nursery of Spiritual Life 83
III. The Democracy We Aim At 86
IV. The Essential Truth of Christianity 91
CHAPTER VII
THE NEAR AND THE FAR
I. Things Present and Things to Come 98
II. Two Types of Ministry 102
III. We Have Seen His Star 106
CHAPTER VIII
THE LIGHT-FRINGED MYSTERY
I. The Religious Significance of Death 111
II. The New Born out of the Old 127

CHAPTER IX
THE MYSTIC’S EXPERIENCE OF GOD 133

CHAPTER X
PSYCHOLOGY AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 160

SPIRITUAL ENERGIES IN
DAILY LIFE
CHAPTER I
THE CENTRAL PEACE

I
PEACE THAT PASSES UNDERSTANDING

We are all familiar with the coming of a peace into our life at the
terminus of some great strain or after we have weathered a
staggering crisis. When a long-continued pain which has racked our
nerves passes away and leaves us free, we suddenly come into a
zone of peace. When we have been watching by a bedside where a
life, unspeakably precious to us, has lain in the grip of some terrible
disease and at length successfully passes the crisis, we walk out into
the fields under the altered sky and feel a peace settle down upon
us, which makes the whole world look different. Or, again, we have
been facing some threatening catastrophe which seemed likely to
break in on our life and perhaps end forever the calm and even
tenor of it, and just when the hour of danger seemed darkest and
our fear was at its height, some sudden turn of things has brought a
happy shift of events, the danger has passed, and a great peace has
come over us instead of the threatened trouble. In all these cases
the peace which succeeds pain and strain and anxiety is a
thoroughly natural, reasonable peace, a peace which comes in
normal sequence and is quite accessible to the understanding. We
should be surprised and should need an explanation if we heard of
an instance of a passing pain or a yielding strain that was not
followed by a corresponding sense of peace. One who has seen a
child that was lost in a crowded city suddenly find his mother and
find safety in her dear arms has seen a good case of this sequential
peace, this peace which the understanding can grasp and
comprehend. We behold it and say, “How otherwise!”
There is, St. Paul reminds us, another kind of peace of quite a
different order. It baffles the understanding and transcends its
categories. It is a peace which comes, not after the pain is relieved,
not after the crisis has passed, not after the danger has
disappeared; but in the midst of the pain, while the crisis is still on,
and even in the imminent presence of the danger. It is a peace that
is not banished or destroyed by the frustrations which beset our
lives; rather it is in and through the frustrations that we first come
upon it and enter into it, as, to use St. Paul’s phrase, into a garrison
which guards our hearts and minds.
Each tested soul has to meet its own peculiar frustrations. All of us
who work for “causes” or who take up any great piece of moral or
spiritual service in the world know more about defeats and
disappointments than we do about success and triumphs. We have
to learn to be patient and long-suffering. We must become
accustomed to postponements and delays, and sometimes we see
the work of almost a lifetime suddenly fail of its end. Some turn of
events upsets all our noble plans and frustrates the result, just when
it appeared ready to arrive. Death falls like lightning on a home that
had always before seemed sheltered and protected, and instantly life
is profoundly altered for those who are left behind. Nothing can
make up for the loss. There is no substitute for what is gone. The
accounts will not balance; frustration in another form confronts us.
Or it may be a breakdown of physical or mental powers, or
peradventure both together, just when the emergencies of the world
called for added energy and increased range of power from us. The
need is plain, the harvest is ripe, but the worker’s hand fails and he
must contract when he would most expand. Frustration looks him
straight in the face. Well, to achieve a peace under those
circumstances is to have a peace which does not follow a normal
sequence. It is not what the world expects. It does not accord with
the ways of thought and reasoning. It passes all understanding. It
brings another kind of world into operation and reveals a play of
invisible forces upon which the understanding had not reckoned. In
fact, this strange intellect-transcending peace, in the very midst of
storm and strain and trial, is one of the surest evidences there is of
God. One may in his own humble nerve-power succeed in acquiring
a stoic resignation so that he can say,

“In the fell clutch of circumstance


I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.”

He may, by sheer force of will, keep down the lid upon his
emotions and go on so nearly unmoved that his fellows can hear no
groan and will wonder at the way he stands the universe. But peace
in the soul is another matter. To have the whole heart and mind
garrisoned with peace even in Nero’s dungeon, when the imperial
death sentence brings frustration to all plans and a terminus to all
spiritual work, calls for some world-transcending assistance to the
human spirit. Such peace is explained only when we discover that it
is “the peace of God,” and that it came because the soul broke
through the ebbings and flowings of time and space and allied itself
with the Eternal.

