RELIGION AT HARVARD.

IT has been remarked-by a graduate of Wesleyan and a schoolmaster-that Harvard men are distinguished by a materialistic and atheistic look. Like an iceberg, they can be discovered at a great distance by the chill that floats around and with them; for, after entering college, the religious feelings of most are quickly congealed into solid infidelity by the influence of the Cambridge school of Theology.

Against this charge it is vain for us to plead that there is no Cambridge school of Theology; that our instructors differ hardly more in the matter of their instruction than in their religious views (how then can there be an unbalanced effort to lead us from the strait way?); that Sears and Peabody were reared at Cambridge equally with Abbot, and now exert a more decided influence; that the average student bothers himself very little with doctrinal disputation, is careless concerning the opinions of Emerson and Hale, and graduates, as his fathers did before him, supposing that he believes the dogmas of the sect in which he was born; that it is as impossible to express by a single word or sentence the religious characteristics of all the members of a great college as of all the people of Massachusetts; that there are men enough here, from most denominations, who live lives consistent with their principles, to give character to an ordinary sectarian "University"; that not a few leave college, as they entered it, with a firm belief in total depravity and the atonement;-must we not in candor admit that those who escape are exceptions to the rule, resist the tendency of the place? Such sophistry needs merely concise statement to be exposed in hideous nakedness.

Those of us who think must therefore admit that Harvard leans towards infidelity. The Professors are much to blame for this. True, they do not directly inculcate bad principles. They are too wily to do that. They prefer to accomplish their end, in a safer and surer way, by the subtle teaching of manners and acts. Among the more abandoned students many a conspiracy is hatched; in cold blood they often settle on the best plan of working the religious ruin of some fellow-student, and ruthlessly execute it. All of us are familiar with the method of a young man's ruin. We know the lad who entered college a member of one of the strictest churches, well fortified by parental and pastoral advice. For a time all went well with him, and, having talent, he grew in culture and influence. At last, however, his strength failed, and he went down, carrying with him a host of less able men,-

"Thundering he fell, and loud his armor rang."

Such cases are common in every class, and are a sad commentary upon the culture of this institution. In fact, this is the present state of things, that no one but a man of iron will can hope to come here and resist the multitude of influences that quickly shall be set to work to lead him astray.

Perhaps, however, we may gain some consolation by reflecting that only half the assertion of the Wesleyan schoolmaster is well founded. Materialistic the students certainly are. But atheistic:-are they not rather idolaters; their own persons being the idols of the being whom they adore, and whose characteristics one may learn from the peculiarities of their worship? His shoulders are broad and his chest deep from much practice with the oar upon the placid Elysian streams; his eyes are quick and sure of sight, for he is skilled in foiling the adroit pitcher of the Olympian nine; his vest is spangled with charms and seals; his nails are pink with celestial henna; his cheeks flushed with ambrosia. Surely our young men are not atheists

But, bad as we are, we are not much worse than our brethren of the other great college, at New Haven. To be sure they are more punctilious,-do they not "retire" when we "go to bed"?-but this is a trifling matter. Here, then, are more Unitarians, there more Congregationalists; both parties are what they are rather from education and prejudice than from rational understanding and acceptance of doctrine. What choice, therefore, is there between them? The schoolmaster distinguished us from them by saying that while we have the look materialistic, they have the look of "gentlemen rowdies." 'T is a rude expression, and I would not use it myself; but it shows the opinion of our Wesleyan friend to have been the same as mine, that Harvard is not much worse than Yale; while we are deficient in faith, they are deficient in works.

Therefore, parents of promising sons! who hope to see your boys developed by the wide and exhaustive culture of Harvard or Yale, beware that you do not offer them this apple of knowledge, for the death-penalty is incurred by him who partakes thereof; choose you rather the quarries of Middletown, or the hills and trout-brooks of Williamstown, where the shadow of doubt has not yet fallen, and the infidel lifts not up his voice.

I. I. S.