Carloads of Prayer

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

In the fifteenth century of praying society by 11,000 Germans, known as St. Ursula's Schifflein, received by special contract from the Pope 6455 Masses, 3500 psalters, 200,000 Rosaries, 200,000 Te Deums, 1600 Glorias in Excelsis, and 630 times 11,000 Paternosters and Ave Marias,--an to be performed in Rome for the spiritual benefits of the members of the brotherhood in Germany.

In the twentieth century we consider all this prayer mongery ridiculous. And that pious souls from the thirteen colleges in the Middle west should send solemn prayers to "Godless Harvard" in carload consignments, in bales and bundles, like free sample packages of Post Toasties, seems to me scarcely less so.

That the members of these colleges should get down on their knees each day in prayer for "Godless Harvard" I resent as a piece of unwarrantable impudence,--of sanctimonious smugness,--of orthodox whipper-snappery. To me their prayers sound strangely like the prayers of that Pharisee, who "went up into the temple to pray" and stood, saying "God, I thank the I am not as other men are." W. J. NICHOLS '26