Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/156

128 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO In this immediate connection the following letter to Dr. More- house from Mr. Gates is most interesting. It is dated February 3, 1891: I am acquainted in detail with all the facts out of which grew Dr. Harper's letter on doctrine to Mr. Rockefeller, and also all the events growing out of that letter. I believed and still believe the letter to have been needless. I am acquainted with Harper's views. He is really a mediator between the Higher Criticism and Orthodoxy, and as such, I think, is destined, if he continues to maintain his tact and discretion, to work an important service to Christianity. His recent lectures here [Chicago] have given great satisfaction to such men as Goodspeed and Northrup and others of the ministry. Not that they accept all his views, without further investigation, or perhaps qualification, but that he has the right method of inquiry, and his public performances are calculated to reassure and do good and not harm. He is not destructive but constructive in his purposes and appears at all times as a rescuer and champion of all that is useful in the Old Testament and of its inspiration as a whole. He, we think, is morbid on the question of his own supposed heresy. The letter of Dr. Morehouse cleared the air. Agreeing fully with the advice of the Chicago men it finally convinced Dr. Harper. It lifted him out of his morbidness. No more evidences of it appeared. He no longer delayed taking the preliminary steps toward the acceptance of the presidency. On February 5, the day after he received the letter, he wrote to Mr. Rockefeller: I have today sent my resignation as professor in Yale University to Presi- dent Dwight. Two days later he answered Dr. Morehouse: The four points are strong and you will allow me to say, adroitly put. My conscience, however, is free. I have told "the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." I am ready to go to Chicago; in fact my resignation is now in the hands of President Dwight, and at such time as it may seem best I shall place my acceptance in the hands of the Chicago Board. I do so, however, with the understanding that the platform is broad and free; that everybody has known beforehand my position and my situation, and that I am free to do in the way of teaching what, under all the circumstances, seems to me wise. I thank you for the interest you have taken in the matter, and the con- ference you have had with Mr. Rockefeller. I think that you and he together have put the thing in a wonderfully fine shape for all concerned. You do not commit yourselves, nor do you tie me up too closely. Let us have faifli that the new plan is to have great success and let us push on.