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

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TlNr.s.

-
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 par. exceedingly just. I was present
at the meeting, and am not at all surprised that you
should notice the strange facility exhibi;nd by all the
speakers in shutting their eyes to the most obtrusive,
facts, and the ridiculous oscillation between optimism
and alarmism with which they alternately gave thanks
for the present and deplored the posiible 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 Palette is
opened on Sundays, everybody will go there instead."
Both suppositions nre 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 reassert against proSmation of the Sabbath.
or •ft demonstration in behalf of objective truth, or a
defiance addressed to the Pope, supplies just that point
of departure tram melancholy realities into the region of
agreeable shadows which clergymen seem to delight h.
Allow me 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 end light-
ermen ere likely to he drawn away from public-house®
and skittle-grounds by the superior attractions of the air
aid edifying scenery of the Sydenhane-park. It reminds
one of the statement of a groat sanitary reformer, that
peoele got drunk in London because the water is so bed.
A taste for what is wholesome, whether it be church-
going, or country air, or resthetie 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 nu very momentous effect ono 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 heutility to a rational conviction in
favour of Sunday observance. I think, therefore, that
you wilt not be disposed either to ridicule or to censure
the very prevalt nt feeling of unwillingness that a plan
which seems to recognize a division of the Sunday be-
tween worship and holyday-malaing should receive a
national sanction. We still retain, thank God, so much
of a national spirit that every Englishman would feel
himself compromised by a Royal or Parliamentary de-
claration of that kind, and most good men believe that,
as a public, utterance, it would brave great weight in a
pernicicus direction. Thus the immense majority of
the governing classes of this country felt that in 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 dose the
doors of the Exhibition on the Christian Sabbath
There Will be infinitely less excuse for opening the Cry-.
stal Mace at Sydeitham on Sundays; au], as the na-
tional piety found itself an honourabio expression last
year, I confidently hope that next year nothing will be
done to commit the whole peoples 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.