Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/26

 Plainly, then, to go about the building of another, independent house of worship for the undergraduates would be a mere duplication of effort and a sinful extravagance. Since happily the means of grace were already thus free for all, without money and without price, let the mammon of unrighteousness, which was none too plentiful at best, be expended on objects more difficult of attainment.

For a hundred years, therefore, Harvard remained content without the symbolic focus and crowning glory of an English college. Theologically, nothing of the sort was desired; practically, it was not needed. But as the institution increased in size and reputation, as the stringency of the old dogma began to abate, as the standards of living became less austere, and as travellers brought back accounts of the older Cambridge and its chapels,—the spiring elegance of King’s, or the solemn grandeur of Emanuel,—the more broad-minded and cultivated portion of the community began to ask why a “collegiate church” should not also adorn the banks of the Charles.

To these semi-mundane considerations was added the tremendous emotional stimulus of the first visit of Whitefield. He swept through Cambridge like an apocalyptic whirlwind, fanning into fresh flame the dying embers of the old religious fervor. His unfavorable com-