It  therefore  follows  that  spiritual  conviction  and

peculiar  physical  and  mental  manifestation  are  by

no  means  necessarily  correlated.     Dr.  Archibald

Alexander  also   had  an  interesting  experience  in

1  p.  240,  note.
EXPLANATION    OF    REVIVAL    PHENOMENA      22/

the  south  which  thoroughly  illustrates  my  propo
sition.  The  sermon  was  a  very  impressive  one,  and
the  people  were  generally  attentive,  except  a  few
old  tobacco  planters  in  the  rear  of  the  room,  who
paid  no  attention  to  the  discourse,  but  talked  to
gether  in  a  low  tone  upon  subjects  connected  with
their  industry.  Suddenly  the  preacher  became
very  vehement  and  boisterous,  and  immediately
there  was  a  response  in  the  centre  of  the  house  in
dicating  strong  emotion.  A  female  voice  broke
forth  in  a  piercing  cry.  Then  the  people  began  to
rise,  one  after  another,  in  different  parts  of  the
room,  under  extreme  agitation.  The  women  threw
off  their  bonnets  and  shouted,  as  did  some  of  the
men,  in  a  most  uncontrolled  fashion.  The  sympa
thetic  wave  spread  from  the  centre  to  the  circum
ference,  and  the  whole  audience  was  swayed  like  a
forest  in  a  mighty  wind.  Dr.  Alexander  himself
is  on  record  as  having  found  it  necessary  to  put
forth  a  conscious  effort  of  resistance  in  order  to
hold  himself  steady  in  the  violence  of  the  storm,
and  he  testifies  that  the  old  tobacco  planters  in  the
rear,  who  had  not  listened  to  one  word  of  the
sermon,  displayed  tremulous  emotion  in  every
muscle  of  their  brawny  faces,  while  the  tears
coursed  down  their  wrinkled  cheeks.  A  quieting
song  subdued  them  all  in  a  moment.
The  influence  of  partial  hypnotization  is  always
at  work  in  the  crowd  which  is  laboring  under  the
pressure  of  great  religious  excitement.  The  ele
ment  of  full  consciousness  is  present,  but  is  feeble.
