Religious Fervor Research Articles

Psychological efficacy of religiosity in late adolescence.

The purpose of the present study was to assess the relationship berween frequency of church attendance, perhaps the most commonly used social index of religious fervor, and ocher dimensions of religiosity in late adolescence. Since the spiritual efficacy of religious ritual might be assessed empirically via some measure of humane-benevolent deeds, the relation of frequency of church atrendance and magnitude of altruistic-humane activity was emphasized. To assess the dimensions of religiosity, an expanded form of Ligon's Religious Participation Scale (3) was administered to 161 introductory psychology students. Correlations between frequency of church attendance and other dimensions of religiosiry were: frequency of praying (.363), extent of reading religious literamre (.439), longevity of Sunday school attendance (.378), and indices of altruistic-benevolent deeds (.465). These rs (p = .001) should not be accepted prematurely as a corroboration of the efficacy of church attendance in producing moral-humane integrity. Computation of mean scores indicated that the average S was attending public church services three times monthly but infrequently (less than once monthly) performing alrruisric deeds as a function of his religious convictions. Therefore, although a significant T was obtained between measures of church attendance and humane-beneficent concern, scores were consistently lower for the latter variable. The obtained rs plus the low level of humane-altruistic activity suggest that church attendance may have limited spiritual efficacy. In many instances church attendance may provide more social-psycholog~cal reinforcement than spiritual stimulation. Attending church in many settings is a bas~c avenue of manifesting one's moral fiber to the community and thus maintaining social and business status. Ic also affords opportunities to cultivate friendships, manifest skills (such as singing. playing an instrument, presenting a discourse, etc.) and exhibit material affluence. Although perhaps nor consciously recognized, one's basic incentive for church atrendance may be social approval rather than spirirual edification.

Herbert and Crashaw: Two Paraphrases of the Twenty–Third Psalm

HROUGHOUT the history of English literature, poets have written verse-paraphrases of passages from the Bible. Many of these are confined to several verses or a psalm, but others include complete books such as Job, the Song of Solomon, or Isaiah. reasons behind such paraphrases are as varied as the poets who wrote them. Some were dissatisfied with the prevailing versions of the Bible and wished to give more accurate translations to the public. They believed that the portions of the Old Testament originally in Hebrew poetry lost too much in the prose versions. Others were interested in metrical paraphrases which could be chanted or sung in worship services. psalms were most frequently paraphrased, since they could either be used in worship or give the poet opportunity to express his own religious fervor in the words of the Scriptures. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, psalm paraphrases were written by many famous poets including Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, George Gascoigne, Sir Philip Sidney, Francis Bacon, John Donne, George Herbert, and Richard Crashaw. Many of these paraphrases are perfunctory treatments which lack originality and enthusiasm. If the poet attempted to be too literal, his paraphrase lacked imagination; however, if he aimed for originality, his final poem often became so free that it moved outside the realm of paraphrase. George Herbert's The Twenty-Third Psalme and Richard Crashaw's Psalm 23 are two of the best seventeenth-century paraphrases, and they illustrate the variety possible in this genre. Herbert's paraphrase remains close to the scriptural source, yet reveals poetic imagination. Crashaw's is much longer, expanding into seventy-two lines; but his poetic treatment falls within the limits of paraphrase. By definition, paraphrase is not a literal translation but a rephrasing in which the poet is free to build upon the original by developing images more fully provided he does not lose sight of the basic structure and intent of his model.

