The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-10 00:00:00

WHAT IS SABBATH OBSERVANCE?

The modern crusaders of England have found a spot
whereto they may direct their pious warfare ; and that
also without incurring the inconvenience of
f perilous
travel and voyaging as did the enthusiastsf
tofe ;
court."
oldfor
it is at home, " under the very nose o
That spot is indeed a lovely one—hill and dale, forest
and green-award, combine to form one of nature's
richest parks, wherein even abishop might not disdain to
get a palace built, nor to use itevery day of his life. And
there is to be a palace raised th
there—one worthy of the
site, and filled with the choicest productions of nature
and art, the contemplation whereof may serve to ele-
vate and refine the human mind. No incentive to low
or sensuous thought or act will be within its precincts.
But its doors are to be open not only on the work-
days of the week, but on each Sunday afternoon also ;
and it is intended to be used by the poor man, in com-
mon with his well-to-do brethren. So have the mcdern
crusaders arrayed themselves against it.
A band of " Sabbetarians"—pious men—headed by
Dr. Croly and Archdeacon Hale, have moved the Go-
vernment to refuse a charter to the Crystal Palace
raisers, on the ground that it will attract people from
the church on Sabbath afternoons. It is not enough,
for the sake of morality, that all spirituous or fermented
means of excitement are to be interdicted. It is not
enough that voluntarily and out of deference to the
professors of religion, the building is to be closed—as
inns and taverns are perforce—tilt mid• day on the Sab-
bath. It must ho untenanted on the whole of that day,
or "it will take people from church." How this ab-
straction would be accomplished it is difficult to make
out. On the other hand, one can readily understand
how the opening of the Crystal Palace would be a great
step towards the increase of religious feeling and the in-
crease of attendance at places of worship. It is a patent
fact that at pre,ent, a very large proportion of the in-
habitants of London never go to any place of worship at
all. The more decent and worldly-respectable of the
working classes betake themselves to suburban parks
and green fields, from which no lack of charter can
deny them access, and there, breathing the fresh air and
relexing their physical powers, they renew the only
capital they have for another week's work, and they find
time to
go to worship too. But there is another class
than this, and a larger—that which forms a capital item
in the profitable Sunday-eustom of the publican. There
are thousands and thousands of men—aye, and women
too—in the great city, who are slaves during six days
and sots on the seventh. Enervated by confinement in
the unwholesome atmosphere of a large and closely-
packed town, they rush to an unnatural stimulus,
destructive alike to body and mind. Ought not
such as these to be enticed to Sydenham—to leave their
accustomed haunts for the calmer influence of a lay-
cathedral like the Crystal Palace ? Nine out of ten of
these people, if you exhort them to attend a place of
worship, at least once a day, will plead that neither they
nor their families have attire decent enough to appear
there in. The deliverer of the brief homely lifts his
hands 'n pitiful and ineffee,ive deprecation of the social
habit which has brought about this state of things among
so many. Why not, then, wean them ? Throw open a
palace where there shall be an inducement to quit
mental recreation ; make it popular, and his very in-
stinct to follow the multitude will bring your pleader of
bad habiliments to save the means of appearing there,
of learning, at all events, a few hours' abstinence and a
few hours' self-respect. You have then led bins half way
at least on the long road between the gin•shop and the
church. If the licensed victuallers of London had made
a protest against the charter in virtue of " vested in-
terests," one could have seen at least some plain busi-
ness object in it.
But the reverend principals of this obstructive move-
ment lay it down as a distinct and unqualified rule that,
ou the Sabbath, "there should be no recreation what-
ever"—it should be, they proclaim, entirely a day for
rest. It seems scarcely to square with a pure and just
adaptation of principle that such violent horror should
be vented all at once in a particular quarter. Tney
might surely have expanded some part of their indignant
remonstrances upon the Sabbath recreations which are
indulged in by the rich ; and so, perhaps, their rebuke
might not have been less after the spirit of their Master's
teaching. They might have pressed the hands of the
State themselves to "rest" in the murky town, after a
Saturday's council, instead of betaking them by the aid
of Sunday-working servitors to THEM country palaces.
They might have demanded that the recreative carriage-
drivers and malls of the e'ite in parks and public gar-
dens should be blocked up, lest those " people should
be kept from church." They might have prayed that
the public-houses of the richer classes—the clubs—
should be closed on Sundays. They might implored
(in vain) that the opera-curtain should never fall upon
the houris of the ballet after twelve o'clock on Saturday
night. They have not done any of these or any such
things ; but have taken advantage of a popular under-
taking to popularize their personal zeal.
In fine, we are taught that the kind of Sabbath-break-
ing, complained of prospectively, as contemplated by the
projectors of the Crystal Palace, is as much a luxury as
a sin, which only those who can afford to buy it whole-
sale for themselves may be allowed to enjoy.
If this be so, the observance of the Sabbath then will
be an observance by the many, and a breaking
by the
few.—Hull News, Saturday.