“It was the Catholic Church or nothing.  And just for a few years it seemed humanly possible that it might be nothing.

“And now for the causes of the revival.

“Briefly, I should say they were all included under one head—­the correlation of sciences and their coincidence into one point.  Let us take them one by one.  We have only time to glance very superficially at each.

“First there was Psychology.

“Even at the end of the nineteenth century it was beginning to be perceived that there was an inexplicable force working behind mere matter.  This force was given a number of names—­the ‘subliminal consciousness,’ in man, and ‘Nature’ in the animal, vegetable, and even mineral creation; and it gave birth to a series of absurd superstitions such as that now wholly extinct sect of the ‘Christian Scientists,’ or the Mental Healers; and among the less educated of the Materialists, to Pantheism.  But the force was acknowledged, and it was perceived to move along definite lines of law.  Further, in the great outburst of Spiritualism it began gradually to be evident to the world that this force occasionally manifested itself in a personal, though always a malevolent manner.  Now it must be remembered that even this marked an immense advance in the circles called scientific; since in the middle of the nineteenth century, even the phenomena so carefully recorded by the Church were denied.  These were now no longer denied, since phenomena, at least closely resembling them, were matters of common occurrence under the eyes of the most sceptical.  Of course, since the enquiries were made along purely ‘scientific’ lines—­lines which in those days were nothing other than materialistic—­an attempt was made to account for the phenomena by new anti-spiritual theories hastily put together to meet the emergency.  But, little by little, an uneasy sense began to manifest itself that the Church had already been familiar with the phenomena for about two thousand years, and that a body, which had marked and recorded facts with greater accuracy than all the ‘scientists’ put together, at least had some claim to consideration with regard to her hypothesis concerning them.  Further, it began to be seen (what is perfectly familiar to us all now) that Religion contributed an element which nothing else could contribute—­that, for example, ‘Religious Suggestion,’ as it was called in the jargon of the time, could accomplish things that ordinary ‘Suggestion’ could not.  Finally, the researches of psychologists into what was then called the phenomenon of ‘Alternating Personality’ prepared the way for a frank acceptance of the Catholic teaching concerning Possession and Exorcism—­teaching which half a century before would have been laughed out of court by all who claimed the name of Scientist.  Psychology then, up to this point, had rediscovered that a Force was working behind physical phenomena, itself not physical; that this Force occasionally exhibited characteristics of Personality; and finally that the despised Catholic Church had been more scientific than scientists in her observation of facts; and that this Force, dealt with along Christian lines, could accomplish what it was unable to accomplish along any other.