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Title: Sunday Under Three Heads
Author: Charles Dickens
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<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—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. 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’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.</p>
<p>I am,<br />My Lord,<br />Your Lordship’s most obedient,<br />Humble
Servant,<br />TIMOTHY SPARKS.<br /><i>June</i>, 1836.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>CHAPTER I—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. 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.</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;—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. 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.</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. 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.</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’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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</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—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.’</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—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.</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. 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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</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. 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.</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—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.</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. 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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>CHAPTER II—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. 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’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 <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’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.</p>
<p>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</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. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>ad infinitum</i>,
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.</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.
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 ‘<i>fish, or other wild animals</i>,’
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.</p>
<p>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.</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. It declares, ‘that nothing in this act
contained, shall extend to works of piety, charity, or necessity.’</p>
<p>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.</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. 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.</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. Imagine its effect in a great city
like London.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</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. 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.</p>
<p>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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>CHAPTER III—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. 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?</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.
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.</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. 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.</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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.</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. 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>read—</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. 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.</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. 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.</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. 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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</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. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
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