"The resignation of the Rev. Dr. Barbour, the college Pastor at Yale, seems to have caused the students of the university to discuss with considerable freedom the subject of compulsory attendance at religious services. Dr. Barbour's resignation will not take effect until next June. At that time the university authorities will select a new pastor or provide temporarily for a continuation of the work which he has done. Apparently there are some who hope that his retirement will be followed by a change of the plan upon which the university's religious exercises have been conducted.

At present all students of the academic department are required to attend prayers in the chapel every week-day morning, and all who have not gained permission to attend churches of other denominations in the city are required to attend services in the chapel on Sundays. Thus far there has never been at Yale, so far as we know, any appeal from a body of students for the abolition of "compulsory worship." It has generally been assumed that nothing could be accomplished by making such an appeal. The recent removal of restrictions at Harvard, as the result of repeated petitions signed by four fifths of the undergraduates, has served, however, to direct anew the attention of students in New Haven to the compulsory system prevailing at Yale and to show them what may be done by continued agitation. Yale students who are professing Christians, recently in the college press have opposed "compulsory worship."

There are sound objections to "compulsory worship" in universities, which should be apparent to the university authorities from their own point of view. Their purpose is to maintain a religious interest in those who are professing Christians or who are inclined to become Christians, and to excite such an interest in those who are inclined to avoid religious influences. What effect does compulsion have upon the several classes of persons to whom it is applied? Does it not work more harm than good? So far as members of the church are concerned the effect of compulsion may be disregarded, although it is said that even among these it tends to deaden rather than to stimulate and enliven an interest in religion. But there is good ground for a belief that compulsion tends to repel students who are not Christians and to harden their hearts.

The worthy men who uphold the compulsory system undoubtedly long to bring into the church students who are out of it, and they believe that by compelling such students to go to church they may attain their end. But we are satisfied that they are making a great blunder. They are trying to win those who are out of the fold. Those who are already in it will voluntarily avail themselves of religions privileges and, with rare exceptions, remain steadfast in the faith. These are not the students for whose improvement and conversion the college authorities express anxiety. But if compulsion really does not attract, but does repel, those for whose good it is exerted; if it tends to confirm in the irreligious their opposition, and to send them out into the world with - in many cases - a deep-seated aversion for such religious services as they have been forced to attend, is it not folly to maintain such a system, folly from the point of view of the college authorities themselves?

If college officers who uphold such restrictions could be convinced that thereby they defeat their own cherished purpose, undoubtedly they would make such a change as has been made at Harvard. So long as they shall believe that compulsion tends to the religious improvement of students who need it compulsion will be retained."