THE POWERLESSNESS OF COMPULSORY PRAYERS.

EDITORS DAILY CRIMSON. - On or about the 19th day of last October my umbrella left Memorial shortly before I did. As my name was profusely carved on the handle, I soon gave up the theory of temporary aberration, and concluded that umbrella slept with its fathers. Last Saturday that identical umbrella was delivered at my room express charges prepaid. With difficulty recovering from my astonishment, I sought for some explanation of this remarkable circumstance. There was only my name written on a piece of white paper, and the endorsement "Paid 50c.' At last I noticed a newspaper slip pasted inside the white paper. It was a piece of a Sunday Herald, headed "President Eliot's Essay on Religion." Here was, without doubt, the cause of this return to righteousness.

Now mark you. Allowing the unknown penitent three cuts per week, since the 19th of October he had been exposed to all the batteries of compulsory religion forty-three times. Forty-three times had the boy-choir opened on him with the theme of retribution. Forty-three times had the preacher taught him that the way of the transgressor is hard. Praise, prayer, benediction, - 43 combined failures to accomplish a moral reformation. But the Sunday Herald softened his hard heart.

What answer can the overseers make to save from ridicule their boasted system of compulsory morality?

E. B. H.