The Canonization of Edward the Confessor

ENGLAND'S Edward the Confessor was noted during his life for his religious fervor and faith and, within a few years after his death in 1066, acquired among some of his subjects the reputation of a saint. His first Vita, apparently written before the end of 1075, the earliest evidence of the rumors of the deceased king's sanctity. This biography summed up the picture of Edward as a saint in its final paragraph.' That he who was proved a saint in this world, the author wrote, is now living as a saint in heaven the propitious Deity reveals through these signs at his grave; there, by his intervention, the blind are made to see and the lame to walk again, the sick are cured and the sad consoled; and God, the King of kings, allows these tokens of his piety to happen for the faith of everyone who invokes the Lord.2 In spite of this rapid canonisatio per viam cultus, the official recognition of the saint by the Church was delayed and was not pronounced until a century later. A first official sanction of the cult may have been the translation of the king's body in 1102. This was perhaps an episcopal translation performed by Gundulf of Rochester on behalf of the archbishop of Canterbury.3 But another thirty-six years passed by before a serious attempt

Hubert Maitland Turnbull, 1875-1955

Hubert Maitland Turnbull, who died on 29 September 1955 some eight years after retirement from the Chair of Morbid Anatomy at the London Hospital Medical College, occupied a position of eminence in British pathology. Not only was he greatly esteemed by his colleagues at the London but his influence extended widely throughout the medical schools of this and other countries of the Commonwealth. This was due not so much to his ability as an initiator and director of research, even though he was responsible for a considerable amount of valuable original work during his forty years at the London Hospital, but to a particular genius for accuracy of observation and meticulous attention to detail which he possessed in high degree and applied with almost religious fervour to everything that he did. Entering pathology at a time when many in this country held that morbid anatomy was a dead subject, Virchow, in their opinion, having left little new territory to be explored, Turnbull set himself to revolutionize morbid anatomical practice and to raise the subject to the level of a science. And so well did he succeed that he proved a source of inspiration not only to his fellow pathologists and those young graduates who chose to emulate him, but also to the much wider circle of clinicians who sought the privilege of working for a time in his department as a prelude to specialization in some other branch of medicine.

The role of the leader in religious movements

A S T U D Y of Holiness sects on which I reported fifteen years ago indicated that they were spontaneous expressions of the religious fervor of the common people. They were, I concluded, attempts on their part to deal constructively with the stresses and trials which fell with peculiar severity upon them during periods of economic suffering and social displacement. This conclusion needs to be supplemented. I t must also be recognized that the group experience must first be focalized in some individual and voiced by h;m before it can find expression in the form of a social movement. This principle is strikingly exemplified in Blankton, a city included in that study, in which the Holiness sects had achieved extraordinary strength. Th;s development seemed best explained by the existence there of a large number of economically distressed folk and by the presence of a large university which accentuated the cultural differences and speeded up the process of liberalization and secularization among the old-line

