like all human products, liable to corruption by excess. Common sense must judge them. It need not blame the votary; but it may be able to praise himonly conditionally, as one who acts faithfully according to his lights. He shows us heroism in oneway, but the unconditionally good way is that for which no indulgence need be asked. We find thaterror by excess is exemplified by every saintly virtue. Excess, in human faculties, means usuallyone-sidedness or want of balance; for it is hard to imagine an essential faculty too strong, if onlyother faculties equally strong be there to cooperate with it in action. Strong affections need a strongwill; strong active powers need a strong intellect; strong intellect needs strong sympathies, to keeplife steady. If the balance exist, no one faculty can possibly be too strong--we only get the strongerall-round character. In the life of saints, technically so called, the spiritual faculties are strong, butwhat gives the impression of extravagance proves usually on examination to be a relativedeficiency of intellect. Spiritual excitement takes pathological forms whenever other interests aretoo few and the intellect too narrow. We find this exemplified by all the saintly attributes in turn-devoutlove of God, purity, charit y, asceticism, all may lead astray. I will run over these virtues insuccession. First of all let us take Devoutness. When unbalanced, one of its vices is called Fanaticism. Fanaticism (when not a mere expression of ecclesiastical ambition) is only loyalty carried to aconvulsive extreme. When an intensely loyal and narrow mind is once grasped by the feeling that acertain superhuman person is worthy of its exclusive devotion, one of the first things that happensis that it idealizes the devotion itself. To adequately realize the merits of the idol gets to beconsidered the one great merit of the worshiper; and the sacrifices and servilities by which savagetribesmen have from time immemorial exhibited their faithfulness to chieftains are now outbid infavor of the deity. Vocabularies are exhausted and languages altered in the attempt to praise himenough; death is looked on as gain if it attract his grateful notice; and the personal attitude of beinghis devotee becomes what one might almost call a new and exalted kind of professional macau prepaid sim card specialtywithin the tribe.[199] The legends that gather round the lives of holy persons are fruits of thisimpulse to celebrate and glorify. The Buddha[200] and Mohammed[201] and their companionsand many Christian saints are incrusted with a heavy jewelry of anecdotes which are meant to behonorific, but are simply abgeschmackt and silly, and form a touching expression of man'smisguided propensity to praise. [199] Christian saints of devotion, Saint Francis to Christ's wounds;Saint Anthony of Padua to Christ's childhood; Saint Bernard to his humanity; Saint Teresa to SaintJoseph, etc. The Shi-ite Mohammedans venerate Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law, instead of Abubekr,his brother-in-law. Vambery describes a dervish whom he met in Persia, "who had solemnlyvowed, thirty years before, that he would never employ his organs of speech otherwise but inuttering, everlastingly, the name of his favorite, Ali, Ali. He thus wished to signify to the worldthat he was the most devoted partisan of that Ali who had been dead a thousand years. In his own home, speaking with his wife, children, and friends, no other word but 'Ali!' ever passed his lips. Ifhe wanted food or drink or anything else, he expressed his wants still by repeating 'Ali!' Beggingor buying at the bazaar, it was always 'Ali!' Treated ill or generously, he would still harp on hismonotonous 'Ali!' Latterly his zeal assumed such tremendous proportions that, like a madman, hewould race, the whole day, up and down the streets of the town, throwing his stick high up into theair, and shriek our, all the while, at the top of his voice, 'Ali!' This dervish was venerated byeverybody as a saint, and received everywhere with the greatest distinction." Arminius Vambery,his Life and Adventures, written by Himself, London, 1889, p. 69. On the anniversary of the deathof Hussein, Ali's son, the Shi-ite Moslems still make the air resound with cries of his name andAli's. [200] Compare H. C. Warren: Buddhism in Translation, Cambridge, U.S., 1898, passim. [201] Compare J. L. Merrick: The Life and Religion of Mohammed, as contained in the Sheeahtraditions of the Hyat-ul-Kuloob, Boston. 1850, passim. An immediate consequence of this condition of mind is jealousy for the deity's honor. How canthe devotee show his loyalty better than by sensitiveness in this regard? The slightest affront orneglect must be resented, the deity's enemies must be put to shame. In exceedingly narrow mindsand active wills, such a care may become an engrossing preoccupation; and crusades have beenpreached and massacres instigated for no other reason than to remove a fancied slight upon theGod. Theologies representing the gods as mindful of their glory, and churches with imperialisticpolicies, have conspired to fan this temper to a glow, so that intolerance and persecution haveto be vices associated by of inseparably with the saintly mind. They are unque(come) stionablyitsbesettingsins.Thesai(some) ntlytem(us) per is a moral temper, and a moral temper hasoften to be cruel. It is a partisan temper, and that is cruel. Between David knows no difference; a Catherine of Siena, panting to stop the warfare among Christianswhich was the scandal of her epoch, can think of no better method of union among them than acrusade to massacre the Turks; Luther finds no word of protest or regret over the atrocious tortureswith which the Anabaptist leaders were put to death; and a Cromwell praises the Lord fordelivering his enemies into his hands for "execution." Politics come in in all such cases; but pietyfinds the partnership not quite unnatural. So, when "freethinkers" tell us that religion andfanaticism are twins, we cannot make an unqualified denial of the charge.
