The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-01 00:00:00

TO VIE EDITOI OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—Your strictures upon the language held at the
meeting of the London clergy to protest against the
opening of the Crystal Palace on Sundays appear to
me, for the most part, exceedingly just. I was present
at the meeting, and g am not at all surprised that you
should notice the strange facility exhibited by all the
speakers in shutting their oyes to the most obtrusive
facto, and the ridiculous oscillation between optimism
and alarmism with which they alternately gave thanks
for the present and deplored the possible future. I could
not help remarking myself, " Why, these gentlemen ap-
pear to assume that this year everybody in London goes
to church, and that next year, if the Crystal Palace is
opened on Sundays, everybody will go there instead."
Both suppositions are absurdly remote from the truth.
But it requires apparently some unreal object to excite
the true clerical enthusiasm. A constitution mongering
project for the revival of Convocation, or a protest in the
name of the masses against profanation of the Sabbath,
or a demonstration in behalf of objective truth, or a
defiance addressed to the Pope, supplies just that point
of departure from melancholy realities into the region of
agreeable shadows which clergymen seem to delight in.
Allow mo to suggest, however, that it is easy to run
off into cant in the opposite direction ; for it is nothing
better than cant to pretend that coalwhippers and light-
ermen are likely to be drawn away from public-houses
and skittle-grounds by the superior attractions of the air
and edifying scenery of the Sydenham park. It reminds
ono of the statement of a great sanitary reformer, that
people get drunk in London because the water is so bad.
A taste for what is wholesome, whether it be church-
going, or country air, or msthetie enjoyment, is wanting
in the myriads who now frequent demoralizing haunts
on the Sunday, and you cannot create it either by open-
ing or shutting a Crystal Palace. It is reasonable to
suppose that the opportunity of walking in the pleasure-
grounds at Sydenham, as it would merely be an addition,
and not of the cheapest kind, to a host of inducements
now held out on Sundays to suburban and rural wander.
ings, would produce no very momentous effect one way
or the other—would empty neither the church nor the
gin-palace.
I am truly glad to see that you do not place your-
self in an attitude of hostility to a rational conviction in
favour of Sunday observance. I think, therefore, that
you will not bo disposed either to ridicule or to censure
the very prevak at feeling of unwillingness that a plan
which seems to recognize a division of the Sunday be-
tween worship and holyday-making should receive a
national sanction. We still retain, thank God, so much
of a national spirit that every Englishman would feel
himself oompromrsed by a Royal or Parliamentary de-
claration of that kind, and most good men believe that,
majority of
a
direction. Tuns
itTwhuousltdhehaivmemgenreseat
the governing classes of this country felt that in
apseranipcaiobulisc
1841
England was doing a right thing in so far manifesting
her reverence for the sacred day as to brook the sur-
prise of her foreign guests, and resolutely to close the
doors of the Exhibition on the Christian Sabbath
There will be infinitely less excuse for opening the Cry-.
stal Palace at Sydenham on Sundays; and, as the na-
tional piety found itself an honourable expression last
year, I confidently hope that next year nothing will be
done to commit the whole people of England to a view
which the religion of the country appears to condemn.—
I beg to remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Oct. 30. A LONDON CLERGYMAN.