Morning journal and courier., 1892-06-30
Religion at Yale.

special study of the matter, on the extent
to which, from the point of view of the
great body of students, the old religion
for which the Divinity school aud Dwight
hall stand has ceased to have any power,
while the new religion SO widely known in
literature, and to the press and the world
of science, has not yet given a hint of tax
ing its place.
A finger ominously pointing to what is
fast becoming the largest of Yale facts.
and the most significant, is the rule of to-
tai exclusion of religion, total observance
of attention to it, and total Indifference to
it, under which the Sheffield Scientific
school is carried on. The time is close at
hand when the Sheffield, the law and med
ical schools, and the graduate students,
all on the same unchurohed basis, will out
weigh in numbers, and in every element
of university significance, the at present
allied academic and divinity departments.
On its weightier side the university is thus
already non-religious, ip spite of the fact
that no small number of its representa-
tives in science, medicine, law and gradu-
ate instruction are actively interested in
religion as individuals.
The academic department is tethered to
the Divinity school by compulsory prayers
every morning. and compulsory chapel at
tendance every Sunday, without any res-
son whatever for it, except tradition. un-
less the liberty enjoyed by Sheffield stu
dents Is in violation of the reason of the
matter. And while reason msnifestly sug-
gests that the Sheffield rule of nothing at
all is a very great and very grave mistake,
it would seem that even tradition must be
blind as a bat not to see that compulsion
secures no prayers, and no chapel attend
ance, in the smallest degree beneficial, If
indeed it does not do, as there is reason to
fear, very great harm. A university of
the age, development, immense intellectu-
al and moral resourceB, and profound hold
upon sincere religion, of Yale, has no
need to cut such a figure as the state of
things now creates, compulsory ceremoni-
alism on tine old academic ground in fla
grant contrast with unfenced seculsrism
on the grandly expanding new scientific
ground.
The inevitable inquiry of the critical
observer of the state of things at Yale
cannot fail to be, Why is there no ade-
quste development yet of a method in re-
1igion which can throw away the aid, ths
doubtful, nay the damaging, aid of com
pulsien, and can occupy the new scientific
ground as fully as the old academic
groundi That there is no such develop
ment may be seen by any competent critic
who will take note, as l have especially
done for two years, of the work done in
the college pulpit. That the business is
on its last legs is suggested by the fact
that there is no regular preacher TO the
pends on supplies, hardly any of which
do more than fill a gap, and most of which
are singularly deficient In power to inter
est the great body of the students.
The sermon of President Dwight last
Sunday morning was of uncommon excel
lence on the old lines, and notably so
from its revelation of q strong hearted
and warm hearted man behind it. 1t was
the same a year ago, when the discourse
was less pointed and strong than this year.
But such q sef-revelation requires q great
effort of the president, and is not made,
to anything like the same extent, In his
ordinary monthly discourses on commun-
ion days and in his common conduct of re-
ligious exercises. The fatal note of the
tradition of religion Is commonplace be-
come perfunctory. Nothing is more char
acteristic of this commonplace in Presi-
dent Dwight's use of it than the limitation
of its view to the inner circle of the
church, leaving wholly out of view the
great majority of student hearers. In the
large goodness of his own heart President
Dwight may doubtless embrace all his
charge in one bond of love, but this is not
= of fhat ha & -
to stand for, nor of the church whose
communion he administers, nor of the
creed taught in the Divinity school; nor
does it answer to the facts of the student
world, less than q third of whom are
touched, or even pointed at, where every
thought and word and feeling seems to
have in view only a circle of church MEM
bers, about whom no anxiety need be felt,
and to whom no special instruction need
be given. As a matter of fact, on any
theory whatever of the nature of religion,
wo.thirds of the students compelled to
attend chapel service are not settled pie
lists, do not understand or care for the
commonplaces Of pietism, and are greatly
wronged If these are given them, in a
purely perfunctory way, in plaee of the
practical instruction which they need, and
the appeals to their interest which can
alone do them good.
A recent event in the college, the miser-
able killing of Rustin, might be thought
| to call for notice of some sort from the
college pulpit, and the more as it was one
| incident in q state of things full of peril
| to the university. 1t is no secret through
out the college world that many of the
| student societies are nurseries of drunk
enness, and that the vulgar brutalism of
| mutations, theater rows and other out
breaks comes largely in connection with
unseemly drinking. I do not speak as
| opposed to secret societies, or as an advo-
| cate of prohibition, but only as q believer
in decency and an advocate of gentleman
| ly conduct. On the Sunday following
Rustin's death went to the chapel to hear
what word of instruction, of warning, of
earnest menace to vice, would fall from
the college preacher. The pulpit was oc-
| cupied by President Dwight, who took
| part in the service, without an allusion
| that might not have been made in an ordi-
nary prayer meeting, and by one of the
| Divinity school professors, who preached
a sermon as remote from the needs of the
hour as the days of Jacob are remote from
our days. His subject took up the story
| of Jacob at the point where he was on the
road with his two wives, and his two hand.
maid wives, and four broods of children,
and immense substance in focks and
herds. The story of such four-fold mar.
riage and many fold amassing of Bedouin
wealth is at best doubtful background
for any modern lesson of religion no,
frankly Mormon, and with lesson drawn
from the narrative of Jacobs wrestling
with a man who, to get the better of him,
touched the hollow of his thigh in the
sinew of the hip 80 that it was strained
there was nothing very near to religion fol
to-day. The points made by the preacher
were ancient history of no Significance
now, and not single woId touched col
lege and present interest.
In another instance about Q year sincs