It has been said, and very truly, that no man or institution in this world which attains to greatness escapes from attack. So Harvard has found many times and not always to its liking. The most recent attempt to cast odium on the methods pursued at this university was in the form of a long letter to the Boston Transcript. This letter took the authorities severely to task for the manner in which the Divinity School is run and its professorships filled. Fortunately for our good name the writer of this lengthy diatribe seems to be almost alone in his opinions, and his remarks have called forth an army of able defenders for the school.

Not only have some of the students of Divinity answered the charges brought against them as students ; but the religious and secular press have entered the lists in Harvard's behalf. A writer in the Christian Union says :

"My own observation of the students leads me to believe that there is among them a devout, earnest, Christian spirit and a good degree of profound religious conviction. They are earnest investigators, and the fraternal feeling is admirable. I believe the school, as a whole, I has never been so ably manned as it is to-day, and that it is doing a good work."

Another religious paper comments on the subject as follows :

"It may be added that while the professors of the school agree to differ in regard to many matters, and while each is left free to teach from his own standpoint, yet, so far as the department of the school is concerned, they are, and through all the changes that have taken place have been, in substantial accord. They all have the same ideal of what the school should be, and work and realize this each by his own methods. * * Taken altogether, the school was never better furnished for its work, never exerted so large an influence, and never produced better fruit than at the present time."

Finally the Sunday Herald in its last issue takes up the discussion in its editorial capacity. It says :

"The method of theological study at Harvard is of priceless importance to the Church of Christ in America. It emphasizes the way in which religious problems should be approached. It has begun to free strong and earnest minds from the thralldom of sect. If the divinity schools at Andover or New. Haven, or the one established by churchmen under the shadow of Harvard, are worth anything to-day, it is because they approach the study of Christianity by the method which has been successfully inaugurated at Harvard. The lines of advance are in this direction. * * * The majority of the divinity students are evangelical men who go there because the instruction is of a higher and better quality than any where else this side of a German university. It is something to be thankful for that Harvard has reached the high plane on which it now does its work, without impairing its efficiency as a university, and with a very great gain in the spiritual manhood of its faculty and in the manly freedom of its students in their personal spiritual development. Indeed, the day is already at hand when Harvard begins to lead the higher religious thought of the country."