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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sunday Under Three Heads, by Charles Dickens
+(#27 in our series by Charles Dickens)
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+Title: Sunday Under Three Heads
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Release Date: May, 1997  [EBook #922]
+[This file was first posted on May 29, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: May 20, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+
+To The Right Reverend
+THE BISHOP OF LONDON
+
+MY LORD,
+
+You were among the first, some years ago, to expatiate on the
+vicious addiction of the lower classes of society to Sunday
+excursions; and were thus instrumental in calling forth occasional
+demonstrations of those extreme opinions on the subject, which are
+very generally received with derision, if not with contempt.
+
+Your elevated station, my Lord, affords you countless opportunities
+of increasing the comforts and pleasures of the humbler classes of
+society--not by the expenditure of the smallest portion of your
+princely income, but by merely sanctioning with the influence of
+your example, their harmless pastimes, and innocent recreations.
+
+That your Lordship would ever have contemplated Sunday recreations
+with so much horror, if you had been at all acquainted with the
+wants and necessities of the people who indulged in them, I cannot
+imagine possible.  That a Prelate of your elevated rank has the
+faintest conception of the extent of those wants, and the nature of
+those necessities, I do not believe.
+
+For these reasons, I venture to address this little Pamphlet to
+your Lordship's consideration.  I am quite conscious that the
+outlines I have drawn, afford but a very imperfect description of
+the feelings they are intended to illustrate; but I claim for them
+one merit--their truth and freedom from exaggeration.  I may have
+fallen short of the mark, but I have never overshot it:  and while
+I have pointed out what appears to me, to be injustice on the part
+of others, I hope I have carefully abstained from committing it
+myself.
+
+I am,
+My Lord,
+Your Lordship's most obedient,
+Humble Servant,
+TIMOTHY SPARKS.
+June, 1836.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--AS IT IS
+
+
+
+There are few things from which I derive greater pleasure, than
+walking through some of the principal streets of London on a fine
+Sunday, in summer, and watching the cheerful faces of the lively
+groups with which they are thronged.  There is something, to my
+eyes at least, exceedingly pleasing in the general desire evinced
+by the humbler classes of society, to appear neat and clean on this
+their only holiday.  There are many grave old persons, I know, who
+shake their heads with an air of profound wisdom, and tell you that
+poor people dress too well now-a-days; that when they were
+children, folks knew their stations in life better; that you may
+depend upon it, no good will come of this sort of thing in the
+end,--and so forth:  but I fancy I can discern in the fine bonnet
+of the working-man's wife, or the feather-bedizened hat of his
+child, no inconsiderable evidence of good feeling on the part of
+the man himself, and an affectionate desire to expend the few
+shillings he can spare from his week's wages, in improving the
+appearance and adding to the happiness of those who are nearest and
+dearest to him.  This may be a very heinous and unbecoming degree
+of vanity, perhaps, and the money might possibly be applied to
+better uses; it must not be forgotten, however, that it might very
+easily be devoted to worse:  and if two or three faces can be
+rendered happy and contented, by a trifling improvement of outward
+appearance, I cannot help thinking that the object is very cheaply
+purchased, even at the expense of a smart gown, or a gaudy riband.
+There is a great deal of very unnecessary cant about the over-
+dressing of the common people.  There is not a manufacturer or
+tradesman in existence, who would not employ a man who takes a
+reasonable degree of pride in the appearance of himself and those
+about him, in preference to a sullen, slovenly fellow, who works
+doggedly on, regardless of his own clothing and that of his wife
+and children, and seeming to take pleasure or pride in nothing.
+
+The pampered aristocrat, whose life is one continued round of
+licentious pleasures and sensual gratifications; or the gloomy
+enthusiast, who detests the cheerful amusements he can never enjoy,
+and envies the healthy feelings he can never know, and who would
+put down the one and suppress the other, until he made the minds of
+his fellow-beings as besotted and distorted as his own;--neither of
+these men can by possibility form an adequate notion of what Sunday
+really is to those whose lives are spent in sedentary or laborious
+occupations, and who are accustomed to look forward to it through
+their whole existence, as their only day of rest from toil, and
+innocent enjoyment.
+
+The sun that rises over the quiet streets of London on a bright
+Sunday morning, shines till his setting, on gay and happy faces.
+Here and there, so early as six o'clock, a young man and woman in
+their best attire, may be seen hurrying along on their way to the
+house of some acquaintance, who is included in their scheme of
+pleasure for the day; from whence, after stopping to take "a bit of
+breakfast," they sally forth, accompanied by several old people,
+and a whole crowd of young ones, bearing large hand-baskets full of
+provisions, and Belcher handkerchiefs done up in bundles, with the
+neck of a bottle sticking out at the top, and closely-packed apples
+bulging out at the sides,--and away they hurry along the streets
+leading to the steam-packet wharfs, which are already plentifully
+sprinkled with parties bound for the same destination.  Their good
+humour and delight know no bounds--for it is a delightful morning,
+all blue over head, and nothing like a cloud in the whole sky; and
+even the air of the river at London Bridge is something to them,
+shut up as they have been, all the week, in close streets and
+heated rooms.  There are dozens of steamers to all sorts of places-
+-Gravesend, Greenwich, and Richmond; and such numbers of people,
+that when you have once sat down on the deck, it is all but a moral
+impossibility to get up again--to say nothing of walking about,
+which is entirely out of the question.  Away they go, joking and
+laughing, and eating and drinking, and admiring everything they
+see, and pleased with everything they hear, to climb Windmill Hill,
+and catch a glimpse of the rich corn-fields and beautiful orchards
+of Kent; or to stroll among the fine old trees of Greenwich Park,
+and survey the wonders of Shooter's Hill and Lady James's Folly; or
+to glide past the beautiful meadows of Twickenham and Richmond, and
+to gaze with a delight which only people like them can know, on
+every lovely object in the fair prospect around.  Boat follows
+boat, and coach succeeds coach, for the next three hours; but all
+are filled, and all with the same kind of people--neat and clean,
+cheerful and contented.
+
+They reach their places of destination, and the taverns are
+crowded; but there is no drunkenness or brawling, for the class of
+men who commit the enormity of making Sunday excursions, take their
+families with them:  and this in itself would be a check upon them,
+even if they were inclined to dissipation, which they really are
+not.  Boisterous their mirth may be, for they have all the
+excitement of feeling that fresh air and green fields can impart to
+the dwellers in crowded cities, but it is innocent and harmless.
+The glass is circulated, and the joke goes round; but the one is
+free from excess, and the other from offence; and nothing but good
+humour and hilarity prevail.
+
+In streets like Holborn and Tottenham Court Road, which form the
+central market of a large neighbourhood, inhabited by a vast number
+of mechanics and poor people, a few shops are open at an early hour
+of the morning; and a very poor man, with a thin and sickly woman
+by his side, may be seen with their little basket in hand,
+purchasing the scanty quantity of necessaries they can afford,
+which the time at which the man receives his wages, or his having a
+good deal of work to do, or the woman's having been out charing
+till a late hour, prevented their procuring over-night.  The
+coffee-shops too, at which clerks and young men employed in
+counting-houses can procure their breakfasts, are also open.  This
+class comprises, in a place like London, an enormous number of
+people, whose limited means prevent their engaging for their
+lodgings any other apartment than a bedroom, and who have
+consequently no alternative but to take their breakfasts at a
+coffee-shop, or go without it altogether.  All these places,
+however, are quickly closed; and by the time the church bells begin
+to ring, all appearance of traffic has ceased.  And then, what are
+the signs of immorality that meet the eye?  Churches are well
+filled, and Dissenters' chapels are crowded to suffocation.  There
+is no preaching to empty benches, while the drunken and dissolute
+populace run riot in the streets.
+
+Here is a fashionable church, where the service commences at a late
+hour, for the accommodation of such members of the congregation--
+and they are not a few--as may happen to have lingered at the Opera
+far into the morning of the Sabbath; an excellent contrivance for
+poising the balance between God and Mammon, and illustrating the
+ease with which a man's duties to both, may be accommodated and
+adjusted.  How the carriages rattle up, and deposit their richly-
+dressed burdens beneath the lofty portico!  The powdered footmen
+glide along the aisle, place the richly-bound prayer-books on the
+pew desks, slam the doors, and hurry away, leaving the fashionable
+members of the congregation to inspect each other through their
+glasses, and to dazzle and glitter in the eyes of the few shabby
+people in the free seats.  The organ peals forth, the hired singers
+commence a short hymn, and the congregation condescendingly rise,
+stare about them, and converse in whispers.  The clergyman enters
+the reading-desk,--a young man of noble family and elegant
+demeanour, notorious at Cambridge for his knowledge of horse-flesh
+and dancers, and celebrated at Eton for his hopeless stupidity.
+The service commences.  Mark the soft voice in which he reads, and
+the impressive manner in which he applies his white hand, studded
+with brilliants, to his perfumed hair.  Observe the graceful
+emphasis with which he offers up the prayers for the King, the
+Royal Family, and all the Nobility; and the nonchalance with which
+he hurries over the more uncomfortable portions of the service, the
+seventh commandment for instance, with a studied regard for the
+taste and feeling of his auditors, only to be equalled by that
+displayed by the sleek divine who succeeds him, who murmurs, in a
+voice kept down by rich feeding, most comfortable doctrines for
+exactly twelve minutes, and then arrives at the anxiously expected
+'Now to God,' which is the signal for the dismissal of the
+congregation.  The organ is again heard; those who have been asleep
+wake up, and those who have kept awake, smile and seem greatly
+relieved; bows and congratulations are exchanged, the livery
+servants are all bustle and commotion, bang go the steps, up jump
+the footmen, and off rattle the carriages:  the inmates discoursing
+on the dresses of the congregation, and congratulating themselves
+on having set so excellent an example to the community in general,
+and Sunday-pleasurers in particular.
+
+Enter a less orthodox place of religious worship, and observe the
+contrast.  A small close chapel with a white-washed wall, and plain
+deal pews and pulpit, contains a closely-packed congregation, as
+different in dress, as they are opposed in manner, to that we have
+just quitted.  The hymn is sung--not by paid singers, but by the
+whole assembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied
+by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at
+a time, by the clerk.  There is something in the sonorous quavering
+of the harsh voices, in the lank and hollow faces of the men, and
+the sour solemnity of the women, which bespeaks this a strong-hold
+of intolerant zeal and ignorant enthusiasm.  The preacher enters
+the pulpit.  He is a coarse, hard-faced man of forbidding aspect,
+clad in rusty black, and bearing in his hand a small plain Bible
+from which he selects some passage for his text, while the hymn is
+concluding.  The congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed
+into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in
+which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to
+bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity
+not to be described.  He begins his oration in a drawling tone, and
+his hearers listen with silent attention.  He grows warmer as he
+proceeds with his subject, and his gesticulation becomes
+proportionately violent.  He clenches his fists, beats the book
+upon the desk before him, and swings his arms wildly about his
+head.  The congregation murmur their acquiescence in his doctrines:
+and a short groan, occasionally bears testimony to the moving
+nature of his eloquence.  Encouraged by these symptoms of approval,
+and working himself up to a pitch of enthusiasm amounting almost to
+frenzy, he denounces sabbath-breakers with the direst vengeance of
+offended Heaven.  He stretches his body half out of the pulpit,
+thrusts forth his arms with frantic gestures, and blasphemously
+calls upon The Deity to visit with eternal torments, those who turn
+aside from the word, as interpreted and preached by--himself.  A
+low moaning is heard, the women rock their bodies to and fro, and
+wring their hands; the preacher's fervour increases, the
+perspiration starts upon his brow, his face is flushed, and he
+clenches his hands convulsively, as he draws a hideous and
+appalling picture of the horrors preparing for the wicked in a
+future state.  A great excitement is visible among his hearers, a
+scream is heard, and some young girl falls senseless on the floor.
+There is a momentary rustle, but it is only for a moment--all eyes
+are turned towards the preacher.  He pauses, passes his
+handkerchief across his face, and looks complacently round.  His
+voice resumes its natural tone, as with mock humility he offers up
+a thanksgiving for having been successful in his efforts, and
+having been permitted to rescue one sinner from the path of evil.
+He sinks back into his seat, exhausted with the violence of his
+ravings; the girl is removed, a hymn is sung, a petition for some
+measure for securing the better observance of the Sabbath, which
+has been prepared by the good man, is read; and his worshipping
+admirers struggle who shall be the first to sign it.
+
+But the morning service has concluded, and the streets are again
+crowded with people.  Long rows of cleanly-dressed charity
+children, preceded by a portly beadle and a withered schoolmaster,
+are returning to their welcome dinner; and it is evident, from the
+number of men with beer-trays who are running from house to house,
+that no inconsiderable portion of the population are about to take
+theirs at this early hour.  The bakers' shops in the humbler
+suburbs especially, are filled with men, women, and children, each
+anxiously waiting for the Sunday dinner.  Look at the group of
+children who surround that working man who has just emerged from
+the baker's shop at the corner of the street, with the reeking
+dish, in which a diminutive joint of mutton simmers above a vast
+heap of half-browned potatoes.  How the young rogues clap their
+hands, and dance round their father, for very joy at the prospect
+of the feast:  and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of the
+lot, lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into the
+interior of the dish.  They turn up the street, and the chubby-
+faced boy trots on as fast as his little legs will carry him, to
+herald the approach of the dinner to 'Mother' who is standing with
+a baby in her arms on the doorstep, and who seems almost as pleased
+with the whole scene as the children themselves; whereupon 'baby'
+not precisely understanding the importance of the business in hand,
+but clearly perceiving that it is something unusually lively, kicks
+and crows most lustily, to the unspeakable delight of all the
+children and both the parents:  and the dinner is borne into the
+house amidst a shouting of small voices, and jumping of fat legs,
+which would fill Sir Andrew Agnew with astonishment; as well it
+might, seeing that Baronets, generally speaking, eat pretty
+comfortable dinners all the week through, and cannot be expected to
+understand what people feel, who only have a meat dinner on one day
+out of every seven.
