Prayers for the Senate

On the stroke of noon one day this week, Vice President Alben Barkley stepped into the Senate Chamber. Beside him walked an old friend: lean, bush-browed Dr. Frederick Brown Harris, 65. The Vice President took his place and called the Senate to order; standing in the rostrum, Dr. Harris began to pray.

Methodist Harris, elected Chaplain of the U.S. Senate to succeed the late Rev. Peter Marshall, who died last fortnight (TIME, Feb. 7), was back at an old post. From 1942 to 1947 he had served as Senate Chaplain, until Peter Marshall's appointment by a Republican Senate. Many of Washington's leading politicos, especially in Democratic ranks, are his intimate friends; his study bookcases are lined with photographs of a variety of celebrities, from Winston Churchill to Cinemactress Marsha Hunt.

The tensest Senate hour Dr. Harris can recall is the time in 1944 when Senator ("Dear Alben") Barkley broke with Roosevelt. His most anxious time of Senate prayer: Dday, when the Senate stood silent for a few moments, then repeated after him the 23rd Psalm.

To earn his $2,520 a year, Chaplain Harris must turn up at each meeting of the Senate; custom dictates a different prayer each day. In olden days the Senate asked less of its chaplain: only legislative days were opened with prayer. But in 1939 the Senators decided that they should make a plea for divine guidance every time they met. Dr. Harris does not let his duties on Capitol Hill interfere with his regular work at Foundry Methodist Church, where next fall he will celebrate his 25th anniversary as pastor.

Newly elected Senators will find Chaplain Harris' prayers more formal than Presbyterian Peter Marshall's. Dr. Harris leans toward the literary, with rhetorical embellishments. Sometimes he even prays in verse. Sample:

Our Father God, who stooped so nigh

When love flamed in the Bethlehem sky . . .

Above earth's gloom and hate of men,

Hang in the heavens Thy sign again.

If in the window where we kneel

A flag tells price of nation's weal,

Calm anxious hearts, if blue the star,

God bless and keep the one afar.

O Kindly Light, with love enfold

The weeping hearts whose star is gold. . .

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