No Harvard man could listen save with sincere respect to any words that Dr. Hale might say concerning the college. Dr. Hale's sympathy and interest towards Harvard are fully understood and appreciated. And yet we believe that hardly a student read his letter in the last Advocate without a sharp feeling of disappointment at his apparent misunderstanding of our position on the prayer question. Dr. Hale ought to be careful how he makes mistakes. He stands too high in the regard of the college to risk them with safety.

The point on which Dr. Hale in his letter lays most stress is that some means of moral guidance ought to be assured the student. "We grant great freedom in the choice of study. But, we do not mean to have any senior . . . . say to us that since he entered college no one ever told him that there is a difference between Right and Wrong." This is trite enough, of course. No one denies for a moment that some means of moral guidance ought to be assured. But is the only way of affording this moral guidance by means of a compulsory service? We cannot believe it. On the contrary, we believe a compulsory service one of the very worst means that could be devised. Those ideals of life which Harvard has given men would have been given them if a compulsory chapel had never been thought of. Moral teaching does not gain any efficacy from compulsion. Yet this the present system quite neglects. Compulsion is continued because of a fear that without it the service could not be carried on, and everyone knows the fact. Is this a moral lesson? If it be true that the only method of giving moral guidance to Harvard men is to shut them up in a large room, and force it into their unwilling minds, the lessons will be of little use. Is it not plain that moral teaching gets its strength, not from the fact that men are made to hear it, but from the fact that they are willing to receive it? In Dr. Hale's own words, - "no one was ever compelled to pray, or ever can be." We urge, therefore, with the deepest sincerity, that moral teaching is of value only when it is offered to men freely, and they receive it willingly.

When Dr. Hale attempts to "put the same thing historically," he seems to forget that what was right and proper two centuries ago may be both wrong and improper to-day. Public sentiment and college sentiment once sanctioned a compulsory service; but compulsion then did not mean what compulsion means now. To-day there is no general sentiment either within or without the college which justifies a compulsory attendance at chapel. Religion has become utterly disassociated from any idea of compulsion. Prayer is held to be a matter between a man and his God, not between a man and the college authorities. Nevertheless, a course in chapel is still necessary for a degree.

Without continuing this discussion further, Dr. Hale must know, unless he misunderstands us more than even his letter would indicate, that to nine-tenths of us a compulsory service is utterly distasteful and wrong. We know better than Dr. Hale what effect this service is having on the college. We know better than he that seniors go away from Harvard without religious belief, and with only a bitter hate and contempt in their hearts for the methods employed here to make them "moral." We know better than he what a spiritual waste and loss our present system carries with it. The taste of Dead Sea apples is very fresh in our mouths.