+
+The bakings being all duly consigned to their respective owners,
+and the beer-man having gone his rounds, the church bells ring for
+afternoon service, the shops are again closed, and the streets are
+more than ever thronged with people; some who have not been to
+church in the morning, going to it now; others who have been to
+church, going out for a walk; and others--let us admit the full
+measure of their guilt--going for a walk, who have not been to
+church at all.  I am afraid the smart servant of all work, who has
+been loitering at the corner of the square for the last ten
+minutes, is one of the latter class.  She is evidently waiting for
+somebody, and though she may have made up her mind to go to church
+with him one of these mornings, I don't think they have any such
+intention on this particular afternoon.  Here he is, at last.  The
+white trousers, blue coat, and yellow waistcoat--and more
+especially that cock of the hat--indicate, as surely as inanimate
+objects can, that Chalk Farm and not the parish church, is their
+destination.  The girl colours up, and puts out her hand with a
+very awkward affectation of indifference.  He gives it a gallant
+squeeze, and away they walk, arm in arm, the girl just looking back
+towards her 'place' with an air of conscious self-importance, and
+nodding to her fellow-servant who has gone up to the two-pair-of-
+stairs window, to take a full view of 'Mary's young man,' which
+being communicated to William, he takes off his hat to the fellow-
+servant:  a proceeding which affords unmitigated satisfaction to
+all parties, and impels the fellow-servant to inform Miss Emily
+confidentially, in the course of the evening, 'that the young man
+as Mary keeps company with, is one of the most genteelest young men
+as ever she see.'
+
+The two young people who have just crossed the road, and are
+following this happy couple down the street, are a fair specimen of
+another class of Sunday--pleasurers.  There is a dapper smartness,
+struggling through very limited means, about the young man, which
+induces one to set him down at once as a junior clerk to a
+tradesman or attorney.  The girl no one could possibly mistake.
+You may tell a young woman in the employment of a large dress-
+maker, at any time, by a certain neatness of cheap finery and
+humble following of fashion, which pervade her whole attire; but
+unfortunately there are other tokens not to be misunderstood--the
+pale face with its hectic bloom, the slight distortion of form
+which no artifice of dress can wholly conceal, the unhealthy stoop,
+and the short cough--the effects of hard work and close application
+to a sedentary employment, upon a tender frame.  They turn towards
+the fields.  The girl's countenance brightens, and an unwonted glow
+rises in her face.  They are going to Hampstead or Highgate, to
+spend their holiday afternoon in some place where they can see the
+sky, the fields, and trees, and breathe for an hour or two the pure
+air, which so seldom plays upon that poor girl's form, or
+exhilarates her spirits.
+
+I would to God, that the iron-hearted man who would deprive such
+people as these of their only pleasures, could feel the sinking of
+heart and soul, the wasting exhaustion of mind and body, the utter
+prostration of present strength and future hope, attendant upon
+that incessant toil which lasts from day to day, and from month to
+month; that toil which is too often protracted until the silence of
+midnight, and resumed with the first stir of morning.  How
+marvellously would his ardent zeal for other men's souls, diminish
+after a short probation, and how enlightened and comprehensive
+would his views of the real object and meaning of the institution
+of the Sabbath become!
+
+The afternoon is far advanced--the parks and public drives are
+crowded.  Carriages, gigs, phaetons, stanhopes, and vehicles of
+every description, glide smoothly on.  The promenades are filled
+with loungers on foot, and the road is thronged with loungers on
+horseback.  Persons of every class are crowded together, here, in
+one dense mass.  The plebeian, who takes his pleasure on no day but
+Sunday, jostles the patrician, who takes his, from year's end to
+year's end.  You look in vain for any outward signs of profligacy
+or debauchery.  You see nothing before you but a vast number of
+people, the denizens of a large and crowded city, in the needful
+and rational enjoyment of air and exercise.
+
+It grows dusk.  The roads leading from the different places of
+suburban resort, are crowded with people on their return home, and
+the sound of merry voices rings through the gradually darkening
+fields.  The evening is hot and sultry.  The rich man throws open
+the sashes of his spacious dining-room, and quaffs his iced wine in
+splendid luxury.  The poor man, who has no room to take his meals
+in, but the close apartment to which he and his family have been
+confined throughout the week, sits in the tea-garden of some famous
+tavern, and drinks his beer in content and comfort.  The fields and
+roads are gradually deserted, the crowd once more pour into the
+streets, and disperse to their several homes; and by midnight all
+is silent and quiet, save where a few stragglers linger beneath the
+window of some great man's house, to listen to the strains of music
+from within:  or stop to gaze upon the splendid carriages which are
+waiting to convey the guests from the dinner-party of an Earl.
+
+There is a darker side to this picture, on which, so far from its
+being any part of my purpose to conceal it, I wish to lay
+particular stress.  In some parts of London, and in many of the
+manufacturing towns of England, drunkenness and profligacy in their
+most disgusting forms, exhibit in the open streets on Sunday, a sad
+and a degrading spectacle.  We need go no farther than St. Giles's,
+or Drury Lane, for sights and scenes of a most repulsive nature.
+Women with scarcely the articles of apparel which common decency
+requires, with forms bloated by disease, and faces rendered hideous
+by habitual drunkenness--men reeling and staggering along--children
+in rags and filth--whole streets of squalid and miserable
+appearance, whose inhabitants are lounging in the public road,
+fighting, screaming, and swearing--these are the common objects
+which present themselves in, these are the well-known
+characteristics of, that portion of London to which I have just
+referred.
+
+And why is it, that all well-disposed persons are shocked, and
+public decency scandalised, by such exhibitions?
+
+These people are poor--that is notorious.  It may be said that they
+spend in liquor, money with which they might purchase necessaries,
+and there is no denying the fact; but let it be remembered that
+even if they applied every farthing of their earnings in the best
+possible way, they would still be very--very poor.  Their dwellings
+are necessarily uncomfortable, and to a certain degree unhealthy.
+Cleanliness might do much, but they are too crowded together, the
+streets are too narrow, and the rooms too small, to admit of their
+ever being rendered desirable habitations.  They work very hard all
+the week.  We know that the effect of prolonged and arduous labour,
+is to produce, when a period of rest does arrive, a sensation of
+lassitude which it requires the application of some stimulus to
+overcome.  What stimulus have they?  Sunday comes, and with it a
+cessation of labour.  How are they to employ the day, or what
+inducement have they to employ it, in recruiting their stock of
+health?  They see little parties, on pleasure excursions, passing
+through the streets; but they cannot imitate their example, for
+they have not the means.  They may walk, to be sure, but it is
+exactly the inducement to walk that they require.  If every one of
+these men knew, that by taking the trouble to walk two or three
+miles he would be enabled to share in a good game of cricket, or
+some athletic sport, I very much question whether any of them would
+remain at home.
+
+But you hold out no inducement, you offer no relief from
+listlessness, you provide nothing to amuse his mind, you afford him
+no means of exercising his body.  Unwashed and unshaven, he
+saunters moodily about, weary and dejected.  In lieu of the
+wholesome stimulus he might derive from nature, you drive him to
+the pernicious excitement to be gained from art.  He flies to the
+gin-shop as his only resource; and when, reduced to a worse level
+than the lowest brute in the scale of creation, he lies wallowing
+in the kennel, your saintly lawgivers lift up their hands to
+heaven, and exclaim for a law which shall convert the day intended
+for rest and cheerfulness, into one of universal gloom, bigotry,
+and persecution.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--AS SABBATH BILLS WOULD MAKE IT
+
+
+
+The provisions of the bill introduced into the House of Commons by
+Sir Andrew Agnew, and thrown out by that House on the motion for
+the second reading, on the 18th of May in the present year, by a
+majority of 32, may very fairly be taken as a test of the length to
+which the fanatics, of which the honourable Baronet is the
+distinguished leader, are prepared to go.  No test can be fairer;
+because while on the one hand this measure may be supposed to
+exhibit all that improvement which mature reflection and long
+deliberation may have suggested, so on the other it may very
+reasonably be inferred, that if it be quite as severe in its
+provisions, and to the full as partial in its operation, as those
+which have preceded it and experienced a similar fate, the disease
+under which the honourable Baronet and his friends labour, is
+perfectly hopeless, and beyond the reach of cure.
+
+The proposed enactments of the bill are briefly these:- All work is
+prohibited on the Lord's day, under heavy penalties, increasing
+with every repetition of the offence.  There are penalties for
+keeping shops open--penalties for drunkenness--penalties for
+keeping open houses of entertainment--penalties for being present
+at any public meeting or assembly--penalties for letting carriages,
+and penalties for hiring them--penalties for travelling in steam-
+boats, and penalties for taking passengers--penalties on vessels
+commencing their voyage on Sunday--penalties on the owners of
+cattle who suffer them to be driven on the Lord's day--penalties on
+constables who refuse to act, and penalties for resisting them when
+they do.  In addition to these trifles, the constables are invested
+with arbitrary, vexatious, and most extensive powers; and all this
+in a bill which sets out with a hypocritical and canting
+declaration that 'nothing is more acceptable to God than the TRUE
+AND SINCERE worship of Him according to His holy will, and that it
+is the bounden duty of Parliament to promote the observance of the
+Lord's day, by protecting every class of society against being
+required to sacrifice their comfort, health, religious privileges,
+and conscience, for the convenience, enjoyment, or supposed
+advantage of any other class on the Lord's day'!  The idea of
+making a man truly moral through the ministry of constables, and
+sincerely religious under the influence of penalties, is worthy of
+the mind which could form such a mass of monstrous absurdity as
+this bill is composed of.
+
+The House of Commons threw the measure out certainly, and by so
+doing retrieved the disgrace--so far as it could be retrieved--of
+placing among the printed papers of Parliament, such an egregious
+specimen of legislative folly; but there was a degree of delicacy
+and forbearance about the debate that took place, which I cannot
+help thinking as unnecessary and uncalled for, as it is unusual in
+Parliamentary discussions.  If it had been the first time of Sir
+Andrew Agnew's attempting to palm such a measure upon the country,
+we might well understand, and duly appreciate, the delicate and
+compassionate feeling due to the supposed weakness and imbecility
+of the man, which prevented his proposition being exposed in its
+true colours, and induced this Hon. Member to bear testimony to his
+excellent motives, and that Noble Lord to regret that he could not-
+-although he had tried to do so--adopt any portion of the bill.
+But when these attempts have been repeated, again and again; when
+Sir Andrew Agnew has renewed them session after session, and when
+it has become palpably evident to the whole House that
+
+
+His impudence of proof in every trial,
+Kens no polite, and heeds no plain denial -
+
+
+it really becomes high time to speak of him and his legislation, as
+they appear to deserve, without that gloss of politeness, which is
+all very well in an ordinary case, but rather out of place when the
+liberties and comforts of a whole people are at stake.
+
+In the first place, it is by no means the worst characteristic of
+this bill, that it is a bill of blunders:  it is, from beginning to
+end, a piece of deliberate cruelty, and crafty injustice.  If the
+rich composed the whole population of this country, not a single
+comfort of one single man would be affected by it.  It is directed
+exclusively, and without the exception of a solitary instance,
+against the amusements and recreations of the poor.  This was the
+bait held out by the Hon. Baronet to a body of men, who cannot be
+supposed to have any very strong sympathies in common with the
+poor, because they cannot understand their sufferings or their
+struggles.  This is the bait, which will in time prevail, unless
+public attention is awakened, and public feeling exerted, to
+prevent it.
+
+Take the very first clause, the provision that no man shall be
+allowed to work on Sunday--'That no person, upon the Lord's day,
+shall do, or hire, or employ any person to do any manner of labour,
+or any work of his or her ordinary calling.'  What class of persons
+does this affect?  The rich man?  No.  Menial servants, both male
+and female, are specially exempted from the operation of the bill.
+'Menial servants' are among the poor people.  The bill has no
+regard for them.  The Baronet's dinner must be cooked on Sunday,
+the Bishop's horses must be groomed, and the Peer's carriage must
+be driven.  So the menial servants are put utterly beyond the pale
+of grace;--unless indeed, they are to go to heaven through the
+sanctity of their masters, and possibly they might think even that,
+rather an uncertain passport.
+
+There is a penalty for keeping open, houses of entertainment.  Now,
+suppose the bill had passed, and that half-a-dozen adventurous
+licensed victuallers, relying upon the excitement of public feeling
+on the subject, and the consequent difficulty of conviction (this
+is by no means an improbable supposition), had determined to keep
+their houses and gardens open, through the whole Sunday afternoon,
+in defiance of the law.  Every act of hiring or working, every act
+of buying or selling, or delivering, or causing anything to be
+bought or sold, is specifically made a separate offence--mark the
+effect.  A party, a man and his wife and children, enter a tea-
+garden, and the informer stations himself in the next box, from
+whence he can see and hear everything that passes.  'Waiter!' says
+the father.  'Yes.  Sir.'  'Pint of the best ale!'  'Yes, Sir.'
+Away runs the waiter to the bar, and gets the ale from the
+landlord.  Out comes the informer's note-book--penalty on the
+father for hiring, on the waiter for delivering, and on the
+landlord for selling, on the Lord's day.  But it does not stop
+here.  The waiter delivers the ale, and darts off, little
+suspecting the penalties in store for him.  'Hollo,' cries the
+father, 'waiter!'  'Yes, Sir.'  'Just get this little boy a
+biscuit, will you?'  'Yes, Sir.'  Off runs the waiter again, and
+down goes another case of hiring, another case of delivering, and
+another case of selling; and so it would go on ad infinitum, the
+sum and substance of the matter being, that every time a man or
+woman cried 'Waiter!' on Sunday, he or she would be fined not less
+than forty shillings, nor more than a hundred; and every time a
+waiter replied, 'Yes, Sir,' he and his master would be fined in the
+same amount:  with the addition of a new sort of window duty on the
+landlord, to wit, a tax of twenty shillings an hour for every hour
+beyond the first one, during which he should have his shutters down
+on the Sabbath.