Articles in Quaker Periodicals

Articles in Quaker Periodicals By Lyman W. Riley University of Pennsylvania Library The Friend (London) "Father of Railway Time-Tables" was George Bradshaw (18011853 ). Bernard Canter contributes a note on a few of his activities not connected with the railways.—Sept. 11, 1953, p. 845. Henry J. Cadbury finds, in "John Wesley's Relations with Friends," both agreement and controversy. Wesley thought the Quietist Friends of his own time were lacking in religious fervor.—Sept. 11, 1953, pp. 851852 . In "Friends and the Threats to Civil Liberties" Henry J. Cadbury summarizes some of the civil-liberty problems early Friends faced and mentions the means they used to meet them.—Oct. 16, 1953, pp. 955-957. Doris N. Dalglish writes a note "In Memory of Amelia Opie" (17691853 ), English novelist and poet, who joined the Society of Friends in 1825.—Nov. 27, 1953, pp. 1071-1072. Henry J. Cadbury describes "The Scene of 'Fierce Feathers' " and prints the earliest known written account (1786) of this encounter between Friends and Indians, at Easton Meeting, New York, in 1777.—Dec. 11, 1953, pp. 1151-1152. In "Revised Views of Quaker Origins" Henry J. Cadbury, reviewing recent American studies of seventeenth-century England, suggests that studying early Quakerism in its milieu may change our understanding of its nature.—Jan. 1, 1954, pp. 5-7. "Centenary of a Quaker Mission to Russia," by L. Hugh Doncaster, tells of Joseph Sturge, Henry Pease, and Robert Charleton, who were appointed by the Meeting for Sufferings in 1853 to deliver an address to the czar of Russia in an attempt to avert war between Russia and Great Britain.—Jan. 15, 1954, pp. 41-43. "John Bellers (1654-1725)" was a man ahead of his time in his proposals of help for the poor and for a European congress of nations. A. Ruth Fry contributes this note on a man "typical of what a Quaker should be."—Feb. 5, 1954, pp. 97-98. A summary of an address by T. Canby Jones on "Jesus Christ in the Message of George Fox" concludes that for Fox Christ was transcendent Saviour rather than immanent Principle.—Mar. 26, 1954, pp. 262-263. "Thomas Shillitoe—Christian Eccentric (1754-1837)" by Beatrice Saxon Snell describes some of the personal characteristics of this traveling Friend as well as his effective religious work—Nov. 5, 1954, pp. 11111113 . 63 64Bulletin of Friends Historical Association Friends Intelligencer "The Quakers' Text" (Letter from the Past No.. 146) is John 1:9: "That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world"; "Now and Then" reflects on its relation to the traditional Quaker doctrine of the Inner Light.—Aug. 7, 1954, p. 442. Emma H. Landon tells of a visit to Canada Yearly Meeting during which she worshiped in the old Yonge Street Meetinghouse, built 18081810 ; she gives the original minute from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting that established the Yonge Street Meeting in 1804.—Aug. 14, 1954, pp. 453454 . Letter from the Past No. 147 is on "Friends and the Healers"; it mentions two Friends who suffered from unidentified diseases: Anne, Viscountess of Conway, and John Greenleaf Whittier.—Sept. 11, 1954, p. 504. "Hurricanes and Steeplehouses" (Letter from the Past No. 148) includes the interesting speculation that the term "steeplehouse," for the early Friends, may not have been a term of opprobrium but merely the avoidance of the use of the word "church" for a building.—Sept. 25, 1954 pp. 530-531. The Friends' Quarterly Geoffrey F. Nuttall examines the relationship between "Early Quakerism and Early Primitive Methodism" as found in the lives and works of two Methodists, Hugh Bourne (1772-1852) and William Clowes (17801851 ).—July, 1953, pp. 179-187. "Friends' Relationship to the British and Foreign Bible Society in its Early Years" by L. Hugh Doncaster tells of individual Friends who played a part in founding the Society and in spreading its branches throughout England and other countries. The author concludes that Friends' association with the Bible Society helped to bring them out of their "introspection" and into active Christian citizenship.—October, 1953, pp. 208-222. In "Quakerism as a Weapon: Complex Irony in Voltaire," Macdonald Emslie carefully analyzes the language of the four...

Breast feeding comes of age.

In this paper I give a brief history of breast feeding and discuss some of its disputed features, in the hope of "rescuing breast feeding from its present somewhat neglected state"¹by showing that the literature establishes it as a sound scientific procedure which has at last come of age. The earlier contributions to the literature on breast feeding were largely hortatory, scolding physicians and mothers alike for their readiness to wean the infants and praising breast feeding.²This almost religious fervor is understandable to the physician who remembers when dirty milk was the rule rather than the exception and when breast-fed babies in New York tenements had better chances for life and health than their bottle-fed contemporaries on Fifth Avenue.^2bNot until 1930 was a writer willing to state that he considered artificial feeding as good as natural.³ In spite of this preaching, until 1919

The Hindu Temple

This two-volume work explains the religious and spiritual significance of the temple through copious references to Sanskrit texts. It depicts the Hindu Temple as not merely a heap of brick, stone or wood but a visible symbol of aspirations of pious men and women, the throbbings of their hearts in religious fervour and their endeavour for the attainment of salvation. This is most comprehensive and authoritative treatise of ancient Indian Temple Architecture.