II
THE SEARCH FOR A REFUGE

Few things are more impressive than the persistent search which
men have made in all ages for a refuge against the dangers and the
ills that beset life. The cave-men, the cliff-dwellers, the primitive
builders of shelters in inaccessible tree tops, are early examples of
the search for human defenses against fear. Civilization slowly
perfected methods of refuge and defense of elaborate types, which,
in turn, had to compete with ever-increasing ingenuity of attack and
assault. But I am not concerned here with these material
strongholds of refuge and defense. I am thinking rather of the
human search for shelter against other weapons than those which
kill the body. We are all trying, in one way or another, to discover
how to escape from “the heavy and weary weight of all this
unintelligible world,” how to bear the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune. We are sensitively constructed, with nerves
exposed to easy attack. We are all shelterless at some point to the
storms of the world. Even the most perfectly equipped and
impervious heroes prove to be vulnerable at some one uncovered
spot. Sooner or later our protections fail, and the pitiless enemies of
our happiness get through the defenses and reach the quick and
sensitive soul within us. How to rebuild our refuge, how to find real
shelter, is our problem. What fortress is there in which the soul is
safe from fear and trouble?
The most common expedient is one which will drug the sensitive
nerves and produce an easy relief from strain and worry. There is a
magic in alcohol and kindred distillations, which, like Aladdin’s genie,
builds a palace of joy and, for the moment, banishes the enemy of
all peace. The refuge seems complete. All fear is gone, worry is a
thing of the past. The jargon of life is over, the pitiless problem of
good and evil drops out of consciousness. The shelterless soul
seems covered and housed. Intoxication is only one of the many
quick expedients. It is always possible to retreat from the edge of
strenuous battle into some one of the many natural instincts as a
way of refuge. The great instinctive emotions are absorbing, and
tend to obliterate everything else. They occupy the entire stage of
the inner drama, and push all other actors away from the footlights
of consciousness, so that here, too, the enemies of peace and joy
seem vanquished, and the refuge appears to be found.
That multitudes accept these easy ways of defense against the ills
of life is only too obvious. The medieval barons who could build
themselves castles of safety were few in number. Visible refuges in
any case are rare and scarce, but the escape from the burdens and
defeats of the world in drink and drug and thrilling instinctive
emotion is, without much difficulty, open to every man and within
easy reach for rich and poor alike, and many there be that seize
upon this method. The trouble with it is that it is a very temporary
refuge. It works, if at all, only for a brief span. It plays havoc in the
future with those who resort to it. It rolls up new liabilities to the ills
one would escape. It involves far too great a price for the tiny
respite gained. And, most of all, it discounts or fails to reckon with
the inherent greatness of the human soul. We are fashioned for
stupendous issues. Our very sense of failure and defeat comes from
a touch of the infinite in our being. We look before and after, and
sigh for that which is not, just because we can not be contented
with finite fragments of time and space. We are meant for greater
things than these trivial ones which so often get our attention and
absorb us; but the moment the soul comes to itself, its reach goes
beyond the grasp, and it feels an indescribable discontent and
longing for that for which it was made. To seek refuge, therefore, in
some narcotic joy, to still the onward yearning of the soul by
drowning consciousness, to banish the pain of pursuit by a barbaric
surge of emotions, is to strike against the noblest trait of our
spiritual structure; it means committing suicide of the soul. It cannot
be a real man’s way of relief.
In fact, nothing short of finding the goal and object for which the
soul, the spiritual nature in us, is fitted will ever do for beings like
us. St. Augustine, in words of immortal beauty, has said that God
has made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until we rest in
him. It is not a theory of poet or theologian. It is a simple fact of life,
as veritable as the human necessity for food. There is no other
shelter for the soul, no other refuge or fortress will ever do for us
but God. “We tremble and we burn. We tremble, knowing that we
are unlike him. We burn, feeling that we are like him.”
In hours of loss and sorrow, when the spurious props fail us, we
are more apt to find our way back to the real refuge. We are
suddenly made aware of our shelterless condition, alone, and in our
own strength. Our stoic armor and our brave defenses of pride
become utterly inadequate. We are thrown back on reality. We have
then our moments of sincerity and insight. We feel that we cannot
live without resources from beyond our own domain. We must have
God. It is then, when one knows that nothing else whatever will do,
that the great discovery is made. Again and again the psalms
announce this. When the world has caved in; when the last
extremity has been reached; when the billows and water-spouts of
fortune have done their worst, you hear the calm, heroic voice of the
lonely man saying: “God is our refuge and fortress, therefore will not
we fear though the earth be removed, though the mountains be
carried into the midst of the sea.” That is great experience, but it is
not reserved for psalmists and rare patriarchs like Job. It is a
privilege for common mortals like us who struggle and agonize and
feel the thorn in the flesh, and the bitter tragedy of life unhealed.
Whether we make the discovery or not, God is there with us in the
furnace. Only it makes all the difference if we do find him as the one
high tower where refuge is not for the passing moment only, but is
an eternal attainment.