+
+With one exception, there are perhaps no clauses in the whole bill,
+so strongly illustrative of its partial operation, and the
+intention of its framer, as those which relate to travelling on
+Sunday.  Penalties of ten, twenty, and thirty pounds, are
+mercilessly imposed upon coach proprietors who shall run their
+coaches on the Sabbath; one, two, and ten pounds upon those who
+hire, or let to hire, horses and carriages upon the Lord's day, but
+not one syllable about those who have no necessity to hire, because
+they have carriages and horses of their own; not one word of a
+penalty on liveried coachmen and footmen.  The whole of the saintly
+venom is directed against the hired cabriolet, the humble fly, or
+the rumbling hackney-coach, which enables a man of the poorer class
+to escape for a few hours from the smoke and dirt, in the midst of
+which he has been confined throughout the week:  while the
+escutcheoned carriage and the dashing cab, may whirl their wealthy
+owners to Sunday feasts and private oratorios, setting constables,
+informers, and penalties, at defiance.  Again, in the description
+of the places of public resort which it is rendered criminal to
+attend on Sunday, there are no words comprising a very fashionable
+promenade.  Public discussions, public debates, public lectures and
+speeches, are cautiously guarded against; for it is by their means
+that the people become enlightened enough to deride the last
+efforts of bigotry and superstition.  There is a stringent
+provision for punishing the poor man who spends an hour in a news-
+room, but there is nothing to prevent the rich one from lounging
+away the day in the Zoological Gardens.
+
+There is, in four words, a mock proviso, which affects to forbid
+travelling 'with any animal' on the Lord's day.  This, however, is
+revoked, as relates to the rich man, by a subsequent provision.  We
+have then a penalty of not less than fifty, nor more than one
+hundred pounds, upon any person participating in the control, or
+having the command of any vessel which shall commence her voyage on
+the Lord's day, should the wind prove favourable.  The next time
+this bill is brought forward (which will no doubt be at an early
+period of the next session of Parliament) perhaps it will be better
+to amend this clause by declaring, that from and after the passing
+of the act, it shall be deemed unlawful for the wind to blow at all
+upon the Sabbath.  It would remove a great deal of temptation from
+the owners and captains of vessels.
+
+The reader is now in possession of the principal enacting clauses
+of Sir Andrew Agnew's bill, with the exception of one, for
+preventing the killing or taking of 'FISH, OR OTHER WILD ANIMALS,'
+and the ordinary provisions which are inserted for form's sake in
+all acts of Parliament.  I now beg his attention to the clauses of
+exemption.
+
+They are two in number.  The first exempts menial servants from any
+rest, and all poor men from any recreation:  outlaws a milkman
+after nine o'clock in the morning, and makes eating-houses lawful
+for only two hours in the afternoon; permits a medical man to use
+his carriage on Sunday, and declares that a clergyman may either
+use his own, or hire one.
+
+The second is artful, cunning, and designing; shielding the rich
+man from the possibility of being entrapped, and affecting at the
+same time, to have a tender and scrupulous regard, for the
+interests of the whole community.  It declares, 'that nothing in
+this act contained, shall extend to works of piety, charity, or
+necessity.'
+
+What is meant by the word 'necessity' in this clause?  Simply this-
+-that the rich man shall be at liberty to make use of all the
+splendid luxuries he has collected around him, on any day in the
+week, because habit and custom have rendered them 'necessary' to
+his easy existence; but that the poor man who saves his money to
+provide some little pleasure for himself and family at lengthened
+intervals, shall not be permitted to enjoy it.  It is not
+'necessary' to him:- Heaven knows, he very often goes long enough
+without it.  This is the plain English of the clause.  The carriage
+and pair of horses, the coachman, the footman, the helper, and the
+groom, are 'necessary' on Sundays, as on other days, to the bishop
+and the nobleman; but the hackney-coach, the hired gig, or the
+taxed cart, cannot possibly be 'necessary' to the working-man on
+Sunday, for he has it not at other times.  The sumptuous dinner and
+the rich wines, are 'necessaries' to a great man in his own
+mansion:  but the pint of beer and the plate of meat, degrade the
+national character in an eating-house.
+
+Such is the bill for promoting the true and sincere worship of God
+according to his Holy Will, and for protecting every class of
+society against being required to sacrifice their health and
+comfort on the Sabbath.  Instances in which its operation would be
+as unjust as it would be absurd, might be multiplied to an endless
+amount; but it is sufficient to place its leading provisions before
+the reader.  In doing so, I have purposely abstained from drawing
+upon the imagination for possible cases; the provisions to which I
+have referred, stand in so many words upon the bill as printed by
+order of the House of Commons; and they can neither be disowned,
+nor explained away.
+
+Let us suppose such a bill as this, to have actually passed both
+branches of the legislature; to have received the royal assent; and
+to have come into operation.  Imagine its effect in a great city
+like London.
+
+Sunday comes, and brings with it a day of general gloom and
+austerity.  The man who has been toiling hard all the week, has
+been looking towards the Sabbath, not as to a day of rest from
+labour, and healthy recreation, but as one of grievous tyranny and
+grinding oppression.  The day which his Maker intended as a
+blessing, man has converted into a curse.  Instead of being hailed
+by him as his period of relaxation, he finds it remarkable only as
+depriving him of every comfort and enjoyment.  He has many children
+about him, all sent into the world at an early age, to struggle for
+a livelihood; one is kept in a warehouse all day, with an interval
+of rest too short to enable him to reach home, another walks four
+or five miles to his employment at the docks, a third earns a few
+shillings weekly, as an errand boy, or office messenger; and the
+employment of the man himself, detains him at some distance from
+his home from morning till night.  Sunday is the only day on which
+they could all meet together, and enjoy a homely meal in social
+comfort; and now they sit down to a cold and cheerless dinner:  the
+pious guardians of the man's salvation having, in their regard for
+the welfare of his precious soul, shut up the bakers' shops.  The
+fire blazes high in the kitchen chimney of these well-fed
+hypocrites, and the rich steams of the savoury dinner scent the
+air.  What care they to be told that this class of men have neither
+a place to cook in--nor means to bear the expense, if they had?
+
+Look into your churches--diminished congregations, and scanty
+attendance.  People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are
+becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day
+as this, once in every seven.  And as you cannot make people
+religious by Act of Parliament, or force them to church by
+constables, they display their feeling by staying away.
+
+Turn into the streets, and mark the rigid gloom that reigns over
+everything around.  The roads are empty, the fields are deserted,
+the houses of entertainment are closed.  Groups of filthy and
+discontented-looking men, are idling about at the street corners,
+or sleeping in the sun; but there are no decently-dressed people of
+the poorer class, passing to and fro.  Where should they walk to?
+It would take them an hour, at least, to get into the fields, and
+when they reached them, they could procure neither bite nor sup,
+without the informer and the penalty.  Now and then, a carriage
+rolls smoothly on, or a well-mounted horseman, followed by a
+liveried attendant, canters by; but with these exceptions, all is
+as melancholy and quiet as if a pestilence had fallen on the city.
+
+Bend your steps through the narrow and thickly-inhabited streets,
+and observe the sallow faces of the men and women who are lounging
+at the doors, or lolling from the windows.  Regard well the
+closeness of these crowded rooms, and the noisome exhalations that
+rise from the drains and kennels; and then laud the triumph of
+religion and morality, which condemns people to drag their lives
+out in such stews as these, and makes it criminal for them to eat
+or drink in the fresh air, or under the clear sky.  Here and there,
+from some half-opened window, the loud shout of drunken revelry
+strikes upon the ear, and the noise of oaths and quarrelling--the
+effect of the close and heated atmosphere--is heard on all sides.
+See how the men all rush to join the crowd that are making their
+way down the street, and how loud the execrations of the mob become
+as they draw nearer.  They have assembled round a little knot of
+constables, who have seized the stock-in-trade, heinously exposed
+on Sunday, of some miserable walking-stick seller, who follows
+clamouring for his property.  The dispute grows warmer and fiercer,
+until at last some of the more furious among the crowd, rush
+forward to restore the goods to their owner.  A general conflict
+takes place; the sticks of the constables are exercised in all
+directions; fresh assistance is procured; and half a dozen of the
+assailants are conveyed to the station-house, struggling, bleeding,
+and cursing.  The case is taken to the police-office on the
+following morning; and after a frightful amount of perjury on both
+sides, the men are sent to prison for resisting the officers, their
+families to the workhouse to keep them from starving:  and there
+they both remain for a month afterwards, glorious trophies of the
+sanctified enforcement of the Christian Sabbath.  Add to such
+scenes as these, the profligacy, idleness, drunkenness, and vice,
+that will be committed to an extent which no man can foresee, on
+Monday, as an atonement for the restraint of the preceding day; and
+you have a very faint and imperfect picture of the religious
+effects of this Sunday legislation, supposing it could ever be
+forced upon the people.
+
+But let those who advocate the cause of fanaticism, reflect well
+upon the probable issue of their endeavours.  They may by
+perseverance, succeed with Parliament.  Let them ponder on the
+probability of succeeding with the people.  You may deny the
+concession of a political question for a time, and a nation will
+bear it patiently.  Strike home to the comforts of every man's
+fireside--tamper with every man's freedom and liberty--and one
+month, one week, may rouse a feeling abroad, which a king would
+gladly yield his crown to quell, and a peer would resign his
+coronet to allay.
+
+It is the custom to affect a deference for the motives of those who
+advocate these measures, and a respect for the feelings by which
+they are actuated.  They do not deserve it.  If they legislate in
+ignorance, they are criminal and dishonest; if they do so with
+their eyes open, they commit wilful injustice; in either case, they
+bring religion into contempt.  But they do NOT legislate in
+ignorance.  Public prints, and public men, have pointed out to them
+again and again, the consequences of their proceedings.  If they
+persist in thrusting themselves forward, let those consequences
+rest upon their own heads, and let them be content to stand upon
+their own merits.
+
+It may be asked, what motives can actuate a man who has so little
+regard for the comfort of his fellow-beings, so little respect for
+their wants and necessities, and so distorted a notion of the
+beneficence of his Creator.  I reply, an envious, heartless, ill-
+conditioned dislike to seeing those whom fortune has placed below
+him, cheerful and happy--an intolerant confidence in his own high
+worthiness before God, and a lofty impression of the demerits of
+others--pride, selfish pride, as inconsistent with the spirit of
+Christianity itself, as opposed to the example of its Founder upon
+earth.
+
+To these may be added another class of men--the stern and gloomy
+enthusiasts, who would make earth a hell, and religion a torment:
+men who, having wasted the earlier part of their lives in
+dissipation and depravity, find themselves when scarcely past its
+meridian, steeped to the neck in vice, and shunned like a loathsome
+disease.  Abandoned by the world, having nothing to fall back upon,
+nothing to remember but time mis-spent, and energies misdirected,
+they turn their eyes and not their thoughts to Heaven, and delude
+themselves into the impious belief, that in denouncing the
+lightness of heart of which they cannot partake, and the rational
+pleasures from which they never derived enjoyment, they are more
+than remedying the sins of their old career, and--like the founders
+of monasteries and builders of churches, in ruder days--
+establishing a good set claim upon their Maker.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--AS IT MIGHT BE MADE
+
+
+
+The supporters of Sabbath Bills, and more especially the extreme
+class of Dissenters, lay great stress upon the declarations
+occasionally made by criminals from the condemned cell or the
+scaffold, that to Sabbath-breaking they attribute their first
+deviation from the path of rectitude; and they point to these
+statements, as an incontestable proof of the evil consequences
+which await a departure from that strict and rigid observance of
+the Sabbath, which they uphold.  I cannot help thinking that in
+this, as in almost every other respect connected with the subject,
+there is a considerable degree of cant, and a very great deal of
+wilful blindness.  If a man be viciously disposed--and with very
+few exceptions, not a man dies by the executioner's hands, who has
+not been in one way or other a most abandoned and profligate
+character for many years--if a man be viciously disposed, there is
+no doubt that he will turn his Sunday to bad account, that he will
+take advantage of it, to dissipate with other bad characters as
+vile as himself; and that in this way, he may trace his first
+yielding to temptation, possibly his first commission of crime, to
+an infringement of the Sabbath.  But this would be an argument
+against any holiday at all.  If his holiday had been Wednesday
+instead of Sunday, and he had devoted it to the same improper uses,
+it would have been productive of the same results.  It is too much
+to judge of the character of a whole people, by the confessions of
+the very worst members of society.  It is not fair, to cry down
+things which are harmless in themselves, because evil-disposed men
+may turn them to bad account.  Who ever thought of deprecating the
+teaching poor people to write, because some porter in a warehouse
+had committed forgery?  Or into what man's head did it ever enter,
+to prevent the crowding of churches, because it afforded a
+temptation for the picking of pockets?
+
+When the Book of Sports, for allowing the peasantry of England to
+divert themselves with certain games in the open air, on Sundays,
+after evening service, was published by Charles the First, it is
+needless to say the English people were comparatively rude and
+uncivilised.  And yet it is extraordinary to how few excesses it
+gave rise, even in that day, when men's minds were not enlightened,
+or their passions moderated, by the influence of education and
+refinement.  That some excesses were committed through its means,
+in the remoter parts of the country, and that it was discontinued
+in those places, in consequence, cannot be denied:  but generally
+speaking, there is no proof whatever on record, of its having had
+any tendency to increase crime, or to lower the character of the
+people.
+
+The Puritans of that time, were as much opposed to harmless
+recreations and healthful amusements as those of the present day,
+and it is amusing to observe that each in their generation, advance
+precisely the same description of arguments.  In the British
+Museum, there is a curious pamphlet got up by the Agnews of
+Charles's time, entitled 'A Divine Tragedie lately acted, or a
+Collection of sundry memorable examples of God's Judgements upon
+Sabbath Breakers, and other like Libertines in their unlawful
+Sports, happening within the realme of England, in the compass only
+of two yeares last past, since the Booke (of Sports) was published,
+worthy to be knowne and considered of all men, especially such who
+are guilty of the sinne, or archpatrons thereof.'  This amusing
+document, contains some fifty or sixty veritable accounts of balls
+of fire that fell into churchyards and upset the sporters, and
+sporters that quarrelled, and upset one another, and so forth:  and
+among them is one anecdote containing an example of a rather
+different kind, which I cannot resist the temptation of quoting, as
+strongly illustrative of the fact, that this blinking of the
+question has not even the recommendation of novelty.
+
+'A woman about Northampton, the same day that she heard the booke
+for sports read, went immediately, and having 3. pence in her
+purse, hired a fellow to goe to the next towne to fetch a
+Minstrell, who coming, she with others fell a dauncing, which
+continued within night; at which time shee was got with child,
+which at the birth shee murthering, was detected and apprehended,
+and being converted before the justice, shee confessed it, and
+withal told the occasion of it, saying it was her falling to sport
+on the Sabbath, upon the reading of the Booke, so as for this
+treble sinfull act, her presumptuous profaning of the Sabbath, wh.