The Slave Preacher--Portrait of a Leader

That a slave preacher was the author of the first printed production written by a Negro in the continental United States offers little surprise to the person who is familiar with the conventionally popular conception that the early Negro possessed a peculiar bent for religious enthusiasm and emotionalism. In the same connection, the student of the literature published in America during the Revolutionary period notes that the earliest prose writings by American Negroes were suffused with religious fervor and with references to the remarkable providences which preserved so humbleand imaginative-a believer as perhaps, Briton Hammon or John Marrant. While one recognizes the limitations of these early works in light of their crudities, inaccuracies, and irrelevancies one may not overlook the fact that the pioneers of Negro writers in America were religious leaders. These precursors sketched the pattern of activities which many slave preachers and exhorters,l were to follow in the years to come. Although Colonial days saw the beginning of the ministry of Negro preachers in America, and Revolutionary days witnessed the widespread fame of a few Negro preachers like Black Harry,2 it was on the plantation during the thirty or forty years preceding the Civil War that the leadership ability of the Negro preacher

The Status and Prospects of the Social Gospel

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Status and Prospects of the Social GospelJustin Wroe NixonJustin Wroe Nixon Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 22, Number 4Oct., 1942Shailer Mathews: 1863-1941 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/482916 Views: 13Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Ciprian Simuț The Social Gospel Movement. An Overview, Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Reformata Transylvanica 66, no.11 (Jun 2021): 131–152.https://doi.org/10.24193/subbtref.66.1.07

Psychology of Joan of Arc

IN a paper entitled “A Medico-psychological Revision of the Story of Jehanne La Pucelle” read before the Section of the History of Medicine of the Royal Society of Medicine on December 4, Dr. H. P. Bayon said that modern historians, by interpreting medieval religious conceptions according to the dictates of contemporary critical doctrines, have failed to examine the voices and visions of La Pucelle in their proper light and sequence. The first voices heard at the age of thirteen were, according to him, connected with endocrine activity tinged by intense religious fervour and could not be rightly diagnosed as morbid, even if they ranked as somewhat abnormal. A couple of years after, the simple monitions of the voices were followed by visions and commands, directing the Maid to perform valiant military deeds for a patriotic service; these must be classified as something additional, since their purpose was creative and constructive and furthered the accomplishment of a certain preconceived plan by providing confidence in her mission and obtaining authority for her message. Joan of Arc thus became instinctively the first protagonist of that form of national patriotism which was to play such a part in arranging States and dynasties in Europe during succeeding centuries.

PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA AMONG NEGROES

T WENTY years service as an Administrative Officer in the Southern Provinces of Nigeria have brought me into contact with psychical phenomena which, though not peculiar to the negro; do not appear to have received much attention. Three instances of mass hysteria or of mass religious fervour came before my notice. In the Women's Rising in 1929, generally referred to as the Aba Riots, the women believing they were immune to bullets advanced on the firing soldiers. women were stripped to the waist and most of them wore old pieces of sacking in place of their usual cloths. They carried stout cudgels and were in a state of frantic excitement. They came forward at a rapid rate alternately running and walking, and gesticulating wildly. Owing to the frenzied attitude of the women, and their rapid advance, it was both impossible and useless to attempt to order them to disperse by word of mouth. Captain James therefore asked Lieutenant Browning to disperse the mob with fire. Lieutenant Browning thereupon ordered his leading section of six men to fire two rounds rapid. One or two women were seen to drop, but the remainder took no notice whatever and continued to advance. Lieutenant Browning had in the meantime signalled up his Lewis gun and gave orders to the gunner to fire a burst of seven rounds at the crowd. This was aimed inaccurately and went high. The next burst also failed to get the mark and went low in front of the crowd. The third burst, however, stopped the crowd which had paid no attention whatever to the first two bursts. The mob, although it stopped its advance did not even then show signs of panic. They still kept yelling and waving their sticks while they slowly withdrew.t 1ABA Commission of Inquiry. Report of the Annexure III, p. 1, Lagos, I930.

