University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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ttWhoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest. Cannot confound nor doubt him nor deny. Yea, with one voice, Oh World, if thou deniest, Stand thou on that side for on this side am 13' President Harperls was a pronouncedly religious nature. Could he at this hour speak down through our air and find a way to our dull understandings, he would most earnestly commend to us faith in God as the sole high inspiration that a child of earth can have. He would assure us, ti herein lay the secret and spring of all I wroughtf, No providence of God is more inscrutable than the cutting short of a benignly active life at the zenith of its powers; yet sometimes a blessed light shines in upon the mystery of even such an event. A life may be full and rich irrespective of its length. This was never better illustrated than by the brief career just ended. One's years form a satisfactory tally, not because of their number, but in proportion as he who lives them ignores and forgets self and lays hold of the million chances in the way of every earnest soul to help on the cause of good, widen the skirts of light and make the realm of darkness narrower. Here, our President would say could he speak to us now, here you have no continuing city or abiding place, but precisely here you have infinite opening for all manner of loving service in imitation of Him who lived and died for men. l-lis constant faith explains as nothing else can our herots unparalled activity begun in youth and kept up incessant to the last, cheating death of his own; and also that quenchless enthusiasm marking all his work, which inspired friends, confuted opponents, warmed the lethargic, and forced anthropologists to note him as a new type of man. These traits did not arise from President Harper's Titan physique, his strong native good humor and bent toward optimism. The secular man in him, superior as it was, would never have produced them. They were the manifestations of his unique religious self-hood. To the same origin we must trace the great man,s simplicity. I knew him when he was a young teacher, with no fame and a slender income. I have known him ever since. And I must testify that he has in no essential of conduct Kor bearing ever changed. Promotion, renown, power, applause, victory did not make him vain. Polite, hearty, friendly, sympathetic, modest, retiring so far as his own personality and prerogatives were concernedethese were his characteristics at twenty and they remained unmodified at torty-nine. He loved domesticity, privacy, reflection, study, teaching, the simple and quiet life. Publicity, to be interviewed, photographed, advertised, gaped after by crowdS, was not to his taste. He could endure these infelicities because he had schooled himself to put up with whatever distasteful things his life-plan brought in his way. But he never liked them; and as years witnessed the multiplication of them, he sighedetew knew how deep the desire-for release. With joy unutterable would he many a time, but for a sense of duty not to do so, have thrown up his public commission for the chance to live again among his children. his pupils and his books, as in his youthful years. 24-

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mvmnrial Ahhrpaa By E. Benjamin Andrews F THERE WAS ANY FITNESS in the request that I should be one of the speakers at these obsequies, it lay in the circumstance that at three important moments in the life of our departed leader it was my privilege to stand as near to him as any man stood. One of these was when, in his very young manhood, he faced the question of questions that comes to every ingenuous spirit, whether to try and live for himself or guide his life with a View to the divine will and the worlds good. Mr. Harper settled that issue in a noble way. He accepted joyfully the law of service to God and man, with the creed naturally accompanying that law a Christ, the Church, the primacy of the spiritual, and the endurance of our immaterial part after bodily death. From that creed he never swerved in any iota. l-lis thought on immortality in his last days was but a more intense form of the reflection to which he had always been accustomed. Another decisive moment in Mr. Harperis life occured when he was forced to ask whether he could be unequivocally a Christian and yet accept the critical attitude toward the Biblical oracles, studying their meaning and contents without preconceptions, as in the case bf any other literature, At that time, all know, most church standardabearers and theological leaders held to the traditional view of scripture origins and to dogmatic methods in general. Our friend deeply reviewed this problem, and, at risk of failure in the lifeecareer he had chosen espoused, with modesty, moderation and reverence, yet with unflinching positiveness, the critical point of view. Men have rarely acted with greater moral courage or with happier results, Dr. Harper's conclusion being decisive for a multitude of his disciples. Mr. Harper stood a third time in the valley of decision when called to determine the policy of this University touching religion, to decide whether or not it could be positively devout in its attitude and yet boldly face the entire, unclimrned and unretracted light of science, philosophy and history-eall that menis deepest researches had revealed or could ever reveal. Many thought such a combination impossible, some of these speaking in the supposed interest of religion, others in that of Soi-dz'sam science. Our brother believed the friendly yoking of these two master-interests feasible; and forthwith, in characteristic manner, resolved to attempt it. It was, everything considered, the boldest experiment ever made in the premises. Success crowned it and the happy result of the coronation appears in the conduct of the University today, where true religion is positively honored, while the investigation of all questions is nevertheless perfectly free, and professors are employed solely because of their character and learning, regardless of creed. These episodes revealed the manis devout spiritndeep, permanent, regnant. He could not have acted otherwise. 23

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This inability of fame to make good the loss of domestic joys another has voiced thus: ttl came into the city and none knew me, None came forth, none shouted He is here, ' Nor a hand with laurel would bestrew me All the way by which I drew anear, Night my banner, and my herald, Fear. But I knew where one so long had waited In the low chamber by the stairwayls height, Trembling lest my foot should be belated, Singing, sighing for the long hours' flight Toward the moment of our dear delight. I came into the city and you hailed me Savior, and again your Chosen lord, Not one guessing what it was that failed me, While, along the streets, as they adored, Thousands, thousands shouted in accoyd, But through all the joy I knew, l only, How the Refuge of my heart lay dead and cold, Silent of its music, and how lonely! Never, though you crown me with your gold, Shall I find that little chamber as of old. Some, contemplating Dr. Harper's vast plans and towering ambitions for his University? its proud and numerous edifices with others yet more magnificent to come, and the stupendous endowments realized and reached for, imagined that the master builder was moved by pride, by lust for fame. It was an entire error. Dr. Harper wished to react an immense and perfectly equipped University because he believedeand he was right-that the country: civilization and humanity need such. Rationai, tar- sighted philanthropy was at work, not pride at all, save of the sort that is legitimate necessary to all high enterprise. We have been told of the very remarkable Confidence Mr. Harper had in his own reasonings and plans, of his will, so firm and hard to change. But he was not stubborn or opinionated. He could side-step or retreat as well as advance and he often did both. Witness, too, his willingness, his desire to hear all sides, all opinions, that he might not err. These are not the ways of a self willed man. If he strongly believed in the essence of his plans he was like the prophets whom he loved and expounded so well. He had drunk of their spirit. They worked and spoke for God out of a sense of his presence in themy and so did he.