+brought her adultory and that murther.  Shee was according to the
+Law both of God and man, put to death.  Much sinne and misery
+followeth upon Sabbath-breaking.'
+
+It is needless to say, that if the young lady near Northampton had
+'fallen to sport' of such a dangerous description, on any other day
+but Sunday, the first result would probably have been the same:  it
+never having been distinctly shown that Sunday is more favourable
+to the propagation of the human race than any other day in the
+week.  The second result--the murder of the child--does not speak
+very highly for the amiability of her natural disposition; and the
+whole story, supposing it to have had any foundation at all, is
+about as much chargeable upon the Book of Sports, as upon the Book
+of Kings.  Such 'sports' have taken place in Dissenting Chapels
+before now; but religion has never been blamed in consequence; nor
+has it been proposed to shut up the chapels on that account.
+
+The question, then, very fairly arises, whether we have any reason
+to suppose that allowing games in the open air on Sundays, or even
+providing the means of amusement for the humbler classes of society
+on that day, would be hurtful and injurious to the character and
+morals of the people.
+
+I was travelling in the west of England a summer or two back, and
+was induced by the beauty of the scenery, and the seclusion of the
+spot, to remain for the night in a small village, distant about
+seventy miles from London.  The next morning was Sunday; and I
+walked out, towards the church.  Groups of people--the whole
+population of the little hamlet apparently--were hastening in the
+same direction.  Cheerful and good-humoured congratulations were
+heard on all sides, as neighbours overtook each other, and walked
+on in company.  Occasionally I passed an aged couple, whose married
+daughter and her husband were loitering by the side of the old
+people, accommodating their rate of walking to their feeble pace,
+while a little knot of children hurried on before; stout young
+labourers in clean round frocks; and buxom girls with healthy,
+laughing faces, were plentifully sprinkled about in couples, and
+the whole scene was one of quiet and tranquil contentment,
+irresistibly captivating.  The morning was bright and pleasant, the
+hedges were green and blooming, and a thousand delicious scents
+were wafted on the air, from the wild flowers which blossomed on
+either side of the footpath.  The little church was one of those
+venerable simple buildings which abound in the English counties;
+half overgrown with moss and ivy, and standing in the centre of a
+little plot of ground, which, but for the green mounds with which
+it was studded, might have passed for a lovely meadow.  I fancied
+that the old clanking bell which was now summoning the congregation
+together, would seem less terrible when it rung out the knell of a
+departed soul, than I had ever deemed possible before--that the
+sound would tell only of a welcome to calmness and rest, amidst the
+most peaceful and tranquil scene in nature.
+
+I followed into the church--a low-roofed building with small arched
+windows, through which the sun's rays streamed upon a plain tablet
+on the opposite wall, which had once recorded names, now as
+undistinguishable on its worn surface, as were the bones beneath,
+from the dust into which they had resolved.  The impressive service
+of the Church of England was spoken--not merely READ--by a grey-
+headed minister, and the responses delivered by his auditors, with
+an air of sincere devotion as far removed from affectation or
+display, as from coldness or indifference.  The psalms were
+accompanied by a few instrumental performers, who were stationed in
+a small gallery extending across the church at the lower end, over
+the door:  and the voices were led by the clerk, who, it was
+evident, derived no slight pride and gratification from this
+portion of the service.  The discourse was plain, unpretending, and
+well adapted to the comprehension of the hearers.  At the
+conclusion of the service, the villagers waited in the churchyard,
+to salute the clergyman as he passed; and two or three, I observed,
+stepped aside, as if communicating some little difficulty, and
+asking his advice.  This, to guess from the homely bows, and other
+rustic expressions of gratitude, the old gentleman readily
+conceded.  He seemed intimately acquainted with the circumstances
+of all his parishioners; for I heard him inquire after one man's
+youngest child, another man's wife, and so forth; and that he was
+fond of his joke, I discovered from overhearing him ask a stout,
+fresh-coloured young fellow, with a very pretty bashful-looking
+girl on his arm, 'when those banns were to be put up?'--an inquiry
+which made the young fellow more fresh-coloured, and the girl more
+bashful, and which, strange to say, caused a great many other girls
+who were standing round, to colour up also, and look anywhere but
+in the faces of their male companions.
+
+As I approached this spot in the evening about half an hour before
+sunset, I was surprised to hear the hum of voices, and occasionally
+a shout of merriment from the meadow beyond the churchyard; which I
+found, when I reached the stile, to be occasioned by a very
+animated game of cricket, in which the boys and young men of the
+place were engaged, while the females and old people were scattered
+about:  some seated on the grass watching the progress of the game,
+and others sauntering about in groups of two or three, gathering
+little nosegays of wild roses and hedge flowers.  I could not but
+take notice of one old man in particular, with a bright-eyed grand-
+daughter by his side, who was giving a sunburnt young fellow some
+instructions in the game, which he received with an air of profound
+deference, but with an occasional glance at the girl, which induced
+me to think that his attention was rather distracted from the old
+gentleman's narration of the fruits of his experience.  When it was
+his turn at the wicket, too, there was a glance towards the pair
+every now and then, which the old grandfather very complacently
+considered as an appeal to his judgment of a particular hit, but
+which a certain blush in the girl's face, and a downcast look of
+the bright eye, led me to believe was intended for somebody else
+than the old man,--and understood by somebody else, too, or I am
+much mistaken.
+
+I was in the very height of the pleasure which the contemplation of
+this scene afforded me, when I saw the old clergyman making his way
+towards us.  I trembled for an angry interruption to the sport, and
+was almost on the point of crying out, to warn the cricketers of
+his approach; he was so close upon me, however, that I could do
+nothing but remain still, and anticipate the reproof that was
+preparing.  What was my agreeable surprise to see the old gentleman
+standing at the stile, with his hands in his pockets, surveying the
+whole scene with evident satisfaction!  And how dull I must have
+been, not to have known till my friend the grandfather (who, by-
+the-bye, said he had been a wonderful cricketer in his time) told
+me, that it was the clergyman himself who had established the whole
+thing:  that it was his field they played in; and that it was he
+who had purchased stumps, bats, ball, and all!
+
+It is such scenes as this, I would see near London, on a Sunday
+evening.  It is such men as this, who would do more in one year to
+make people properly religious, cheerful, and contented, than all
+the legislation of a century could ever accomplish.
+
+It will be said--it has been very often--that it would be matter of
+perfect impossibility to make amusements and exercises succeed in
+large towns, which may be very well adapted to a country
+population.  Here, again, we are called upon to yield to bare
+assertions on matters of belief and opinion, as if they were
+established and undoubted facts.  That there is a wide difference
+between the two cases, no one will be prepared to dispute; that the
+difference is such as to prevent the application of the same
+principle to both, no reasonable man, I think, will be disposed to
+maintain.  The great majority of the people who make holiday on
+Sunday now, are industrious, orderly, and well-behaved persons.  It
+is not unreasonable to suppose that they would be no more inclined
+to an abuse of pleasures provided for them, than they are to an
+abuse of the pleasures they provide for themselves; and if any
+people, for want of something better to do, resort to criminal
+practices on the Sabbath as at present observed, no better remedy
+for the evil can be imagined, than giving them the opportunity of
+doing something which will amuse them, and hurt nobody else.
+
+The propriety of opening the British Museum to respectable people
+on Sunday, has lately been the subject of some discussion.  I think
+it would puzzle the most austere of the Sunday legislators to
+assign any valid reason for opposing so sensible a proposition.
+The Museum contains rich specimens from all the vast museums and
+repositories of Nature, and rare and curious fragments of the
+mighty works of art, in bygone ages:  all calculated to awaken
+contemplation and inquiry, and to tend to the enlightenment and
+improvement of the people.  But attendants would be necessary, and
+a few men would be employed upon the Sabbath.  They certainly
+would; but how many?  Why, if the British Museum, and the National
+Gallery, and the Gallery of Practical Science, and every other
+exhibition in London, from which knowledge is to be derived and
+information gained, were to be thrown open on a Sunday afternoon,
+not fifty people would be required to preside over the whole:  and
+it would take treble the number to enforce a Sabbath bill in any
+three populous parishes.
+
+I should like to see some large field, or open piece of ground, in
+every outskirt of London, exhibiting each Sunday evening on a
+larger scale, the scene of the little country meadow.  I should
+like to see the time arrive, when a man's attendance to his
+religious duties might be left to that religious feeling which most
+men possess in a greater or less degree, but which was never forced
+into the breast of any man by menace or restraint.  I should like
+to see the time when Sunday might be looked forward to, as a
+recognised day of relaxation and enjoyment, and when every man
+might feel, what few men do now, that religion is not incompatible
+with rational pleasure and needful recreation.
+
+How different a picture would the streets and public places then
+present!  The museums, and repositories of scientific and useful
+inventions, would be crowded with ingenious mechanics and
+industrious artisans, all anxious for information, and all unable
+to procure it at any other time.  The spacious saloons would be
+swarming with practical men:  humble in appearance, but destined,
+perhaps, to become the greatest inventors and philosophers of their
+age.  The labourers who now lounge away the day in idleness and
+intoxication, would be seen hurrying along, with cheerful faces and
+clean attire, not to the close and smoky atmosphere of the public-
+house but to the fresh and airy fields.  Fancy the pleasant scene.
+Throngs of people, pouring out from the lanes and alleys of the
+metropolis, to various places of common resort at some short
+distance from the town, to join in the refreshing sports and
+exercises of the day--the children gambolling in crowds upon the
+grass, the mothers looking on, and enjoying themselves the little
+game they seem only to direct; other parties strolling along some
+pleasant walks, or reposing in the shade of the stately trees;
+others again intent upon their different amusements.  Nothing
+should be heard on all sides, but the sharp stroke of the bat as it
+sent the ball skimming along the ground, the clear ring of the
+quoit, as it struck upon the iron peg:  the noisy murmur of many
+voices, and the loud shout of mirth and delight, which would awaken
+the echoes far and wide, till the fields rung with it.  The day
+would pass away, in a series of enjoyments which would awaken no
+painful reflections when night arrived; for they would be
+calculated to bring with them, only health and contentment.  The
+young would lose that dread of religion, which the sour austerity
+of its professors too often inculcates in youthful bosoms; and the
+old would find less difficulty in persuading them to respect its
+observances.  The drunken and dissipated, deprived of any excuse
+for their misconduct, would no longer excite pity but disgust.
+Above all, the more ignorant and humble class of men, who now
+partake of many of the bitters of life, and taste but few of its
+sweets, would naturally feel attachment and respect for that code
+of morality, which, regarding the many hardships of their station,
+strove to alleviate its rigours, and endeavoured to soften its
+asperity.
+
+This is what Sunday might be made, and what it might be made
+without impiety or profanation.  The wise and beneficent Creator
+who places men upon earth, requires that they shall perform the
+duties of that station of life to which they are called, and He can
+never intend that the more a man strives to discharge those duties,
+the more he shall be debarred from happiness and enjoyment.  Let
+those who have six days in the week for all the world's pleasures,
+appropriate the seventh to fasting and gloom, either for their own
+sins or those of other people, if they like to bewail them; but let
+those who employ their six days in a worthier manner, devote their
+seventh to a different purpose.  Let divines set the example of
+true morality:  preach it to their flocks in the morning, and
+dismiss them to enjoy true rest in the afternoon; and let them
+select for their text, and let Sunday legislators take for their
+motto, the words which fell from the lips of that Master, whose
+precepts they misconstrue, and whose lessons they pervert--'The
+Sabbath was made for man, and not man to serve the Sabbath.'