Educational Changes in Germany, 1936-1939

A FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE exists between totalitarian regimes and political dictatorships. Dictators, generally speaking, are satisfied with manipulating the political destinies of their countries free from constitutional or other controls. Totalitarian regimes, as implied in the name, are more ambitious. They are out not only to control every manifestation of national life but also to change man himself. With almost religious fervor they proclaim new philosophies of life and expect all individuals under their control to live in accordance with the new gospels. In all totalitarian countries education in the broadest sense of the word

Aljamiado Prophecies

The four prophecies studied in this article are known as aljamiado texts because they are in the Spanish language transcribed in Arabic characters. They foretell the dire calamities that are to be visited on the “isla de España” for her neglect of the Koran and of other teachings of Islam. Written by Moriscoes, they were intended to arouse religious fervor, and hence political strength, in Moslem Spain, and they show a marked contrast to the Christian Spanish feeling of the familiar Merlin prophecies.

A Sketch of the Theological Development of Harvard University, 1636–1805

By the witness of history, the indebtedness of higher learning to religious fervor is very great. This aspect of education deserves at least as much attention as the retardation and perversion of learning by religious bigotry. The latter is, as we all know, most frequently and loudly stressed today. Again, we hear little of the fact that periods when learning has been gradually secularized have been periods when scholarship grew lax and knowledge halted; until a new impulse of religious conviction re-vivified both the souls and the minds of scholars, with the restilt that academies and universities pulsed with fresh enthusiasm and notable advancement in learning took place. But of many instances of this phenomenon the mention of Abailard and the University of Paris, Wyclif and Oxford, Luther and Wittenberg, Cartwright and Emmanuel, Wolff and Halle, Fichte and Berlin, must suffice. Yet none is more illustrative of our conclusions than Harvard, the creation of the Congregational Puritanism of William Ames.

Biochemistry and Biology

A QUIET revolution is taking place in biological thought. The age of faith is past. No longer is either mechanism or vitalism upheld with religious fervour; no longer do we cling to the Victorian creed that all things are ordered mechanically, or to its counterpart, that organic events are ruled by some immaterial agency. As Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins said in his presidential address at the Leicester meeting of the British Association, “It is characteristic of the present position and spirit of science that sounds of the long conflict between mechanists and vitalists are just now seldom heard”.

Why Did Decius and Valerian Proscribe Christianity?

Severe economic depression had the Roman world in its grip during the middle of the third century A. D.; a condition from which the Mediterranean countries never fully recovered. There is much evidence to show that the economic structure of the Empire was crumbling. Very soon the outlying territories of the Empire were overrun by barbarians, trade collapsed, and brigandage and piracy reappeared on a large scale. All of this was accompanied by a rapid rise in the prices of the commodities of life. To-day we look for the causes of economic depressions in intricate and far-reaching social forces. In the third century Romans of the old school had a much more simple and direct explanation. When the Empire fell on hard times and disaster stalked the corners there was only one cause: the gods who had given Rome her power and the Empire its prosperity in the years gone by were being neglected, foreign gods and oriental cults had usurped the religious fervor of the people, and the venerable gods of the Eternal City were angered. The remedy was likewise simple: revive and stimulate the worship of the ancient gods of Rome, thus appeasing their anger, and prosperity would return.

