The Voluntary Prayer System.

In a recent editorial in the Boston Advertiser upon the system of voluntary attendance at religious services, the writer, after giving a brief history of the experiment at Harvard and after quoting testimony given by Professor Peabody in the Monthly and by Rev. D. N. Beach in the June Andover Review, showing the full success of the experiment, adds this conclusion: "The testimony of these exceptionally competent witnesses confirms the evidence which comes from many other sources, and it is to this effect. The attendance, although voluntary, has been good. The vesper services have been thronged. There never was more religious life and activity at Harvard than to-day. The tone of morals is exceptionally healthful. Public sentiment in college is on the side of sincere and manly piety. The old practice of appointing a single preacher and compelling the students to hear him had to be given up at Harvard, as it will sooner or later have to be at Yale and every other real university." The sober and appreciative spirit manifested in this editorial is very refreshing when compared with the frivolous and sensational articles which too often find their way into the public prints of Boston.