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS ***
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>Sunday Under Three Heads</title>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h2>
+<a href="#startoftext">Sunday Under Three Heads, by Charles Dickens</a>
+</h2>
+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sunday Under Three Heads, by Charles Dickens
+(#27 in our series by Charles Dickens)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Sunday Under Three Heads
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Release Date: May, 1997  [EBook #922]
+[This file was first posted on May 29, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: May 20, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+</pre>
+<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
+<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<h1>SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS</h1>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>DEDICATION</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>To The Right Reverend<br />THE BISHOP OF LONDON</p>
+<p>MY LORD,</p>
+<p>You were among the first, some years ago, to expatiate on the vicious
+addiction of the lower classes of society to Sunday excursions; and
+were thus instrumental in calling forth occasional demonstrations of
+those extreme opinions on the subject, which are very generally received
+with derision, if not with contempt.</p>
+<p>Your elevated station, my Lord, affords you countless opportunities
+of increasing the comforts and pleasures of the humbler classes of society&mdash;not
+by the expenditure of the smallest portion of your princely income,
+but by merely sanctioning with the influence of your example, their
+harmless pastimes, and innocent recreations.</p>
+<p>That your Lordship would ever have contemplated Sunday recreations
+with so much horror, if you had been at all acquainted with the wants
+and necessities of the people who indulged in them, I cannot imagine
+possible.&nbsp; That a Prelate of your elevated rank has the faintest
+conception of the extent of those wants, and the nature of those necessities,
+I do not believe.</p>
+<p>For these reasons, I venture to address this little Pamphlet to your
+Lordship&rsquo;s consideration.&nbsp; I am quite conscious that the
+outlines I have drawn, afford but a very imperfect description of the
+feelings they are intended to illustrate; but I claim for them one merit&mdash;their
+truth and freedom from exaggeration.&nbsp; I may have fallen short of
+the mark, but I have never overshot it: and while I have pointed out
+what appears to me, to be injustice on the part of others, I hope I
+have carefully abstained from committing it myself.</p>
+<p>I am,<br />My Lord,<br />Your Lordship&rsquo;s most obedient,<br />Humble
+Servant,<br />TIMOTHY SPARKS.<br /><i>June</i>, 1836.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER I&mdash;AS IT IS</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>There are few things from which I derive greater pleasure, than walking
+through some of the principal streets of London on a fine Sunday, in
+summer, and watching the cheerful faces of the lively groups with which
+they are thronged.&nbsp; There is something, to my eyes at least, exceedingly
+pleasing in the general desire evinced by the humbler classes of society,
+to appear neat and clean on this their only holiday.&nbsp; There are
+many grave old persons, I know, who shake their heads with an air of
+profound wisdom, and tell you that poor people dress too well now-a-days;
+that when they were children, folks knew their stations in life better;
+that you may depend upon it, no good will come of this sort of thing
+in the end,&mdash;and so forth: but I fancy I can discern in the fine
+bonnet of the working-man&rsquo;s wife, or the feather-bedizened hat
+of his child, no inconsiderable evidence of good feeling on the part
+of the man himself, and an affectionate desire to expend the few shillings
+he can spare from his week&rsquo;s wages, in improving the appearance
+and adding to the happiness of those who are nearest and dearest to
+him.&nbsp; This may be a very heinous and unbecoming degree of vanity,
+perhaps, and the money might possibly be applied to better uses; it
+must not be forgotten, however, that it might very easily be devoted
+to worse: and if two or three faces can be rendered happy and contented,
+by a trifling improvement of outward appearance, I cannot help thinking
+that the object is very cheaply purchased, even at the expense of a
+smart gown, or a gaudy riband.&nbsp; There is a great deal of very unnecessary
+cant about the over-dressing of the common people.&nbsp; There is not
+a manufacturer or tradesman in existence, who would not employ a man
+who takes a reasonable degree of pride in the appearance of himself
+and those about him, in preference to a sullen, slovenly fellow, who
+works doggedly on, regardless of his own clothing and that of his wife
+and children, and seeming to take pleasure or pride in nothing.</p>
+<p>The pampered aristocrat, whose life is one continued round of licentious
+pleasures and sensual gratifications; or the gloomy enthusiast, who
+detests the cheerful amusements he can never enjoy, and envies the healthy
+feelings he can never know, and who would put down the one and suppress
+the other, until he made the minds of his fellow-beings as besotted
+and distorted as his own;&mdash;neither of these men can by possibility
+form an adequate notion of what Sunday really is to those whose lives
+are spent in sedentary or laborious occupations, and who are accustomed
+to look forward to it through their whole existence, as their only day
+of rest from toil, and innocent enjoyment.</p>
+<p>The sun that rises over the quiet streets of London on a bright Sunday
+morning, shines till his setting, on gay and happy faces.&nbsp; Here
+and there, so early as six o&rsquo;clock, a young man and woman in their
+best attire, may be seen hurrying along on their way to the house of
+some acquaintance, who is included in their scheme of pleasure for the
+day; from whence, after stopping to take &ldquo;a bit of breakfast,&rdquo;
+they sally forth, accompanied by several old people, and a whole crowd
+of young ones, bearing large hand-baskets full of provisions, and Belcher
+handkerchiefs done up in bundles, with the neck of a bottle sticking
+out at the top, and closely-packed apples bulging out at the sides,&mdash;and
+away they hurry along the streets leading to the steam-packet wharfs,
+which are already plentifully sprinkled with parties bound for the same
+destination.&nbsp; Their good humour and delight know no bounds&mdash;for
+it is a delightful morning, all blue over head, and nothing like a cloud
+in the whole sky; and even the air of the river at London Bridge is
+something to them, shut up as they have been, all the week, in close
+streets and heated rooms.&nbsp; There are dozens of steamers to all
+sorts of places&mdash;Gravesend, Greenwich, and Richmond; and such numbers
+of people, that when you have once sat down on the deck, it is all but
+a moral impossibility to get up again&mdash;to say nothing of walking
+about, which is entirely out of the question.&nbsp; Away they go, joking
+and laughing, and eating and drinking, and admiring everything they
+see, and pleased with everything they hear, to climb Windmill Hill,
+and catch a glimpse of the rich corn-fields and beautiful orchards of
+Kent; or to stroll among the fine old trees of Greenwich Park, and survey
+the wonders of Shooter&rsquo;s Hill and Lady James&rsquo;s Folly; or
+to glide past the beautiful meadows of Twickenham and Richmond, and
+to gaze with a delight which only people like them can know, on every
+lovely object in the fair prospect around.&nbsp; Boat follows boat,
+and coach succeeds coach, for the next three hours; but all are filled,
+and all with the same kind of people&mdash;neat and clean, cheerful
+and contented.</p>
+<p>They reach their places of destination, and the taverns are crowded;
+but there is no drunkenness or brawling, for the class of men who commit
+the enormity of making Sunday excursions, take their families with them:
+and this in itself would be a check upon them, even if they were inclined
+to dissipation, which they really are not.&nbsp; Boisterous their mirth
+may be, for they have all the excitement of feeling that fresh air and
+green fields can impart to the dwellers in crowded cities, but it is
+innocent and harmless.&nbsp; The glass is circulated, and the joke goes
+round; but the one is free from excess, and the other from offence;
+and nothing but good humour and hilarity prevail.</p>
+<p>In streets like Holborn and Tottenham Court Road, which form the
+central market of a large neighbourhood, inhabited by a vast number
+of mechanics and poor people, a few shops are open at an early hour
+of the morning; and a very poor man, with a thin and sickly woman by
+his side, may be seen with their little basket in hand, purchasing the
+scanty quantity of necessaries they can afford, which the time at which
+the man receives his wages, or his having a good deal of work to do,
+or the woman&rsquo;s having been out charing till a late hour, prevented
+their procuring over-night.&nbsp; The coffee-shops too, at which clerks
+and young men employed in counting-houses can procure their breakfasts,
+are also open.&nbsp; This class comprises, in a place like London, an
+enormous number of people, whose limited means prevent their engaging
+for their lodgings any other apartment than a bedroom, and who have
+consequently no alternative but to take their breakfasts at a coffee-shop,
+or go without it altogether.&nbsp; All these places, however, are quickly
+closed; and by the time the church bells begin to ring, all appearance
+of traffic has ceased.&nbsp; And then, what are the signs of immorality
+that meet the eye?&nbsp; Churches are well filled, and Dissenters&rsquo;
+chapels are crowded to suffocation.&nbsp; There is no preaching to empty
+benches, while the drunken and dissolute populace run riot in the streets.</p>
+<p>Here is a fashionable church, where the service commences at a late
+hour, for the accommodation of such members of the congregation&mdash;and
+they are not a few&mdash;as may happen to have lingered at the Opera
+far into the morning of the Sabbath; an excellent contrivance for poising
+the balance between God and Mammon, and illustrating the ease with which
+a man&rsquo;s duties to both, may be accommodated and adjusted.&nbsp;
+How the carriages rattle up, and deposit their richly-dressed burdens
+beneath the lofty portico!&nbsp; The powdered footmen glide along the
+aisle, place the richly-bound prayer-books on the pew desks, slam the
+doors, and hurry away, leaving the fashionable members of the congregation
+to inspect each other through their glasses, and to dazzle and glitter
+in the eyes of the few shabby people in the free seats.&nbsp; The organ
+peals forth, the hired singers commence a short hymn, and the congregation
+condescendingly rise, stare about them, and converse in whispers.&nbsp;
+The clergyman enters the reading-desk,&mdash;a young man of noble family
+and elegant demeanour, notorious at Cambridge for his knowledge of horse-flesh
+and dancers, and celebrated at Eton for his hopeless stupidity.&nbsp;
+The service commences.&nbsp; Mark the soft voice in which he reads,
+and the impressive manner in which he applies his white hand, studded
+with brilliants, to his perfumed hair.&nbsp; Observe the graceful emphasis
+with which he offers up the prayers for the King, the Royal Family,
+and all the Nobility; and the nonchalance with which he hurries over
+the more uncomfortable portions of the service, the seventh commandment
+for instance, with a studied regard for the taste and feeling of his
+auditors, only to be equalled by that displayed by the sleek divine
+who succeeds him, who murmurs, in a voice kept down by rich feeding,
+most comfortable doctrines for exactly twelve minutes, and then arrives
+at the anxiously expected &lsquo;Now to God,&rsquo; which is the signal
+for the dismissal of the congregation.&nbsp; The organ is again heard;
+those who have been asleep wake up, and those who have kept awake, smile
+and seem greatly relieved; bows and congratulations are exchanged, the
+livery servants are all bustle and commotion, bang go the steps, up
+jump the footmen, and off rattle the carriages: the inmates discoursing
+on the dresses of the congregation, and congratulating themselves on
+having set so excellent an example to the community in general, and
+Sunday-pleasurers in particular.</p>
+<p>Enter a less orthodox place of religious worship, and observe the
+contrast.&nbsp; A small close chapel with a white-washed wall, and plain
+deal pews and pulpit, contains a closely-packed congregation, as different
+in dress, as they are opposed in manner, to that we have just quitted.&nbsp;
+The hymn is sung&mdash;not by paid singers, but by the whole assembly
+at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument,
+the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk.&nbsp;
+There is something in the sonorous quavering of the harsh voices, in
+the lank and hollow faces of the men, and the sour solemnity of the
+women, which bespeaks this a strong-hold of intolerant zeal and ignorant
+enthusiasm.&nbsp; The preacher enters the pulpit.&nbsp; He is a coarse,
+hard-faced man of forbidding aspect, clad in rusty black, and bearing
+in his hand a small plain Bible from which he selects some passage for
+his text, while the hymn is concluding.&nbsp; The congregation fall
+upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers
+an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the
+Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious
+familiarity not to be described.&nbsp; He begins his oration in a drawling
+tone, and his hearers listen with silent attention.&nbsp; He grows warmer
+as he proceeds with his subject, and his gesticulation becomes proportionately
+violent.&nbsp; He clenches his fists, beats the book upon the desk before
+him, and swings his arms wildly about his head.&nbsp; The congregation
+murmur their acquiescence in his doctrines: and a short groan, occasionally
+bears testimony to the moving nature of his eloquence.&nbsp; Encouraged
+by these symptoms of approval, and working himself up to a pitch of
+enthusiasm amounting almost to frenzy, he denounces sabbath-breakers
+with the direst vengeance of offended Heaven.&nbsp; He stretches his
+body half out of the pulpit, thrusts forth his arms with frantic gestures,
+and blasphemously calls upon The Deity to visit with eternal torments,
+those who turn aside from the word, as interpreted and preached by&mdash;himself.&nbsp;
+A low moaning is heard, the women rock their bodies to and fro, and
+wring their hands; the preacher&rsquo;s fervour increases, the perspiration
+starts upon his brow, his face is flushed, and he clenches his hands
+convulsively, as he draws a hideous and appalling picture of the horrors
+preparing for the wicked in a future state.&nbsp; A great excitement
+is visible among his hearers, a scream is heard, and some young girl
+falls senseless on the floor.&nbsp; There is a momentary rustle, but
+it is only for a moment&mdash;all eyes are turned towards the preacher.&nbsp;
+He pauses, passes his handkerchief across his face, and looks complacently
+round.&nbsp; His voice resumes its natural tone, as with mock humility
+he offers up a thanksgiving for having been successful in his efforts,
+and having been permitted to rescue one sinner from the path of evil.&nbsp;
+He sinks back into his seat, exhausted with the violence of his ravings;
+the girl is removed, a hymn is sung, a petition for some measure for
+securing the better observance of the Sabbath, which has been prepared
+by the good man, is read; and his worshipping admirers struggle who
+shall be the first to sign it.</p>
+<p>But the morning service has concluded, and the streets are again
+crowded with people.&nbsp; Long rows of cleanly-dressed charity children,
+preceded by a portly beadle and a withered schoolmaster, are returning
+to their welcome dinner; and it is evident, from the number of men with
+beer-trays who are running from house to house, that no inconsiderable
+portion of the population are about to take theirs at this early hour.&nbsp;
+The bakers&rsquo; shops in the humbler suburbs especially, are filled
+with men, women, and children, each anxiously waiting for the Sunday
+dinner.&nbsp; Look at the group of children who surround that working
+man who has just emerged from the baker&rsquo;s shop at the corner of
+the street, with the reeking dish, in which a diminutive joint of mutton
+simmers above a vast heap of half-browned potatoes.&nbsp; How the young
+rogues clap their hands, and dance round their father, for very joy
+at the prospect of the feast: and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest
+of the lot, lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into
+the interior of the dish.&nbsp; They turn up the street, and the chubby-faced
+boy trots on as fast as his little legs will carry him, to herald the
+approach of the dinner to &lsquo;Mother&rsquo; who is standing with