The American Gynecological Society: Fifty-fifth Annual Meeting Hot Springs, Virginia May 19 to 22, 1930

OUR meeting last year, while I was still overwhelmed by the honor of becoming the custodian of the ‘(gavel,” the doorknob from the office of Ephraim McDowell, my dear friends and predecessors took pains to weigh me down still further. Like ghouls they harassed me with the necessity of select,ing and delivering a Presidential Address. The selection of the subject matter was easier than I had anticipated. LNineteen forty-nine was the centennial of Sims’ cure of vesicovaginal fistula. Today the man’s name and fame survive, but his life story is almost forgotten. The ability to breathe life into a personage long since dead is rare indeed. Through the ages the stage has provided the ideal setting for such an achievement. Today I propose merely to depict the life story of the Father of Gynecology, James Marion Sims, dwelling upon his personal attributes, without benefit of scenery or reenactment of the incidents and events which set this man apart then and now. Sims’ life and career are so replete with sunshine and storms, with contentment and restless urge, with love and frustration, with religious fervor and bitter disillusionment, with grave illnesses and stupendous achievement, with dogged determination and semiexpatriation, that t,hey could be the theme for a great drama in the style of a Greek tragedy.

4. Retrospect of Criminal Anthropology

The greater part of the “Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle” for last September is devoted to a medico-legal and criminological study of the events connected with the murder of President Carnot. It is drawn up by Drs. Lacassagne, Oilier, Coutagne, and others who conducted the autopsy and had some opportunity of examining Caserio. The latter, born at Malta-Visconti in Lombardy, was 20 years of age. His father was epileptic. Caserio emphatically denied that there was any insanity in the family, but the point was never really investigated; it has been stated that two uncles are in an asylum. Caserio's face, as may be seen from the portraits given, is rather pleasant; a few signs of physical degeneration are noted about his person, but they are of trifling character. There was a continuous smile, of spasmodic character, on his lips. He was tall, upper part of body well developed and muscular, head rather small and brachycephalic. His expression was gentle, but rendered ferocious by political discussion. It is noted that he had the lean and pallid air dreaded by Cæsar. His education was very elementary, but he was an insatiable reader, depriving himself of sleep to study politics. His memory, visual in character, was extremely good. His intelligence was quick and clear, but superficial, easily accepting paradoxes and sophisms, and regarding anarchism as the universal panacea. His chief characteristic was his impulsive, energetic will. He had a very strong vagabond impulse and could never remain long in the same place. He was taciturn and solitary, and certainly had no confederates. His indifference to women was complete; he had, as he put it, “married anarchism.” He was one of those individuals, remarks Lacassagne, whose blood is like flowing dynamite. Whatever feelings of affection he may have possessed were subordinated to his devotion to the poor and suffering. He had never seen the President before plunging the dagger up to the hilt in his abdomen, and he once remarked that if he had caught his victim's mild, affrighted gaze an instant earlier his arm would have been powerless. Lacassagne decides that Caserio was not insane, that he was “un fanatique assassin” and responsible.In the following number of the “Archives” Lacassagne prints a long letter addressed to him by Dr. Régis of Bordeaux, who is the author of a remarkable book on regicides. Régis criticizes with much acuteness and moderation many of Lacassagne's statements and conclusions, pointing out contradictions and bringing forward other facts that Lacassagne had ignored. He attaches importance to the marked religious fervour of Caserio in early life, as a sign of the morbid exaltation which he afterwards placed at the service of anarchism. He points out that no real psychiatric examination was ordered by the authorities, and that Caserio's counsel was only able to base his defence on “the general theories of Maudsley and Lombroso.” He suggests that Lacassagne has been to some extent unconsciously influenced by the universal wave of indignation which passed over Lyons and the whole of France; in this connection he mentions that Tamburini, Biffi, and Lombroso had first declared that Passanante, the would-be assassin of King Humbert, was responsible, but that Passanante was afterwards consigned to an asylum at the recommendation of the same experts, and is now in the last stages of dementia. Taking Caserio's history point by point, he shows that in main outline it corresponds to that of regicides generally, and concludes that the right place for Caserio would have been a criminal lunatic asylum.Caserio certainly cannot be described as an instinctive criminal or a moral imbecile. He was a political criminal, though of an extreme and unbalanced kind. In a country like England, where political idealism is tolerated, he would probably have remained a harmless enthusiast.