SPERRY SEES WORLD TURNING TO CHURCH IN TIME OF WAR

Analysizing the position of religion in the United States and in the occupied countries of Europe, Dean Willard L. Sperry, chairman of the Board of Preachers for the Harvard Memorial Church in his annual report to President James B. Conant, stated that he expects to see "some quiet but rather widespread revival of 'personal religion,' as a concern for 'things that are unseen and eternal.'"

"The Christianity of much of Europe has been driven into the catacombs. That of lands like our own, still free, tends to become more intimate and inward," he declared. "But all such movements of retreat inward from a too-difficult outer world bring with them an attendant peril--a willingness to divorce religion from the fabric of culture and the course of history, leaving the ordering of civilization as a whole in the charge of candidly secular forces."

Aid to Youth

Dean Sperry stressed that "it is the office of the Church to aid the youth of the country, encourage them in their serious purposes, and to give them such concrete guidance as may be had, toward the kind of a world they should hope to help fashion after the war."

Although the war may bring lean years to the Memorial Church, Dean Sperry reported 6,000 more people in attendance at Church services this year than last, and looked to the Church "to keep the mind of the community religiously in touch with the problems of the time."

No Political Weapon

According to his opinion, there is less inclination to use the church as a political and military weapon, and more of a tacit willingness to let it cultivate "those concerns which Christendom has tended to concede it as its distinctive bailiwick. Such a task would seem to be its most effective contribution to national morale." However, Dean Sperry warned of the danger of divorcing religion from the fabric of culture and the course of history, thereby leaving the ordering of civilization to secular forces.

Rapid conversion from a peace-time charitable organization to the center of war-time service at Harvard University has been the outstanding development of the 40-year-old memorial association to Bishop Brooks in Harvard Yard, Dean Sperry, as chairman of the Phillips Brooks House Association Committee, declares in his annual report.

WSC Work

Spear-heading the undergraduates activity is the War Service Committee which has been responsible for recruiting nearly 500 Air Raid Precaution officers, one-hundred volunteer hospital orderlies, sending several thousand students to the Red Cross Blood Center and selling $6,000 in War Bonds and Stamps.