+a baby in her arms on the doorstep, and who seems almost as pleased
+with the whole scene as the children themselves; whereupon &lsquo;baby&rsquo;
+not precisely understanding the importance of the business in hand,
+but clearly perceiving that it is something unusually lively, kicks
+and crows most lustily, to the unspeakable delight of all the children
+and both the parents: and the dinner is borne into the house amidst
+a shouting of small voices, and jumping of fat legs, which would fill
+Sir Andrew Agnew with astonishment; as well it might, seeing that Baronets,
+generally speaking, eat pretty comfortable dinners all the week through,
+and cannot be expected to understand what people feel, who only have
+a meat dinner on one day out of every seven.</p>
+<p>The bakings being all duly consigned to their respective owners,
+and the beer-man having gone his rounds, the church bells ring for afternoon
+service, the shops are again closed, and the streets are more than ever
+thronged with people; some who have not been to church in the morning,
+going to it now; others who have been to church, going out for a walk;
+and others&mdash;let us admit the full measure of their guilt&mdash;going
+for a walk, who have not been to church at all.&nbsp; I am afraid the
+smart servant of all work, who has been loitering at the corner of the
+square for the last ten minutes, is one of the latter class.&nbsp; She
+is evidently waiting for somebody, and though she may have made up her
+mind to go to church with him one of these mornings, I don&rsquo;t think
+they have any such intention on this particular afternoon.&nbsp; Here
+he is, at last.&nbsp; The white trousers, blue coat, and yellow waistcoat&mdash;and
+more especially that cock of the hat&mdash;indicate, as surely as inanimate
+objects can, that Chalk Farm and not the parish church, is their destination.&nbsp;
+The girl colours up, and puts out her hand with a very awkward affectation
+of indifference.&nbsp; He gives it a gallant squeeze, and away they
+walk, arm in arm, the girl just looking back towards her &lsquo;place&rsquo;
+with an air of conscious self-importance, and nodding to her fellow-servant
+who has gone up to the two-pair-of-stairs window, to take a full view
+of &lsquo;Mary&rsquo;s young man,&rsquo; which being communicated to
+William, he takes off his hat to the fellow-servant: a proceeding which
+affords unmitigated satisfaction to all parties, and impels the fellow-servant
+to inform Miss Emily confidentially, in the course of the evening, &lsquo;that
+the young man as Mary keeps company with, is one of the most genteelest
+young men as ever she see.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>The two young people who have just crossed the road, and are following
+this happy couple down the street, are a fair specimen of another class
+of Sunday&mdash;pleasurers.&nbsp; There is a dapper smartness, struggling
+through very limited means, about the young man, which induces one to
+set him down at once as a junior clerk to a tradesman or attorney.&nbsp;
+The girl no one could possibly mistake.&nbsp; You may tell a young woman
+in the employment of a large dress-maker, at any time, by a certain
+neatness of cheap finery and humble following of fashion, which pervade
+her whole attire; but unfortunately there are other tokens not to be
+misunderstood&mdash;the pale face with its hectic bloom, the slight
+distortion of form which no artifice of dress can wholly conceal, the
+unhealthy stoop, and the short cough&mdash;the effects of hard work
+and close application to a sedentary employment, upon a tender frame.&nbsp;
+They turn towards the fields.&nbsp; The girl&rsquo;s countenance brightens,
+and an unwonted glow rises in her face.&nbsp; They are going to Hampstead
+or Highgate, to spend their holiday afternoon in some place where they
+can see the sky, the fields, and trees, and breathe for an hour or two
+the pure air, which so seldom plays upon that poor girl&rsquo;s form,
+or exhilarates her spirits.</p>
+<p>I would to God, that the iron-hearted man who would deprive such
+people as these of their only pleasures, could feel the sinking of heart
+and soul, the wasting exhaustion of mind and body, the utter prostration
+of present strength and future hope, attendant upon that incessant toil
+which lasts from day to day, and from month to month; that toil which
+is too often protracted until the silence of midnight, and resumed with
+the first stir of morning.&nbsp; How marvellously would his ardent zeal
+for other men&rsquo;s souls, diminish after a short probation, and how
+enlightened and comprehensive would his views of the real object and
+meaning of the institution of the Sabbath become!</p>
+<p>The afternoon is far advanced&mdash;the parks and public drives are
+crowded.&nbsp; Carriages, gigs, phaetons, stanhopes, and vehicles of
+every description, glide smoothly on.&nbsp; The promenades are filled
+with loungers on foot, and the road is thronged with loungers on horseback.&nbsp;
+Persons of every class are crowded together, here, in one dense mass.&nbsp;
+The plebeian, who takes his pleasure on no day but Sunday, jostles the
+patrician, who takes his, from year&rsquo;s end to year&rsquo;s end.&nbsp;
+You look in vain for any outward signs of profligacy or debauchery.&nbsp;
+You see nothing before you but a vast number of people, the denizens
+of a large and crowded city, in the needful and rational enjoyment of
+air and exercise.</p>
+<p>It grows dusk.&nbsp; The roads leading from the different places
+of suburban resort, are crowded with people on their return home, and
+the sound of merry voices rings through the gradually darkening fields.&nbsp;
+The evening is hot and sultry.&nbsp; The rich man throws open the sashes
+of his spacious dining-room, and quaffs his iced wine in splendid luxury.&nbsp;
+The poor man, who has no room to take his meals in, but the close apartment
+to which he and his family have been confined throughout the week, sits
+in the tea-garden of some famous tavern, and drinks his beer in content
+and comfort.&nbsp; The fields and roads are gradually deserted, the
+crowd once more pour into the streets, and disperse to their several
+homes; and by midnight all is silent and quiet, save where a few stragglers
+linger beneath the window of some great man&rsquo;s house, to listen
+to the strains of music from within: or stop to gaze upon the splendid
+carriages which are waiting to convey the guests from the dinner-party
+of an Earl.</p>
+<p>There is a darker side to this picture, on which, so far from its
+being any part of my purpose to conceal it, I wish to lay particular
+stress.&nbsp; In some parts of London, and in many of the manufacturing
+towns of England, drunkenness and profligacy in their most disgusting
+forms, exhibit in the open streets on Sunday, a sad and a degrading
+spectacle.&nbsp; We need go no farther than St. Giles&rsquo;s, or Drury
+Lane, for sights and scenes of a most repulsive nature.&nbsp; Women
+with scarcely the articles of apparel which common decency requires,
+with forms bloated by disease, and faces rendered hideous by habitual
+drunkenness&mdash;men reeling and staggering along&mdash;children in
+rags and filth&mdash;whole streets of squalid and miserable appearance,
+whose inhabitants are lounging in the public road, fighting, screaming,
+and swearing&mdash;these are the common objects which present themselves
+in, these are the well-known characteristics of, that portion of London
+to which I have just referred.</p>
+<p>And why is it, that all well-disposed persons are shocked, and public
+decency scandalised, by such exhibitions?</p>
+<p>These people are poor&mdash;that is notorious.&nbsp; It may be said
+that they spend in liquor, money with which they might purchase necessaries,
+and there is no denying the fact; but let it be remembered that even
+if they applied every farthing of their earnings in the best possible
+way, they would still be very&mdash;very poor.&nbsp; Their dwellings
+are necessarily uncomfortable, and to a certain degree unhealthy.&nbsp;
+Cleanliness might do much, but they are too crowded together, the streets
+are too narrow, and the rooms too small, to admit of their ever being
+rendered desirable habitations.&nbsp; They work very hard all the week.&nbsp;
+We know that the effect of prolonged and arduous labour, is to produce,
+when a period of rest does arrive, a sensation of lassitude which it
+requires the application of some stimulus to overcome.&nbsp; What stimulus
+have they?&nbsp; Sunday comes, and with it a cessation of labour.&nbsp;
+How are they to employ the day, or what inducement have they to employ
+it, in recruiting their stock of health?&nbsp; They see little parties,
+on pleasure excursions, passing through the streets; but they cannot
+imitate their example, for they have not the means.&nbsp; They may walk,
+to be sure, but it is exactly the inducement to walk that they require.&nbsp;
+If every one of these men knew, that by taking the trouble to walk two
+or three miles he would be enabled to share in a good game of cricket,
+or some athletic sport, I very much question whether any of them would
+remain at home.</p>
+<p>But you hold out no inducement, you offer no relief from listlessness,
+you provide nothing to amuse his mind, you afford him no means of exercising
+his body.&nbsp; Unwashed and unshaven, he saunters moodily about, weary
+and dejected.&nbsp; In lieu of the wholesome stimulus he might derive
+from nature, you drive him to the pernicious excitement to be gained
+from art.&nbsp; He flies to the gin-shop as his only resource; and when,
+reduced to a worse level than the lowest brute in the scale of creation,
+he lies wallowing in the kennel, your saintly lawgivers lift up their
+hands to heaven, and exclaim for a law which shall convert the day intended
+for rest and cheerfulness, into one of universal gloom, bigotry, and
+persecution.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER II&mdash;AS SABBATH BILLS WOULD MAKE IT</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>The provisions of the bill introduced into the House of Commons by
+Sir Andrew Agnew, and thrown out by that House on the motion for the
+second reading, on the 18th of May in the present year, by a majority
+of 32, may very fairly be taken as a test of the length to which the
+fanatics, of which the honourable Baronet is the distinguished leader,
+are prepared to go.&nbsp; No test can be fairer; because while on the
+one hand this measure may be supposed to exhibit all that improvement
+which mature reflection and long deliberation may have suggested, so
+on the other it may very reasonably be inferred, that if it be quite
+as severe in its provisions, and to the full as partial in its operation,
+as those which have preceded it and experienced a similar fate, the
+disease under which the honourable Baronet and his friends labour, is
+perfectly hopeless, and beyond the reach of cure.</p>
+<p>The proposed enactments of the bill are briefly these:- All work
+is prohibited on the Lord&rsquo;s day, under heavy penalties, increasing
+with every repetition of the offence.&nbsp; There are penalties for
+keeping shops open&mdash;penalties for drunkenness&mdash;penalties for
+keeping open houses of entertainment&mdash;penalties for being present
+at any public meeting or assembly&mdash;penalties for letting carriages,
+and penalties for hiring them&mdash;penalties for travelling in steam-boats,
+and penalties for taking passengers&mdash;penalties on vessels commencing
+their voyage on Sunday&mdash;penalties on the owners of cattle who suffer
+them to be driven on the Lord&rsquo;s day&mdash;penalties on constables
+who refuse to act, and penalties for resisting them when they do.&nbsp;
+In addition to these trifles, the constables are invested with arbitrary,
+vexatious, and most extensive powers; and all this in a bill which sets
+out with a hypocritical and canting declaration that &lsquo;nothing
+is more acceptable to God than the <i>true</i> <i>and sincere</i> worship
+of Him according to His holy will, and that it is the bounden duty of
+Parliament to promote the observance of the Lord&rsquo;s day, by protecting
+every class of society against being required to sacrifice their comfort,
+health, religious privileges, and conscience, for the convenience, enjoyment,
+or supposed advantage of any other class on the Lord&rsquo;s day&rsquo;!&nbsp;
+The idea of making a man truly moral through the ministry of constables,
+and sincerely religious under the influence of penalties, is worthy
+of the mind which could form such a mass of monstrous absurdity as this
+bill is composed of.</p>
+<p>The House of Commons threw the measure out certainly, and by so doing
+retrieved the disgrace&mdash;so far as it could be retrieved&mdash;of
+placing among the printed papers of Parliament, such an egregious specimen
+of legislative folly; but there was a degree of delicacy and forbearance
+about the debate that took place, which I cannot help thinking as unnecessary
+and uncalled for, as it is unusual in Parliamentary discussions.&nbsp;
+If it had been the first time of Sir Andrew Agnew&rsquo;s attempting
+to palm such a measure upon the country, we might well understand, and
+duly appreciate, the delicate and compassionate feeling due to the supposed
+weakness and imbecility of the man, which prevented his proposition
+being exposed in its true colours, and induced this Hon. Member to bear
+testimony to his excellent motives, and that Noble Lord to regret that
+he could not&mdash;although he had tried to do so&mdash;adopt any portion
+of the bill.&nbsp; But when these attempts have been repeated, again
+and again; when Sir Andrew Agnew has renewed them session after session,
+and when it has become palpably evident to the whole House that</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>His impudence of proof in every trial,<br />Kens no polite, and heeds
+no plain denial -</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>it really becomes high time to speak of him and his legislation,
+as they appear to deserve, without that gloss of politeness, which is
+all very well in an ordinary case, but rather out of place when the
+liberties and comforts of a whole people are at stake.</p>
+<p>In the first place, it is by no means the worst characteristic of
+this bill, that it is a bill of blunders: it is, from beginning to end,
+a piece of deliberate cruelty, and crafty injustice.&nbsp; If the rich
+composed the whole population of this country, not a single comfort
+of one single man would be affected by it.&nbsp; It is directed exclusively,
+and without the exception of a solitary instance, against the amusements
+and recreations of the poor.&nbsp; This was the bait held out by the
+Hon. Baronet to a body of men, who cannot be supposed to have any very
+strong sympathies in common with the poor, because they cannot understand
+their sufferings or their struggles.&nbsp; This is the bait, which will
+in time prevail, unless public attention is awakened, and public feeling
+exerted, to prevent it.</p>
+<p>Take the very first clause, the provision that no man shall be allowed
+to work on Sunday&mdash;&lsquo;That no person, upon the Lord&rsquo;s
+day, shall do, or hire, or employ any person to do any manner of labour,
+or any work of his or her ordinary calling.&rsquo;&nbsp; What class
+of persons does this affect?&nbsp; The rich man?&nbsp; No.&nbsp; Menial
+servants, both male and female, are specially exempted from the operation
+of the bill.&nbsp; &lsquo;Menial servants&rsquo; are among the poor
+people.&nbsp; The bill has no regard for them.&nbsp; The Baronet&rsquo;s
+dinner must be cooked on Sunday, the Bishop&rsquo;s horses must be groomed,
+and the Peer&rsquo;s carriage must be driven.&nbsp; So the menial servants
+are put utterly beyond the pale of grace;&mdash;unless indeed, they
+are to go to heaven through the sanctity of their masters, and possibly
+they might think even that, rather an uncertain passport.</p>
+<p>There is a penalty for keeping open, houses of entertainment.&nbsp;
+Now, suppose the bill had passed, and that half-a-dozen adventurous
+licensed victuallers, relying upon the excitement of public feeling
+on the subject, and the consequent difficulty of conviction (this is
+by no means an improbable supposition), had determined to keep their
+houses and gardens open, through the whole Sunday afternoon, in defiance
+of the law.&nbsp; Every act of hiring or working, every act of buying
+or selling, or delivering, or causing anything to be bought or sold,
+is specifically made a separate offence&mdash;mark the effect.&nbsp;
+A party, a man and his wife and children, enter a tea-garden, and the
+informer stations himself in the next box, from whence he can see and
+hear everything that passes.&nbsp; &lsquo;Waiter!&rsquo; says the father.&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Yes.&nbsp; Sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Pint of the best ale!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Yes, Sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; Away runs the waiter to the bar, and gets
+the ale from the landlord.&nbsp; Out comes the informer&rsquo;s note-book&mdash;penalty
