Mornings in the College Chapel

SHORT ADDRESSES TO YOUNG MEN ON PERSONAL RELIGION BY FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY, PLUMMER PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN MORALS IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

Copyright, 1896,

By FRANCIS G. PEABODY.

All rights reserved.

TO

MY BELOVED AND REVERED COLLEAGUES

THE PREACHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY

AND TO THE SACRED MEMORY OF

PHILLIPS BROOKS

OF THE FIRST STAFF OF PREACHERS

WHO BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH AMONG US

IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF

HAPPY ASSOCIATION IN THE SERVICE OF

CHRIST AND THE CHURCH

In the conduct of morning prayers at Harvard University, the Preachers to the University usually say a few plain words to interpret or enforce the Bible lesson which has been read. The entire service is but fifteen minutes long, so that this little address must occupy not more than two or three minutes, and can at the best indicate only a single wholesome thought with which a young man may begin his day. It has been suggested to me that some of these informal and brief addresses, if printed, may continue to be of interest to those who heard them, or may perhaps be of use to other young people in like conditions of life; and I have therefore tried to recall some of these mornings in the College Chapel.

It is now ten years since it was determined that religion in our University should be regarded no longer as a part of College discipline, but as a natural and rational opportunity offering itself to the life of youth. It was a momentous transition, undertaken with the profoundest sense of its seriousness and significance. It was an act of faith, -- of faith in religion and of faith in young men. The University announced the belief that religion, rationally presented, will always have for healthy-minded young men a commanding interest. This faith has been abundantly justified. There has become familiar among us, through the devotion of successive staffs of Preachers, a clearer sense of the simplicity and reality of religion, which, for many young men, has enriched the meaning of University life. No one who has had the slightest part in administering such a work can sum up its present issues without feeling on the one hand a deep sense of personal insufficiency, and on the other hand a large and solemn hope.

I have indicated such sources of suggestion for these addresses as I noted at the time of their delivery, but it may well be that some such indebtedness remains, against my will, unacknowledged.

CAMBRIDGE, October, 1896.

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