crude English in which most of them were phrased, suggested Sunday newspapers and rapid transit and a great hurry. They indicated a background of superficial living.

General acceptance, however, was finally given to the suggestion that these freshman essays were among the last fruits of an untutored generation, which even in its youth belongs to the past rather than to the future. It was maintained that the general trend of life in the colleges has already swung away from this old ignorance, and that, however it may be with Shakespeare, the man in the graduating class is now acquainted with the Bible. That will at That will at least be the case with these particular freshmen, for they were immediately set to the reading of the Bible as a proper part of the pursuit of English letters.

When I was in college, we had a lesson every Monday morning in the commentaries of Albert Barnes. My first introduction to the higher criticism came with the information that Albert Barnes composed his commentaries before breakfast: we used to try to discover by the temper and disposition of the notes whether the breakfast bell rang punctually or was unduly delayed. Sometimes, though rarely, we thought we could detect some misbehavior of the cook. I did not get much out of it. I remember that I arrived even at the divinity school with so imperfect a knowledge of the Bible that when I smile at these college essays it is in the spirit of sympathy rather than of satire. It is borne in upon me, as I go about among the colleges, that young men take more interest in the Bible than they did thirty years ago, and have a better knowledge of it. This, no doubt, is equally true of the young women. It was, indeed, a Wellesley girl who said that Galilee was named for Galileo, who wrote a description of the country; and a Stanford girl who said that Dorcas was the man who succeeded Judas as the twelfth Apostle; and a Radcliffe girl who said, "What are the Ten Commandments? I find them alluded to so often in the Canterbury Tales." But these, again, were eccentricities of ignorance. of the girls knew better.

Most

Already some of the colleges include the English Bible in the course of study. Professor Gardiner teaches it at Harvard. When he lectured on his college subject as a Lowell course in Boston, he had to give the lectures twice over, so many were the people who desired to hear them. At Stanford there is a Department of Biblical Literature and History. It is not as yet put fairly on a level with the other department; that is, the lecturers have only an annual appointment. But the students are greatly and numerously interested. Dr. Brown, of Oakland, and Rabbi Vorsanger, of San Francisco, and Mr. Gardner, Chaplain of the University, have large classes. have large classes. At Chicago President Harper, with all his splendid executive genius and success, preferred his Bible classes to all his other work. They were his joy and his crown.

But the greater part of the study is undertaken by the students of their own motion, and with teachers from their own numbers. The best work of the Young Men's Christian Association is in its effective system of such instruction. They have a series of text-books, made by college men for college men. The consequence is that the number of young persons who are now reading the Bible in college is multiplied. When Dr. Moore and Dr. Fenn, at the request of Harvard students, printed two series of brief notes on daily Bible readings in the life and words of Christ, the printer found it difficult to keep even with the demand.

A second characteristic of religious life in American colleges is an increased attention on the part of the authorities to the details of the chapel services. There is a general endeavor to make these services more attractive and helpful.

Much care is now taken in the selection of college preachers. Men are brought from great parishes to minister to the students, and are glad to respond to such invitations. The custom of having a different preacher every Sunday is gradually giving way to the appointment of boards of preachers, whereby the same man comes several times in the year, and stays some days, or even weeks, and is accessible to men for conference and counsel. In some places, as at

Stanford with Mr. Gardner, as I can testify from my own observation. The impression which was made upon the life of Harvard by the ministrations of Dr. Peabody, between 1860 and 1881, is a matter of common knowledge. These examples show not only that such a pastorate is possible, but that it is the best thing where it may be had.

A new attention is paid in most colleges to the music. At Harvard there is a very competent choir of men and boys under Mr. Locke. At Yale there is an anthem at the daily service, admirably sung by a choir of students. At Stanford, before the earthquake, there was a daily recital of organ music by an uncommonly able organist, Dr. Blodgett. The college church is of late adorned and beautified in many localities. The new chapel at Williams is one of the most impressive religious buildings in the country. The new chapel at Wellesley is nobly proportioned. There is a good chapel at Mount Holyoke, where a hundred surpliced girls sing the service and every Sunday disprove the foolish theory that all the angels are men. Yale and Harvard, indeed, retain a Puritan simplicity of building which is rather cheerless and forbidding. Chicago has no chapel, but holds its services in three or four different places, each less comfortable and less conducive to devotion than the other. These, however, are temporary conditions, which are endured with more or less patience while these universities are awaiting the gifts of pious donors.

At the same time, the State universities have neither chaplain nor chapel. This statement may be too general, but so far as I know these institutions are making no direct effort to form character by means of the influences of organized religion. They are probably precluded from such effort by the conditions of their existence. The ministrations of religion at these schools are exercised within the college by a secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, and outside the college by the clergy of the town. The fact that in most of these universities the emphasis of interest is rather in science and "practical" studies than in the humanities may also have

some effect upon religion. These conditions present a problem of great interest, the value of whose various factors is not yet determined. It is at least plain that there is offered here a large opportunity for the churches. These academic towns, under such circumstances, are strategic places. The wise church will see to it that the incumbency of the local parish is not left to chance, but that by a policy of prudent subsidizing the denomination shall provide these pulpits with strong men who know the truth and are made free thereby, and who understand the needs and aspirations and perplexities of youth.

On June 16, 1886, when the Board of Overseers of Harvard University agreed to the proposal of the Board of Preachers that attendance at prayers should no longer be required, a new condition was introduced into the religious situation. The immediate result was to empty the chapel, and the empty pews have never since been filled. There are now about five hundred teachers at Harvard, and about two thousand students in the College, excluding the Scientific School and the various graduate departments. Of these twenty-five hundred persons, a hundred and fifty will be found at the daily prayers; on Sunday, at the evening service, rather more; on the occasion of the visit of an uncommonly attractive preacher, a good many more. Curiously, the proportion of students is better than the proportion of professors. The ratio of loss and gain in this matter is not even yet entirely clear. The diminished attendance, though it disappoints the college preacher, does not necessarily indicate a lapse of religion. The voluntary system brings out the students who care, and there are probably as many of them as ever. How much the students who do not care got from the system of compulsion is very doubtful. Church attendance is an easy test of religion, but not a very fair one, especially in the case of active young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. Phillips Brooks, for instance, sat on Sunday at the end of the family pew in St. Paul's Church and looked steadily at the floor during the sermon; nobody knew whether he was listening or not.