00 Mackie - Gift of Tongues
The Gift of Tongues: A Study in Pathological Aspects of Christianity
(1921) by Alexander Mackie Minister of the Tully Memorial Presbyterian Church of Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania
New York George H. Doran Company O grant us light, that we may see Where error lurks in human lore, And turn our doubting minds to Thee, And love Thy simple word the more.
Laurence Tuttiett.
PB.50
THEOL, STAGS Copyright, 1921, By George H. Doran Company
Nov 22, 1953 Printed in the United States of America TO THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALEXANDER JOHN HOWIE MACKIE
1859-1913
PREFACE The science of Pathology has contributed in no inconsiderable degree to the physical and physiological well-being of the human body. A science of Pathology in the realm of those things which are popularly called spiritual can contribute in like and, perhaps, in even greater degree to the well-being of the human soul.
It ought to be a matter of popular knowledge that some states of mind and some states of action which are called spiritual, and which are claimed to be spiritual, are called spiritual and claimed to be spiritual simply because they are unusual. It ought to be a matter of common knowledge that such states of mind and action are the expressions of diseased minds and diseased bodies, that when we are dealing with an extraordinary religious experience we are very likely to be dealing with disease.
It ought to be a matter of common knowledge that historically such religious experiences are practically always associated with anti-moral conduct, and more particularly with transgressions of accepted moral standards in the vita sexualis.1 This discussion of the gift of tongues is certainly not exhaustive. The present day tongues people, for example, have not even been discussed. But the mental traits and the physiological traits of the Shakers, the Irvingites and the primitive Mormons are the mental traits and the physiological traits of the present day tongues people, and, in fact, of that increasing group of earnest but unthinking Christians who are convinced of the present revival in their various aspects of the apostolic charismata.
If this book shall serve to shed even a faint ray of light upon the kingdom of truth, I shall be profoundly grateful.
A. M.