Seniors Hear Pusey Give Baccalaureate

"The fruits of intellect unsupported by faith are not necessarily richer life but more often superciliousness, fastidiousness, or even lacklustre and despair," President Pusey told the Class of 1957 yesterday.

Speaking at the traditional Baccalaureate Service in Memorial Church, Pusey said that the so-called religious revival at the University rested "on a renewed sense that man is indeed deeper than method."

"What has been carelessly referred to at Harvard as a 'religious revival' is obviously no such thing," Pusey stated. He said it was only one manifestation of a broad movement which stems from discontent with what has come to seem "exclusive, arid, and uncompromising, secular approach to life."

The President pointed to the "amazing outburst of creative activity" during the Class of 1957's years at University as evidence of renewed interest in the humanities. "This is something which less, we may assume, in libraries and will surely make these years memorable, in music, in the theatre, in art--and not less, we may assume, in libraries and laboratories," Pusey stated.

Notorious Revivalists

He stated that the religious manifestations of the movement had achieved a "certain notoriety" and cautioned that the people who are speaking for religion in universities today should not be understood as speaking for a particular church.

"The new advocates of religion seem to be saying that it is time to cease ignoring the "indestructible and inalienable minimum of faith which humanity cannot give up because it is necessary for life," Pusey said.

He emphasized that the new interest in religion is not against methodical thinking, but "it will not be completely limited or held back by methodical thinking when such limitation seems to mean turning away from the richness of experience and the fullness of life."

Faith Is Active

Pusey also attributed the new interest in religion with a concern for getting over the "entirely unacceptable notion that faith is a matter of indifference." He affirmed that faith is "something given, not won" and called for inquiry into what it is, a study of its manifestations in history and religious literature, and a quest for its "life-giving influence."

He further said that the religious renaissance was by no means peculiar to Harvard, but a general reassertion of the premise with which the American university began, "that because a univer- sity is nonsectarian, it need not--indeed some of us believe it cannot to its peril--go further and eschew religion altogether."

What men are trying to do, Pusey asserted, is "not again to set up something which will be restrictive, but rather to refuse to be restricted by a secular orthodoxy...." He admitted that he hoped the new " intellectual interest in the role of faith would not stop at this point ...., but lead to a questing about the object of faith in an effort to give meaning and content to the word."

Commenting on the result of Harvard education, the President said that it was often to bring students to a "curious blend of skepticism and excited caring." He suggested that the reticence "is not unrelated to whatever it is that causes many Harvard men--it seems to be, unnecessarily-- to hold back from anticipation in organized religious life.

Pusey said that the reticence to which he referred was caused by "increased insight" and a "healthy scorn of cant." But he warned that although "it is easy to achieve emancipation from false and little faiths," it "is quite another thing." to come to a large and life-giving faith."

Pusey began his address by pointing out the difficulty in making a traditional Baccalaureate sermon "because there has been no commonly understood or universally accepted vocabulary in which such an address can be made.