III
WHAT WE WANT MOST

There are many things which we want—things for which we


struggle hard and toil painfully. Like the little child with his printed
list for Santa Claus, we have our list, longer or shorter, of precious
things which we hope to see brought within our reach before we are
gathered to our fathers. The difference is that the child is satisfied if
he gets one thing which is on his list. We want everything on ours.
The world is full of hurry and rush, push and scramble, each man
bent on winning some one of his many goals. But, in spite of this
excessive effort to secure the tangible goods of the earth, it is
nevertheless true that deep down in the heart most men want the
peace of God. If you have an opportunity to work your way into that
secret place where a man really lives, you will find that he knows
perfectly well that he is missing something. This feeling of unrest
and disquiet gets smothered for long periods in the mass of other
aims, and some men hardly know that they have such a thing as an
immortal soul hidden away within. But, even so, it will not remain
quiet. It cries out like the lost child who misses his home. When the
hard games of life prove losing ones, when the stupidity of striving
so fiercely for such bubbles comes over him, when a hand from the
dark catches away the best earthly comfort he had, when the
genuine realities of life assert themselves over sense, he wakes up
to find himself hungry and thirsty for something which no one of his
earthly pursuits has supplied or can supply. He wants God. He wants
peace. He wants to feel his life founded on an absolute reality. He
wants to have the same sort of peace and quiet steal over him which
used to come when as a child he ran to his mother and had all the
ills of life banished from thought in the warm love of her embrace.
But it is not only the driving, pushing man, ambitious for wealth
and position, who misses the best thing there is to get—the peace of
God. Many persons who are directly seeking it miss it. Here is a man
who hopes to find it by solving all his difficult intellectual problems.
When he can answer the hard questions which life puts to him, and
read the riddles which the ages have left unread, he thinks his soul
will feel the peace of God. Not so, because each problem opens into
a dozen more. It is a noble undertaking to help read the riddles of
the universe, but let no one expect to enter into the peace of God by
such a path. Here is another person who devotes herself to nothing
but to seeking the peace of God. Will she not find it? Not that way. It
is not found when it is sought for its own sake. He or she who is
living to get the joy of divine peace, who would “have no joy but
calm,” will probably never have the peace which passeth
understanding. Like all the great blessings, it comes as a by-product
when one is seeking something else. Christ’s peace came to him not
because he sought it, but because he accepted the divine will which
led to Gethsemane and Calvary. Paul’s peace did not flow over him
while he was in Arabia seeking it, but while he was in Nero’s prison,
whither the path of his labors for helping men had led him. He who
forgets himself in loving devotion, he who turns aside from his self-
seeking aims to carry joy into any life, he who sets about doing any
task for the love of God, has found the only possible road to the
permanent peace of God.
There are no doubt a great many persons working for the good of
others and for the betterment of the world who yet do not succeed
in securing the peace of God. They are in a frequent state of nerves;
they are busy here and there, rushing about perplexed and weary,
fussy and irritable. With all their efforts to promote good causes,
they do not quite attain the poise and calm of interior peace. They
are like the tumultuous surface of the ocean with its combers and its
spray, and they seldom know the deep quiet like that of the
underlying, submerged waters far below the surface. The trouble
with them is that they are carrying themselves all the time. They do
not forget themselves in their aims of service. They are like the ill
person who is so eager to get well that he keeps watching his
tongue, feeling his pulse, and getting his weight. Peace does not
come to one who is watching continually for the results of his work,
or who is wondering what people are saying about it, or who is
envious and jealous of other persons working in the same field, or
who is touchy about “honor” or recognition. Those are just the
attitudes which frustrate peace and make it stay away from one’s
inner self.
There is a higher level of work and service and ministry, which,
thank God, men like us can reach. It is attained when one swings
out into a way of life which is motived and controlled by genuine
sincere love and devotion, when consecration obliterates self-
seeking, when in some measure, like Christ, the worker can say
without reservations, “Not my will but thine be done.”
CHAPTER II
THE GREAT ENERGIES THAT WORK

