The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-08 00:00:00

77.1 E CRYSTAL PALACE AND THE
CROAKING PARSONS.

(From the Weekly Dispatch )
Mr. Editor,—While it is yet uncertain whether the
country may not be edified by the great clerical convo-
cation, we have had the preliminary performance of a
little clerical convocation, viz, that of the clergy o
London, convened on the 23th ult., by Archdeacon
Bute, to protest against the grant of a charter to the
Sydenham Crystal Palace Company, unless a clause be
inserted prohibiting its being open to the public on any
portion of the Sunday. This movement is marked by
the character which usually belongs to Sabbatarian agi-
tation. It bears exclusively upon the freedom and the
enjoyments of the poorer classes. Sabbatarians never
attack the rich. No set of people is so notoriously and
disgracefully partial in the application of their professed
principles. The fourth commandment is brought to
bear upon a third-class train ; but it opens no battery
on the cushioned carriage of peer or bishop. Protec-
tion is claimed for ominous drivers and cads, none for
liveried coachmen, footmen, and grooms. What pro-
test do Archdeacon Ha'e and Dr. Croly, and their 80
reverend associates make against the club-houses at the
West-end? And what is Sydenham Palace to be but a
people's club-house? The clergy talked of the work that
would be imposed on waiters at inns. Have they any
care for domestic servants? The honest construction of
the fourth commandment (if, indeed, the fourth com-
mandment have anything to do in the matter) is that it
prohibits household work entirely. The great and
glaring violation of it is that which takes place in the
mansions of the nobility and gentry. To suppress this,
would be the first aim of conscientious men. There was
not a hostile breath against it in the metropolitan synod.
All their strictness, their zeal, their denunciations, were
reserved for the innocent and intellectual enjoyments of
the operative. Fie upon it! One would not hastily
accuse large classes of hypocrisy, but who can help it
when incongruities so palpable are thrust in one's face?
It is always thus, upon the Sabbath question. The
Sabbatarians have never dared seriously to attack
the notorious and ceaseless infringements of their
professed tenet by the rich and great. It is only
upon the poor that they come thundering down
with their prohibitions. Let them shut up the
clubs ; lock the stable-door and the picture-
gallery against their owner; make hot Sunday dinners
penal; and clear the streets of private carriages: we may
then give them credit for consistency and integrity, what-
ever wo may think of their knowledge or their wisdom.
On the Sabbatarian question generally, it is not neces-
sary now to enter. Every reader of the New Testament
knows that Scripture authority for the transfer of the
enactmeats and penalties of the Mosaic Saturday Sab-
bath to the Sunday, is all fudge. There is no such
authority. Every student of the ecclesiastical antiquities
knows that the early Christians did not act as if any
such authority existed. Every observer of society knows
that the British Sabbatarians are a pitiful minority of
the Christian world in their peculiar intopretation. If
the London synod be unaware of these facts, they should
have been prudent enough to keep their ignorance to
themselves. There was no necessity for bolding a
solemn convocation to proclaim to the world that, even
in a professional matter, they were below the average
standard of information in decently educated persons.
It was rash to invite the public to the contemplation of
their ignorance, their assumption, their partiality, and
their uncharitableness.
One emanation of honesty and truthfulness does, how-
ever, enlighten the darkness of this proceeding. It is
confessed that the opposition was not to intemperance
and debauchery. Desirous themselves of visiting the
new Crystal Palace upon some of their own six leisure
days, they could not disparage the species of enjoyment
it would afford to the mechanic or tradesman upon his
one leisure day. In shutting him out entirely, they have
a re=servation against shutting themselves out at all.
Look at Dr. Croly's picture of the none at Sydenham,
after 1 o'clock on Sunday. lie describes it as " mingling
with an immense multitude, dressed in their best, laugh-
ing, and looking, and chatting in the fullest excitement
of every-day life, among groups of statues and galleries
of pictures, and curious works of art, and fine fountains,
and showy architecture." And this is the scene which
they tell us it will provoke the Almighty's wrath and
vengeance to look upon. Then let them preach till
doomsday, they will never teach the common human
heart to love such an Almighty. The petrified theolo-
gical heart may fear him, but to love is an impossi-
bility. The apostle who declared that " God is
love," would have stood aghast at such a doc-
trine. Nor is this admission that the clergy
were warring against a good thing made in a merely
rhetorical way. It occurs repeatedly, and is incorporated
in the carefully-prepared document proposed by the
Archdeacon, and adopted by the meeting. " I have no
doubt," said Dr. Croly, " that the Sydenham Exhibition
will be a very splendid show, addressing itself to the
mind as well as to the eye, and highly worthy of a cul-
tivated people." Again, " I fully admit that the Syden-
ham Exhibition ought to be seen by every one, and even
to be an object of national interest." The Archdeacon
and the meeting, speaking formally in their manifesto,
observe—" It is not, however, the gigantic character of
the preparations which are making to draw multitudes of
the people to one spot on the Lord's day, which fills us
with apprehension of the demoralizing effects of such an
assemblage, but rather the intellectual character of the
pursuits which, we fear, will there be offered to the pub-
lic." Yes, that is it. The cloven foot is plain enough. The
clerical spirit dreads popular intelligence. Amongst them-
selves, the parsons say it plainly, forgetting, it would
seem, that even their synod sits in a glass house too. They
are afraid of " intellectual pursuits." They take alarm at
what is highly worthy of a cultivated people. They would
father have Sunday as it is than allow it to be, in any
portion of it, a day of mental improvement. They com-
promise with the ale-house and the gin-shop, so that the
toleration can be refused to the most curious produc-
tions of nature and the noblest works of art. They will
leave the many listless, setting, stupid, debauched, so
that a legal veto may go forth against the wholesome
stimulus of their bodily senses and mental faculties. In
short, they hoist the black flag, and declare war against
the great Sunday school, They know that they cannot
cope with the attractions of its teachings any more than
with their truth and wisdem. They have no faith.
