The collection of brief addresses made at morning prayers in Harvard University, and published in 1897 under the title, "Mornings in the College Chapel," has found so many sympathetic readers that I venture to supplement it with a collection of afternoon talks. The Thursday afternoon Vesper Service with us is of a slightly different character from our morning worship. It depends much upon the College Choir, and the delightful singing of these boys and men is a most refining and elevating influence. It is open to the public, and the pleasant tradition has come to prevail among our students of using Thursday afternoon for receiving their friends, showing them the sights of the University, and attending with them the Chapel service. The preacher has at this service a little more time at his command; and instead of a three-minute address such as Mornings in the College Chapel" represents, he may speak for about ten minutes. He is addressing also a less academic congregation than at morning prayers; and what he says may be of more general and human interest. It is a light-hearted company which throngs into our Chapel each week, coming with their sons, their brothers, and their student 66 friends, as a part of an afternoon's visit to the University; yet no one who has had the privilege of speaking to this great assemblage can have failed to feel the serious-minded sympathy which marks these short half-hours, or can recall them without new confidence in the fundamental impulses of youth. I bring together, therefore, a few of these Vesper addresses, partly in the hope that they may be useful as the "Mornings in the College Chapel" seems to have been in homes and schools where very short sermons are sometimes read; and partly in the hope that those who have worshipped with us from year to year may like to recall their afternoons in the College Chapel. vi Afternoons in the College Chapel I THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT Come ye yourselves apart. . . and rest awhile. For there were many coming and going. — Mark vi. 31. NE of the most impressive sermons of modern times is that of Dr. Martineau on what he calls "The Tides of the Spirit." It is addressed to people as they come to church from week to week, occasionally, intermittently, often apologetically, as if their lives ought not to be so varied in interest, but should be uninterruptedly in the mood of prayer. The sermon lays down the principle that this change of attention from work to worship, from gay to grave, is not to be apologized for, as though it were a sign of weakness, but is in line with the whole |