inspired me with great confidence.

As I look back from the standpoint of one who reposes in the
evolutionary philosophy, in which the accidental and ecstatic
disappear, upon this phase of psychology, in which hysteria becomes
an element of moral reform, it seems to me worth while to record the
experience of one subjected to the forces which were counted as such
powerful aids to the spread of Christianity,--of one either under the
influences of the pomp of ceremony, the stimulus of music, the purely
sensuous stimulants to devotion,--or in the crude form of that
ecstatic exaltation in which the individual is carried into
a supersensuous state, in which perception, reason, and even
responsibility to a great extent are, if not suspended, so far made
abnormal that analysis becomes impossible. The term for this latter
condition amongst revivalists was "the power," and it was distinctly
a phenomenon sought for as the evidence of divine grace. The uncle of
whom I have spoken had once during his prior religious experience felt
the "power," and described it as an emotion which for the time
lifted him above the consideration of his surroundings, and left him
subsequently indifferent to that very curious shame which generally
accompanies the early yielding to the revivalist urgency of
acknowledging the necessity of change of heart,--a sense of having
made one's self ridiculous, which was, in my own and many other cases
in my knowledge, a powerful influence adverse to the "going forward"
at the meetings, or being understood to be "religious," as those were
considered who became serious in their attention at the meetings. This
was recognized by the preachers as the "fear of the world," and was
the object of attack of the most eloquent adjurations. Once carried
away by this hysteria, one had no longer any of this shame or fear of
the taunts of his irreligious companions, which was very heavy with a