Heaven does not draw souls to itself by their ministra-
tions. They have no " metal more attractive" thau
the Crystal Palace to offer; so they ask the Government
to close its doors. And if it does, will they pick up the
stragglers? Will the crowds turned away seek shelter
in the Church? Then why are they not there at the
present time? Were these men daring enough they
would demand the revival of the old penalties for not
attending one's parish place of worship. They would
collect the crowd and dragoon it into church. And for
what? To sit listless, or, perchance, toSslumber, under
the hum of their stale homilies.
" The opening of a floodgate of desecration" is pre-
dicted, should the Crystal Palace be accessible on a
Sunday afternoon. What floodgate ? What dese-
cration ? Why, lice British Museum and the National
Gallery. These also offer intellectual contemplation
and enjoyment. They tend to expand and raise the
mind. And therefore these, too, excite the " horror end
alarm" of the parsons. Haters of the light, not a spark
of it can glimmer anywhere but they are sorely troubled
thereat, and filled with consternation. The same prin-
ciple is at work here as in the management of their
Sunday schools. The children are not allowed to learn
writing or cyphering ; nor, of course, any of the
higher branches of instructioa. In tilde day schools
a very moderate allowance of learning is doled out,
compared with catechistical and dogmatic) theology.
But on Sundays knowledge is prohibited as a profane
thing. It is the old battle, fought since priestcraft first
began, and to last till priestcrafc shall come to an end. To
the morbid obliquity of priestly vision knowledge is the
great devil himself. He dreads mental culture worse
than physical debauchery.
And these persons have the audacity to talk of "bring-
ing down the wrath and displeasure of Almighty God;"
and of the nation " incurring his anger," and " drawing
down his vengeance." They wield thunderbolts, forsooth.
They " deal damnation round the land." They pretend
that infinite perfection will be in a fury for the enforce-
ment of their c. nundrumt. There is no impiety to com-
pare with that of parsons. They have a professional
familiarity with topics which the natural dictates of the
human mind teach us Ito treat with reverence. They
" rush in where angels fear to tread.," They pond to
hell for over, with loss ceremony than a City Aldermen
would commit to Clerkenwell for a fortnight. " Wrath,"
"anger," "displeasure""vongeance ;" what words are these
for contemptible, dingy, crawling worms to apply to the
blessed impassible Infinite. What does Dr. ()rely know
about the vengeance of Universal Love? How long has Ar-
chdeacon Hare been a privy councillor of the Omniscient?
Let them stick to their bibs and cassocks, to their fonts
and funerals, to their tithes end Easter offerings; and
not fence their " figment= Anglicanum." as Calvin
called this Judaizing Sabbatarian notion, with the fires
of Almighty vengeance. Being neither Papist nor Pu-
seyite, I yet think that public penance would well be-
come them for this daring profanity of denunciatory
language. They may appropriately perform it on the
first Sunday in May next, at the open and thronged
portals of the Crystal Palace.
A genuine horror of public demoralization might find
more fitting themes than the wicked influence of
trees and flowers, statues and fountains. Have the clergy
slept through the late elections? Did they hear no
sounds of violence and intimidation? Did no disgusting
scenes of drunkenness and debauchery flit before their
slumbrous oyes? In their irregular confessionals has there
been no whisper f violated consciences by the enforced
perversion of the citizen's most sacred right? Have theyno
cognizance of that mission of demoralization which works
pestiferously over the land, to the ruin of families, and
the debasement of individual character, by the arts of
the briber and corrupter? Is offence so rank that earth
reeks with it, and yet it never reaches their nostrils?
they
These holy men might find work enough to do were
as eager to stay the plague of vice and misery generated,
t
by electioneering agency as they are to enforce a h .0-
logic ti technicality. lint they look on and see people
driven by dread of temporal injury, or lured by sordid
temptations to violate their own consciences, in the sight
of God and man, by the electoral falsehood at the poll,
They look on, and say nothing. No archdeacon sum-
mom them to a condemnatory synod. The mounsfns ofiniquity move them not. All their horror sleeps till
the graceful exhalation of the Crystal Palace
or
risees,and
than
then the sight of a statue enrages them
the sale of a soul. Were thohclergy to do their duty in
and parishes t roughout the cointry, it
their pulpits
would not have been possible for the scenes to have been
enacted which were every whose too common and obtru-
sive during the late election contests. Where, then,
were their tests and tirades? Where, then, their de-
„logtlo3 and denunciations? Was their " angry"
Deity in as sound a slumber as themselves; Or why
did they fall to prophesy his " vengeance?" Here would
have been work bearing some harmony with their
Christian professions. They might have mitigated this
monstrous evil. They let it pass, and only arouse