I
TRYING THE BETTER WAY

A very fresh and unusual type of book has recently appeared


under the title, “By An Unknown Disciple.” It tells in a simple, direct,
impressive way, after the manner of the Gospels, the story of Christ’s
life and works and message. It professes to be written by one who
was an intimate disciple, and who was therefore an eye-witness of
everything told in the book. It is a vivid narrative and leaves the
reader deeply moved, because it brings him closer than most
interpretations do into actual presence of and companionship with
the great Galilean. The first chapter is a re-interpretation of the
scene on the eastern shore of Gennesaret, where Jesus casts the
demons out of the maniac of Geresa. A man on the shore of the lake
told Jesus, when he landed there with his disciples in the early
morning, that it was not safe for any one to go up the rugged
hillside, because there were madmen hidden there among the
tombs: “people possessed by demons, who tear their flesh, and who
can be heard screaming day and night.”
“How do you know they are possessed by demons?” asked Jesus.
“What else could it be?” said the man. “There are none that can
master them. They are too fierce to be tamed.”
“Has any man tried to tame them?” asked Jesus.
“Yes, Rabbi, they have been bound with chains and fetters. There
was one that I saw. He plucked the fetters from him as a child might
break a chain of field flowers. Then he ran foaming into the
wilderness, and no man dare pass by that way now....”
“Have men tried only this way to tame him?” Jesus asked.
“What other way is there, Rabbi?” asked the man.
“There is God’s way,” said Jesus. “Come, let us try it.”
As Jesus spoke, “His gaze went from man to man,” the writer
continues, “and then his eyes fell upon me. It was as if a power
passed from him to me, and immediately something inside me
answered, ‘Lead, and I follow.’” The narrative proceeds to describe
the encounter with the demoniac man whose name was “Legion.”
“He ran toward us, shrieking and bounding in the air. He had two
sharp stones in his hand, and as he leaped he cut his flesh with
them and the blood ran down his naked limbs. The men behind us
scattered and fled down the hillside; but Jesus stood still and
waited.” The effect of the calm, undisturbed, unfrightened presence
of Jesus was astonishing. It was as though a new force suddenly
came into operation. The jagged stones were thrown from his
hands, for he recognized at once in Jesus a friendly presence and a
helper with an understanding heart. His fear and terror left the
demoniac man and he became quiet, composed and like a normal
person. Meantime some of the men who ran away in fear, when the
madman appeared, frightened a herd of swine feeding near by, and
in their uncontrolled terror they rushed wildly toward the headland
of the lake and pitched over the top into the water where they were
drowned. “Fear is a foul spirit,” said Jesus, and it seemed plain and
obvious that the ungoverned fear which played such havoc with the
man had taken possession also of the misguided swine. It was the
same “demon,” fear. A little later in the day when the companions of
Jesus found him they saw the man who had called himself “Legion”
sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind—a quieted and
restored person.
We now know that this disease, called “possession,” which
appears so often in the New Testament accounts, is a very common
present-day trouble. The name and description given to it in the
Bible make it often seem remote and unfamiliar to us, but it is, in
fact, as prevalent in the world to-day as it was in the first century. It
is an extreme form of hysteria, a disorganization of normal functions,
often causing delusions, loss of memory, the performance of
automatic actions, and sometimes resulting in double, or multiple,
personality, a condition in which a foreign self seems to usurp the
control of the body and make it do many strange and unwilled
things. This disease is known in very many cases to be produced by
frights, fear, or terror, sometimes fears long hidden away and more
or less suppressed.
The famous cases of Doris Fischer and Miss Beauchamp were both
of this type. They were only extreme instances of a fairly common
form of mental trouble, generally due to fears, and capable of being
cured by wise, skillful understanding and loving care, applied by one
who shows confidence and human interest and who knows how to
use the powerful influence of suggestion. Dr. Morton Prince, who has
reported these two cases, has achieved cures and restorations that
read like miracles, and his narratives tell of minds, “jangling, harsh,
and out of tune,” broken into dissociated selves, which have been
unified, organized, harmonized and restored to normal life. Few
restorations are more wonderful than that effected upon a
Philadelphia girl under the direction of Dr. Lightner Witmer. The girl
was hopelessly incorrigible, stubborn, sullen, suspicious, and stupid.
She screamed, kicked, and bit when she was opposed, and she
utterly refused to obey anybody. So unnatural and dehumanized was