+on the father for hiring, on the waiter for delivering, and on the landlord
+for selling, on the Lord&rsquo;s day.&nbsp; But it does not stop here.&nbsp;
+The waiter delivers the ale, and darts off, little suspecting the penalties
+in store for him.&nbsp; &lsquo;Hollo,&rsquo; cries the father, &lsquo;waiter!&rsquo;&nbsp;
+&lsquo;Yes, Sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Just get this little boy a biscuit,
+will you?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Yes, Sir.&rsquo;&nbsp; Off runs the waiter
+again, and down goes another case of hiring, another case of delivering,
+and another case of selling; and so it would go on <i>ad infinitum</i>,
+the sum and substance of the matter being, that every time a man or
+woman cried &lsquo;Waiter!&rsquo; on Sunday, he or she would be fined
+not less than forty shillings, nor more than a hundred; and every time
+a waiter replied, &lsquo;Yes, Sir,&rsquo; he and his master would be
+fined in the same amount: with the addition of a new sort of window
+duty on the landlord, to wit, a tax of twenty shillings an hour for
+every hour beyond the first one, during which he should have his shutters
+down on the Sabbath.</p>
+<p>With one exception, there are perhaps no clauses in the whole bill,
+so strongly illustrative of its partial operation, and the intention
+of its framer, as those which relate to travelling on Sunday.&nbsp;
+Penalties of ten, twenty, and thirty pounds, are mercilessly imposed
+upon coach proprietors who shall run their coaches on the Sabbath; one,
+two, and ten pounds upon those who hire, or let to hire, horses and
+carriages upon the Lord&rsquo;s day, but not one syllable about those
+who have no necessity to hire, because they have carriages and horses
+of their own; not one word of a penalty on liveried coachmen and footmen.&nbsp;
+The whole of the saintly venom is directed against the hired cabriolet,
+the humble fly, or the rumbling hackney-coach, which enables a man of
+the poorer class to escape for a few hours from the smoke and dirt,
+in the midst of which he has been confined throughout the week: while
+the escutcheoned carriage and the dashing cab, may whirl their wealthy
+owners to Sunday feasts and private oratorios, setting constables, informers,
+and penalties, at defiance.&nbsp; Again, in the description of the places
+of public resort which it is rendered criminal to attend on Sunday,
+there are no words comprising a very fashionable promenade.&nbsp; Public
+discussions, public debates, public lectures and speeches, are cautiously
+guarded against; for it is by their means that the people become enlightened
+enough to deride the last efforts of bigotry and superstition.&nbsp;
+There is a stringent provision for punishing the poor man who spends
+an hour in a news-room, but there is nothing to prevent the rich one
+from lounging away the day in the Zoological Gardens.</p>
+<p>There is, in four words, a mock proviso, which affects to forbid
+travelling &lsquo;with any animal&rsquo; on the Lord&rsquo;s day.&nbsp;
+This, however, is revoked, as relates to the rich man, by a subsequent
+provision.&nbsp; We have then a penalty of not less than fifty, nor
+more than one hundred pounds, upon any person participating in the control,
+or having the command of any vessel which shall commence her voyage
+on the Lord&rsquo;s day, should the wind prove favourable.&nbsp; The
+next time this bill is brought forward (which will no doubt be at an
+early period of the next session of Parliament) perhaps it will be better
+to amend this clause by declaring, that from and after the passing of
+the act, it shall be deemed unlawful for the wind to blow at all upon
+the Sabbath.&nbsp; It would remove a great deal of temptation from the
+owners and captains of vessels.</p>
+<p>The reader is now in possession of the principal enacting clauses
+of Sir Andrew Agnew&rsquo;s bill, with the exception of one, for preventing
+the killing or taking of &lsquo;<i>fish, or other wild animals</i>,&rsquo;
+and the ordinary provisions which are inserted for form&rsquo;s sake
+in all acts of Parliament.&nbsp; I now beg his attention to the clauses
+of exemption.</p>
+<p>They are two in number.&nbsp; The first exempts menial servants from
+any rest, and all poor men from any recreation: outlaws a milkman after
+nine o&rsquo;clock in the morning, and makes eating-houses lawful for
+only two hours in the afternoon; permits a medical man to use his carriage
+on Sunday, and declares that a clergyman may either use his own, or
+hire one.</p>
+<p>The second is artful, cunning, and designing; shielding the rich
+man from the possibility of being entrapped, and affecting at the same
+time, to have a tender and scrupulous regard, for the interests of the
+whole community.&nbsp; It declares, &lsquo;that nothing in this act
+contained, shall extend to works of piety, charity, or necessity.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>What is meant by the word &lsquo;necessity&rsquo; in this clause?&nbsp;
+Simply this&mdash;that the rich man shall be at liberty to make use
+of all the splendid luxuries he has collected around him, on any day
+in the week, because habit and custom have rendered them &lsquo;necessary&rsquo;
+to his easy existence; but that the poor man who saves his money to
+provide some little pleasure for himself and family at lengthened intervals,
+shall not be permitted to enjoy it.&nbsp; It is not &lsquo;necessary&rsquo;
+to him:- Heaven knows, he very often goes long enough without it.&nbsp;
+This is the plain English of the clause.&nbsp; The carriage and pair
+of horses, the coachman, the footman, the helper, and the groom, are
+&lsquo;necessary&rsquo; on Sundays, as on other days, to the bishop
+and the nobleman; but the hackney-coach, the hired gig, or the taxed
+cart, cannot possibly be &lsquo;necessary&rsquo; to the working-man
+on Sunday, for he has it not at other times.&nbsp; The sumptuous dinner
+and the rich wines, are &lsquo;necessaries&rsquo; to a great man in
+his own mansion: but the pint of beer and the plate of meat, degrade
+the national character in an eating-house.</p>
+<p>Such is the bill for promoting the true and sincere worship of God
+according to his Holy Will, and for protecting every class of society
+against being required to sacrifice their health and comfort on the
+Sabbath.&nbsp; Instances in which its operation would be as unjust as
+it would be absurd, might be multiplied to an endless amount; but it
+is sufficient to place its leading provisions before the reader.&nbsp;
+In doing so, I have purposely abstained from drawing upon the imagination
+for possible cases; the provisions to which I have referred, stand in
+so many words upon the bill as printed by order of the House of Commons;
+and they can neither be disowned, nor explained away.</p>
+<p>Let us suppose such a bill as this, to have actually passed both
+branches of the legislature; to have received the royal assent; and
+to have come into operation.&nbsp; Imagine its effect in a great city
+like London.</p>
+<p>Sunday comes, and brings with it a day of general gloom and austerity.&nbsp;
+The man who has been toiling hard all the week, has been looking towards
+the Sabbath, not as to a day of rest from labour, and healthy recreation,
+but as one of grievous tyranny and grinding oppression.&nbsp; The day
+which his Maker intended as a blessing, man has converted into a curse.&nbsp;
+Instead of being hailed by him as his period of relaxation, he finds
+it remarkable only as depriving him of every comfort and enjoyment.&nbsp;
+He has many children about him, all sent into the world at an early
+age, to struggle for a livelihood; one is kept in a warehouse all day,
+with an interval of rest too short to enable him to reach home, another
+walks four or five miles to his employment at the docks, a third earns
+a few shillings weekly, as an errand boy, or office messenger; and the
+employment of the man himself, detains him at some distance from his
+home from morning till night.&nbsp; Sunday is the only day on which
+they could all meet together, and enjoy a homely meal in social comfort;
+and now they sit down to a cold and cheerless dinner: the pious guardians
+of the man&rsquo;s salvation having, in their regard for the welfare
+of his precious soul, shut up the bakers&rsquo; shops.&nbsp; The fire
+blazes high in the kitchen chimney of these well-fed hypocrites, and
+the rich steams of the savoury dinner scent the air.&nbsp; What care
+they to be told that this class of men have neither a place to cook
+in&mdash;nor means to bear the expense, if they had?</p>
+<p>Look into your churches&mdash;diminished congregations, and scanty
+attendance.&nbsp; People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are becoming
+disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day as this,
+once in every seven.&nbsp; And as you cannot make people religious by
+Act of Parliament, or force them to church by constables, they display
+their feeling by staying away.</p>
+<p>Turn into the streets, and mark the rigid gloom that reigns over
+everything around.&nbsp; The roads are empty, the fields are deserted,
+the houses of entertainment are closed.&nbsp; Groups of filthy and discontented-looking
+men, are idling about at the street corners, or sleeping in the sun;
+but there are no decently-dressed people of the poorer class, passing
+to and fro.&nbsp; Where should they walk to?&nbsp; It would take them
+an hour, at least, to get into the fields, and when they reached them,
+they could procure neither bite nor sup, without the informer and the
+penalty.&nbsp; Now and then, a carriage rolls smoothly on, or a well-mounted
+horseman, followed by a liveried attendant, canters by; but with these
+exceptions, all is as melancholy and quiet as if a pestilence had fallen
+on the city.</p>
+<p>Bend your steps through the narrow and thickly-inhabited streets,
+and observe the sallow faces of the men and women who are lounging at
+the doors, or lolling from the windows.&nbsp; Regard well the closeness
+of these crowded rooms, and the noisome exhalations that rise from the
+drains and kennels; and then laud the triumph of religion and morality,
+which condemns people to drag their lives out in such stews as these,
+and makes it criminal for them to eat or drink in the fresh air, or
+under the clear sky.&nbsp; Here and there, from some half-opened window,
+the loud shout of drunken revelry strikes upon the ear, and the noise
+of oaths and quarrelling&mdash;the effect of the close and heated atmosphere&mdash;is
+heard on all sides.&nbsp; See how the men all rush to join the crowd
+that are making their way down the street, and how loud the execrations
+of the mob become as they draw nearer.&nbsp; They have assembled round
+a little knot of constables, who have seized the stock-in-trade, heinously
+exposed on Sunday, of some miserable walking-stick seller, who follows
+clamouring for his property.&nbsp; The dispute grows warmer and fiercer,
+until at last some of the more furious among the crowd, rush forward
+to restore the goods to their owner.&nbsp; A general conflict takes
+place; the sticks of the constables are exercised in all directions;
+fresh assistance is procured; and half a dozen of the assailants are
+conveyed to the station-house, struggling, bleeding, and cursing.&nbsp;
+The case is taken to the police-office on the following morning; and
+after a frightful amount of perjury on both sides, the men are sent
+to prison for resisting the officers, their families to the workhouse
+to keep them from starving: and there they both remain for a month afterwards,
+glorious trophies of the sanctified enforcement of the Christian Sabbath.&nbsp;
+Add to such scenes as these, the profligacy, idleness, drunkenness,
+and vice, that will be committed to an extent which no man can foresee,
+on Monday, as an atonement for the restraint of the preceding day; and
+you have a very faint and imperfect picture of the religious effects
+of this Sunday legislation, supposing it could ever be forced upon the
+people.</p>
+<p>But let those who advocate the cause of fanaticism, reflect well
+upon the probable issue of their endeavours.&nbsp; They may by perseverance,
+succeed with Parliament.&nbsp; Let them ponder on the probability of
+succeeding with the people.&nbsp; You may deny the concession of a political
+question for a time, and a nation will bear it patiently.&nbsp; Strike
+home to the comforts of every man&rsquo;s fireside&mdash;tamper with
+every man&rsquo;s freedom and liberty&mdash;and one month, one week,
+may rouse a feeling abroad, which a king would gladly yield his crown
+to quell, and a peer would resign his coronet to allay.</p>
+<p>It is the custom to affect a deference for the motives of those who
+advocate these measures, and a respect for the feelings by which they
+are actuated.&nbsp; They do not deserve it.&nbsp; If they legislate
+in ignorance, they are criminal and dishonest; if they do so with their
+eyes open, they commit wilful injustice; in either case, they bring
+religion into contempt.&nbsp; But they do NOT legislate in ignorance.&nbsp;
+Public prints, and public men, have pointed out to them again and again,
+the consequences of their proceedings.&nbsp; If they persist in thrusting
+themselves forward, let those consequences rest upon their own heads,
+and let them be content to stand upon their own merits.</p>
+<p>It may be asked, what motives can actuate a man who has so little
+regard for the comfort of his fellow-beings, so little respect for their
+wants and necessities, and so distorted a notion of the beneficence
+of his Creator.&nbsp; I reply, an envious, heartless, ill-conditioned
+dislike to seeing those whom fortune has placed below him, cheerful
+and happy&mdash;an intolerant confidence in his own high worthiness
+before God, and a lofty impression of the demerits of others&mdash;pride,
+selfish pride, as inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity itself,
+as opposed to the example of its Founder upon earth.</p>
+<p>To these may be added another class of men&mdash;the stern and gloomy
+enthusiasts, who would make earth a hell, and religion a torment: men
+who, having wasted the earlier part of their lives in dissipation and
+depravity, find themselves when scarcely past its meridian, steeped
+to the neck in vice, and shunned like a loathsome disease.&nbsp; Abandoned
+by the world, having nothing to fall back upon, nothing to remember
+but time mis-spent, and energies misdirected, they turn their eyes and
+not their thoughts to Heaven, and delude themselves into the impious
+belief, that in denouncing the lightness of heart of which they cannot
+partake, and the rational pleasures from which they never derived enjoyment,
+they are more than remedying the sins of their old career, and&mdash;like
+the founders of monasteries and builders of churches, in ruder days&mdash;establishing
+a good set claim upon their Maker.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>CHAPTER III&mdash;AS IT MIGHT BE MADE</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>The supporters of Sabbath Bills, and more especially the extreme
+class of Dissenters, lay great stress upon the declarations occasionally
+made by criminals from the condemned cell or the scaffold, that to Sabbath-breaking
+they attribute their first deviation from the path of rectitude; and
+they point to these statements, as an incontestable proof of the evil
+consequences which await a departure from that strict and rigid observance
+of the Sabbath, which they uphold.&nbsp; I cannot help thinking that
+in this, as in almost every other respect connected with the subject,
+there is a considerable degree of cant, and a very great deal of wilful
+blindness.&nbsp; If a man be viciously disposed&mdash;and with very
+few exceptions, not a man dies by the executioner&rsquo;s hands, who
+has not been in one way or other a most abandoned and profligate character
+for many years&mdash;if a man be viciously disposed, there is no doubt
+that he will turn his Sunday to bad account, that he will take advantage
+of it, to dissipate with other bad characters as vile as himself; and
+that in this way, he may trace his first yielding to temptation, possibly
+his first commission of crime, to an infringement of the Sabbath.&nbsp;
+But this would be an argument against any holiday at all.&nbsp; If his
+holiday had been Wednesday instead of Sunday, and he had devoted it
+to the same improper uses, it would have been productive of the same
+results.&nbsp; It is too much to judge of the character of a whole people,
+by the confessions of the very worst members of society.&nbsp; It is
+not fair, to cry down things which are harmless in themselves, because
+evil-disposed men may turn them to bad account.&nbsp; Who ever thought
+of deprecating the teaching poor people to write, because some porter
+in a warehouse had committed forgery?&nbsp; Or into what man&rsquo;s
+head did it ever enter, to prevent the crowding of churches, because
+it afforded a temptation for the picking of pockets?</p>
+<p>When the Book of Sports, for allowing the peasantry of England to
+divert themselves with certain games in the open air, on Sundays, after
+evening service, was published by Charles the First, it is needless
