An Attack on Harvard.

Under the title, "The Harvard experiment, especially the religious failure," Edward C. Towne of Cambridge, publishes in the New York Tribune a severe attack upon the state of religious thought at Harvard. The following extracts will show the tone of the article :

"For better or for worse," says Mr. Towne, "the permanent influence at Harvard are those of liberty and learning, in the largest sense, and Unitarianism has specially represented these influences in the religious world. If Unitarianism had proved a great success, Harvard would have been the centre and seat of that success. The state of religion at Harvard is due to the failure of Unitarianism. The outcome of Unitarianism and of modernism generally at Harvard, as it may be seen by several distinct signs, is one of critical scepticism and religious indifferentism or unbelief, which leaves religion in a state of confusion, uncertainty and suspense, which means practical failure. In at least three impotant publications representing Harvard teaching, the ground is taken that Christ was not superior to Jewish error in his time. If this were true, there would be no help for it. The supreme word on the Harvard College seal, Veritas, is the supreme word of all real religion. But the opinion that truth did not find a Master in Christ wholly superior to all Jewish error is solely the result of not sifting the sources of our knowledge of Christ. Hesitating to handle the Bible as boldly as Christ himself did, and to clear away from his unique figure the mass of erroneous accretions of all sorts which inferior disciples are responsible for Unitarians in both England and America are in the absurd position of sacrificing Cnrist to Paul and Matthew."

Mr. Towne goes on to instance Dr. Royce's "Religious Aspect of Philosophy" as an illustration of this superficiality at Harvard. After quoting form Dr. Royce, he says:

"Dr. Royce abounds in philosophle smartness of this sort, and he has the junior modern's faith in no faith. * * * * Practically, the whole book is one of fresh, effective scepticism, for the sake of a speculative notion which will mean next to nothing to average minds, leaving the result of the book purely sceptical, and to minds inclined to fasten on the notion will mean that actions are indifferent, however wrong because they are all in the Infinite Thought. If this is Harvard teaching as to the bases of conduct and faith,' it means that modern scepticism, the pseudo-science of agnostic doubt, is in the ascendant, and that Harvard has the greatest problem of her history to solve, how to reconcile in a large and real sense the spirit of true science and the spirit of real religion."