she that she was generally called “Diabolical Mary.” She was
examined by Dr. Witmer, underwent some simple surgical operations
to remove her obvious physical handicaps, and then was put under
the loving, tender care of a wise, attractive, and understanding
woman. The girl responded to the treatment at once and soon
became profoundly changed, and the process went on until the girl
became a wholly transformed and re-made person.
The so-called shell-shock cases which have bulked so large in the
story of the wastage of men in all armies during the World War, turn
out to be cases of mental disorganization, occasioned for the most
part by immense emotional upheaval, especially through suppressed
fear. The man affected with the trouble has seemed to master his
emotion. He has not winced or shown the slightest fear in the face
of danger; but the pent-up emotion, the suppressed fear and terror,
insidiously throw the entire nervous mechanism out of gear. The
successful treatment of such cases is, again, like that for hysteria,
one that brings confidence, calm, liberation of all strain and anxiety.
The poor victim needs a patient, wise, skillful, psychologically trained
physician, who has an understanding mind, a friendly, interested,
intimate way, a spirit of love, and who can arouse expectation of
recovery and can suggest thoughts of health and the right emotional
reactions. This method of cure has often been tried with striking
effect upon the so-called criminal classes. Prisoners almost always
respond constructively to the personal manifestation of confidence,
sympathy, and love. Elizabeth Fry proved this principle in an
astonishing way with the almost brutalized prisoners in Newgate.
Thomas Shillitoe’s visit to the German prisoners at Spandau, who
were believed to be beyond all human appeals, though not so well
known and famous, is no less impressive and no less convincing.
There was perhaps never a time in the history of the world when
an application of this principle and method—God’s way—was so
needed in the social sphere of life. Whole countries have the
symptoms which appear in these nervous diseases. It is not merely
an individual case here and there; it takes on a corporate, a mass,
form. The nerves are overstrained, the emotional stress has been
more than could be borne, suppressed fears have produced
disorganization. There are signs of social “dissociation.” The remedy
in such cases is not an application of compelling force, not a resort
to chains and fetters, not a screwing on of the “lid,” not a method of
starving out the victims. It is rather an application of the principle
which has always worked in individual cases of “dissociation” or
“possession” or “suppressed fear”—the principle of sympathy, love
and suggestion—what Jesus, in the book mentioned above, calls
“God’s way.” The “dissociation” of labor and employers in the social
group, with its hysterical signs of strikes and lockouts, upheaval and
threats, needs just now a very wise physician. Force, restraint,
compulsion, fastening down the “lid,” imprisonment of leaders,
drastic laws against propaganda, will not cure the disease, any more
than chains cured the poor sufferer on the shores of Gennesaret.
The situation must first of all be understood. The inner attitude
behind the acts and deeds must be taken into account. The social
mental state must be diagnosed. The remedy, to be a remedy, must
remove the causes which produce the dissociation. It can be
accomplished only by one who has an understanding heart, a good
will, an unselfish purpose, and a comprehending, i.e., a unifying,
suggestion of coöperation.
This way is no less urgent for the solution of the most acute
international situations. It has been assumed too long and too often
that these situations can be best handled by unlimited methods of
restraint, coercion, and reduction to helplessness. Some of the
countries of Europe have been plainly suffering from neurasthenia,
dissociation, and the kindred forms of emotional, fear-caused
diseases. Starvation always makes for types of hysteria. It will not do
now to apply, with cold, precise logic, the old vindictive principle that
when the sinner has been made to suffer enough to “cover” the
enormity of his sin he can then be restored to respectable society. It
is not vindication of justice which most concerns the world now; it is
a return of health, a restoration of normal functions, a reconstruction
of the social body. That task calls for the application of the deeper,
truer principles of life. It calls for a knowing heart, an understanding
method, a healing plan, a sympathetic guide who can obliterate the
fear-attitude and suggest confidence and unity and trustful human
relationships. Those great words, used in the Epistle of London
Yearly Meeting of Friends in 1917, need to be revived and put to an
experimental venture: “Love knows no frontiers.” There is no limit to
its healing force, there are no conditions it does not meet, there is
no terminus to its constructive operations.

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