+to say the English people were comparatively rude and uncivilised.&nbsp;
+And yet it is extraordinary to how few excesses it gave rise, even in
+that day, when men&rsquo;s minds were not enlightened, or their passions
+moderated, by the influence of education and refinement.&nbsp; That
+some excesses were committed through its means, in the remoter parts
+of the country, and that it was discontinued in those places, in consequence,
+cannot be denied: but generally speaking, there is no proof whatever
+on record, of its having had any tendency to increase crime, or to lower
+the character of the people.</p>
+<p>The Puritans of that time, were as much opposed to harmless recreations
+and healthful amusements as those of the present day, and it is amusing
+to observe that each in their generation, advance precisely the same
+description of arguments.&nbsp; In the British Museum, there is a curious
+pamphlet got up by the Agnews of Charles&rsquo;s time, entitled &lsquo;A
+Divine Tragedie lately acted, or a Collection of sundry memorable examples
+of God&rsquo;s Judgements upon Sabbath Breakers, and other like Libertines
+in their unlawful Sports, happening within the realme of England, in
+the compass only of two yeares last past, since the Booke (of Sports)
+was published, worthy to be knowne and considered of all men, especially
+such who are guilty of the sinne, or archpatrons thereof.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+This amusing document, contains some fifty or sixty veritable accounts
+of balls of fire that fell into churchyards and upset the sporters,
+and sporters that quarrelled, and upset one another, and so forth: and
+among them is one anecdote containing an example of a rather different
+kind, which I cannot resist the temptation of quoting, as strongly illustrative
+of the fact, that this blinking of the question has not even the recommendation
+of novelty.</p>
+<p>&lsquo;A woman about Northampton, the same day that she heard the
+booke for sports read, went immediately, and having 3. pence in her
+purse, hired a fellow to goe to the next towne to fetch a Minstrell,
+who coming, she with others fell a dauncing, which continued within
+night; at which time shee was got with child, which at the birth shee
+murthering, was detected and apprehended, and being converted before
+the justice, shee confessed it, and withal told the occasion of it,
+saying it was her falling to sport on the Sabbath, upon the reading
+of the Booke, so as for this treble sinfull act, her presumptuous profaning
+of the Sabbath, wh. brought her adultory and that murther.&nbsp; Shee
+was according to the Law both of God and man, put to death.&nbsp; Much
+sinne and misery followeth upon Sabbath-breaking.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>It is needless to say, that if the young lady near Northampton had
+&lsquo;fallen to sport&rsquo; of such a dangerous description, on any
+other day but Sunday, the first result would probably have been the
+same: it never having been distinctly shown that Sunday is more favourable
+to the propagation of the human race than any other day in the week.&nbsp;
+The second result&mdash;the murder of the child&mdash;does not speak
+very highly for the amiability of her natural disposition; and the whole
+story, supposing it to have had any foundation at all, is about as much
+chargeable upon the Book of Sports, as upon the Book of Kings.&nbsp;
+Such &lsquo;sports&rsquo; have taken place in Dissenting Chapels before
+now; but religion has never been blamed in consequence; nor has it been
+proposed to shut up the chapels on that account.</p>
+<p>The question, then, very fairly arises, whether we have any reason
+to suppose that allowing games in the open air on Sundays, or even providing
+the means of amusement for the humbler classes of society on that day,
+would be hurtful and injurious to the character and morals of the people.</p>
+<p>I was travelling in the west of England a summer or two back, and
+was induced by the beauty of the scenery, and the seclusion of the spot,
+to remain for the night in a small village, distant about seventy miles
+from London.&nbsp; The next morning was Sunday; and I walked out, towards
+the church.&nbsp; Groups of people&mdash;the whole population of the
+little hamlet apparently&mdash;were hastening in the same direction.&nbsp;
+Cheerful and good-humoured congratulations were heard on all sides,
+as neighbours overtook each other, and walked on in company.&nbsp; Occasionally
+I passed an aged couple, whose married daughter and her husband were
+loitering by the side of the old people, accommodating their rate of
+walking to their feeble pace, while a little knot of children hurried
+on before; stout young labourers in clean round frocks; and buxom girls
+with healthy, laughing faces, were plentifully sprinkled about in couples,
+and the whole scene was one of quiet and tranquil contentment, irresistibly
+captivating.&nbsp; The morning was bright and pleasant, the hedges were
+green and blooming, and a thousand delicious scents were wafted on the
+air, from the wild flowers which blossomed on either side of the footpath.&nbsp;
+The little church was one of those venerable simple buildings which
+abound in the English counties; half overgrown with moss and ivy, and
+standing in the centre of a little plot of ground, which, but for the
+green mounds with which it was studded, might have passed for a lovely
+meadow.&nbsp; I fancied that the old clanking bell which was now summoning
+the congregation together, would seem less terrible when it rung out
+the knell of a departed soul, than I had ever deemed possible before&mdash;that
+the sound would tell only of a welcome to calmness and rest, amidst
+the most peaceful and tranquil scene in nature.</p>
+<p>I followed into the church&mdash;a low-roofed building with small
+arched windows, through which the sun&rsquo;s rays streamed upon a plain
+tablet on the opposite wall, which had once recorded names, now as undistinguishable
+on its worn surface, as were the bones beneath, from the dust into which
+they had resolved.&nbsp; The impressive service of the Church of England
+was spoken&mdash;not merely <i>read&mdash;</i>by a grey-headed minister,
+and the responses delivered by his auditors, with an air of sincere
+devotion as far removed from affectation or display, as from coldness
+or indifference.&nbsp; The psalms were accompanied by a few instrumental
+performers, who were stationed in a small gallery extending across the
+church at the lower end, over the door: and the voices were led by the
+clerk, who, it was evident, derived no slight pride and gratification
+from this portion of the service.&nbsp; The discourse was plain, unpretending,
+and well adapted to the comprehension of the hearers.&nbsp; At the conclusion
+of the service, the villagers waited in the churchyard, to salute the
+clergyman as he passed; and two or three, I observed, stepped aside,
+as if communicating some little difficulty, and asking his advice.&nbsp;
+This, to guess from the homely bows, and other rustic expressions of
+gratitude, the old gentleman readily conceded.&nbsp; He seemed intimately
+acquainted with the circumstances of all his parishioners; for I heard
+him inquire after one man&rsquo;s youngest child, another man&rsquo;s
+wife, and so forth; and that he was fond of his joke, I discovered from
+overhearing him ask a stout, fresh-coloured young fellow, with a very
+pretty bashful-looking girl on his arm, &lsquo;when those banns were
+to be put up?&rsquo;&mdash;an inquiry which made the young fellow more
+fresh-coloured, and the girl more bashful, and which, strange to say,
+caused a great many other girls who were standing round, to colour up
+also, and look anywhere but in the faces of their male companions.</p>
+<p>As I approached this spot in the evening about half an hour before
+sunset, I was surprised to hear the hum of voices, and occasionally
+a shout of merriment from the meadow beyond the churchyard; which I
+found, when I reached the stile, to be occasioned by a very animated
+game of cricket, in which the boys and young men of the place were engaged,
+while the females and old people were scattered about: some seated on
+the grass watching the progress of the game, and others sauntering about
+in groups of two or three, gathering little nosegays of wild roses and
+hedge flowers.&nbsp; I could not but take notice of one old man in particular,
+with a bright-eyed grand-daughter by his side, who was giving a sunburnt
+young fellow some instructions in the game, which he received with an
+air of profound deference, but with an occasional glance at the girl,
+which induced me to think that his attention was rather distracted from
+the old gentleman&rsquo;s narration of the fruits of his experience.&nbsp;
+When it was his turn at the wicket, too, there was a glance towards
+the pair every now and then, which the old grandfather very complacently
+considered as an appeal to his judgment of a particular hit, but which
+a certain blush in the girl&rsquo;s face, and a downcast look of the
+bright eye, led me to believe was intended for somebody else than the
+old man,&mdash;and understood by somebody else, too, or I am much mistaken.</p>
+<p>I was in the very height of the pleasure which the contemplation
+of this scene afforded me, when I saw the old clergyman making his way
+towards us.&nbsp; I trembled for an angry interruption to the sport,
+and was almost on the point of crying out, to warn the cricketers of
+his approach; he was so close upon me, however, that I could do nothing
+but remain still, and anticipate the reproof that was preparing.&nbsp;
+What was my agreeable surprise to see the old gentleman standing at
+the stile, with his hands in his pockets, surveying the whole scene
+with evident satisfaction!&nbsp; And how dull I must have been, not
+to have known till my friend the grandfather (who, by-the-bye, said
+he had been a wonderful cricketer in his time) told me, that it was
+the clergyman himself who had established the whole thing: that it was
+his field they played in; and that it was he who had purchased stumps,
+bats, ball, and all!</p>
+<p>It is such scenes as this, I would see near London, on a Sunday evening.&nbsp;
+It is such men as this, who would do more in one year to make people
+properly religious, cheerful, and contented, than all the legislation
+of a century could ever accomplish.</p>
+<p>It will be said&mdash;it has been very often&mdash;that it would
+be matter of perfect impossibility to make amusements and exercises
+succeed in large towns, which may be very well adapted to a country
+population.&nbsp; Here, again, we are called upon to yield to bare assertions
+on matters of belief and opinion, as if they were established and undoubted
+facts.&nbsp; That there is a wide difference between the two cases,
+no one will be prepared to dispute; that the difference is such as to
+prevent the application of the same principle to both, no reasonable
+man, I think, will be disposed to maintain.&nbsp; The great majority
+of the people who make holiday on Sunday now, are industrious, orderly,
+and well-behaved persons.&nbsp; It is not unreasonable to suppose that
+they would be no more inclined to an abuse of pleasures provided for
+them, than they are to an abuse of the pleasures they provide for themselves;
+and if any people, for want of something better to do, resort to criminal
+practices on the Sabbath as at present observed, no better remedy for
+the evil can be imagined, than giving them the opportunity of doing
+something which will amuse them, and hurt nobody else.</p>
+<p>The propriety of opening the British Museum to respectable people
+on Sunday, has lately been the subject of some discussion.&nbsp; I think
+it would puzzle the most austere of the Sunday legislators to assign
+any valid reason for opposing so sensible a proposition.&nbsp; The Museum
+contains rich specimens from all the vast museums and repositories of
+Nature, and rare and curious fragments of the mighty works of art, in
+bygone ages: all calculated to awaken contemplation and inquiry, and
+to tend to the enlightenment and improvement of the people.&nbsp; But
+attendants would be necessary, and a few men would be employed upon
+the Sabbath.&nbsp; They certainly would; but how many?&nbsp; Why, if
+the British Museum, and the National Gallery, and the Gallery of Practical
+Science, and every other exhibition in London, from which knowledge
+is to be derived and information gained, were to be thrown open on a
+Sunday afternoon, not fifty people would be required to preside over
+the whole: and it would take treble the number to enforce a Sabbath
+bill in any three populous parishes.</p>
+<p>I should like to see some large field, or open piece of ground, in
+every outskirt of London, exhibiting each Sunday evening on a larger
+scale, the scene of the little country meadow.&nbsp; I should like to
+see the time arrive, when a man&rsquo;s attendance to his religious
+duties might be left to that religious feeling which most men possess
+in a greater or less degree, but which was never forced into the breast
+of any man by menace or restraint.&nbsp; I should like to see the time
+when Sunday might be looked forward to, as a recognised day of relaxation
+and enjoyment, and when every man might feel, what few men do now, that
+religion is not incompatible with rational pleasure and needful recreation.</p>
+<p>How different a picture would the streets and public places then
+present!&nbsp; The museums, and repositories of scientific and useful
+inventions, would be crowded with ingenious mechanics and industrious
+artisans, all anxious for information, and all unable to procure it
+at any other time.&nbsp; The spacious saloons would be swarming with
+practical men: humble in appearance, but destined, perhaps, to become
+the greatest inventors and philosophers of their age.&nbsp; The labourers
+who now lounge away the day in idleness and intoxication, would be seen
+hurrying along, with cheerful faces and clean attire, not to the close
+and smoky atmosphere of the public-house but to the fresh and airy fields.&nbsp;
+Fancy the pleasant scene.&nbsp; Throngs of people, pouring out from
+the lanes and alleys of the metropolis, to various places of common
+resort at some short distance from the town, to join in the refreshing
+sports and exercises of the day&mdash;the children gambolling in crowds
+upon the grass, the mothers looking on, and enjoying themselves the
+little game they seem only to direct; other parties strolling along
+some pleasant walks, or reposing in the shade of the stately trees;
+others again intent upon their different amusements.&nbsp; Nothing should
+be heard on all sides, but the sharp stroke of the bat as it sent the
+ball skimming along the ground, the clear ring of the quoit, as it struck
+upon the iron peg: the noisy murmur of many voices, and the loud shout
+of mirth and delight, which would awaken the echoes far and wide, till
+the fields rung with it.&nbsp; The day would pass away, in a series
+of enjoyments which would awaken no painful reflections when night arrived;
+for they would be calculated to bring with them, only health and contentment.&nbsp;
+The young would lose that dread of religion, which the sour austerity
+of its professors too often inculcates in youthful bosoms; and the old
+would find less difficulty in persuading them to respect its observances.&nbsp;
+The drunken and dissipated, deprived of any excuse for their misconduct,
+would no longer excite pity but disgust.&nbsp; Above all, the more ignorant
+and humble class of men, who now partake of many of the bitters of life,
+and taste but few of its sweets, would naturally feel attachment and
+respect for that code of morality, which, regarding the many hardships
+of their station, strove to alleviate its rigours, and endeavoured to
+soften its asperity.</p>
+<p>This is what Sunday might be made, and what it might be made without
+impiety or profanation.&nbsp; The wise and beneficent Creator who places
+men upon earth, requires that they shall perform the duties of that
+station of life to which they are called, and He can never intend that
+the more a man strives to discharge those duties, the more he shall
+be debarred from happiness and enjoyment.&nbsp; Let those who have six
+days in the week for all the world&rsquo;s pleasures, appropriate the
+seventh to fasting and gloom, either for their own sins or those of
+other people, if they like to bewail them; but let those who employ
+their six days in a worthier manner, devote their seventh to a different
+purpose.&nbsp; Let divines set the example of true morality: preach
+it to their flocks in the morning, and dismiss them to enjoy true rest
+in the afternoon; and let them select for their text, and let Sunday
+legislators take for their motto, the words which fell from the lips
+of that Master, whose precepts they misconstrue, and whose lessons they
+pervert&mdash;&lsquo;The Sabbath was made for man, and not man to serve
+the Sabbath.&rsquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS ***</p>
+<pre>
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+</pre></body>
+</html>
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