Sunday under Three Heads, by Charles Dickens

Published：2026-07-31 00:41:03 Source: gift adventure playsets for 14 year olds Author: Easter Toys

Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman & Hall edition (TheWorks of Charles Dickens,best science kits for 10 year olds under 50 dollars volume 28) by David Price, [email protected]

SUNDAY UNDER THREE HEADS

By CHARLES DICKENS

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1905

DEDICATION

To The Right Reverend
THE BISHOP OF LONDON

My Lord,

You were among the first, some years ago, to expatiate on thevicious addiction of the lower classes of society to Sundayexcursions; and were thus instrumental in calling forthoccasional demonstrations of those extreme opinions on thesubject, which are very generally received with derision, if notwith contempt.

Your elevated station, my Lord, affords you countlessopportunities of increasing the comforts and pleasures of thehumbler classes of society—not by the expenditure of thesmallest portion of your princely income, but by merelysanctioning with the influence of your example, their harmlesspastimes, and innocent recreations.

That your Lordship would ever have contemplated Sundayrecreations with so much horror, if you had been at allacquainted with the wants and necessities of the people whoindulged in them, I cannot imagine possible.  That a Prelateof your elevated rank has the faintest conception of the extentof those wants, and the nature of those necessities, I do notbelieve.

For these reasons, I venture to address this little Pamphletto your Lordship’s consideration.  I am quiteconscious that the outlines I have drawn, afford but a veryimperfect description of the feelings they are intended toillustrate; but I claim for them one merit—their truth andfreedom from exaggeration.  I may have fallen short of themark, but I have never overshot it: and while I have pointed outwhat appears to me, to be injustice on the part of others, I hopeI have carefully abstained from committing it myself.

I am,
         My Lord,

Your Lordship’s mostobedient,

Humble Servant,
TIMOTHY SPARKS.

June, 1836.

I
AS IT IS

There are few things from which Iderive greater pleasure, than walking through some of theprincipal streets of London on a fine Sunday, in summer, andwatching the cheerful faces of the lively groups with which theyare thronged.  There is something, to my eyes at least,exceedingly pleasing in the general desire evinced by the humblerclasses of society, to appear neat and clean on this their onlyholiday.  There are many grave old persons, I know, whoshake their heads with an air of profound wisdom, and tell youthat poor people dress too well now-a-days; that when they werechildren, folks knew their stations in life better; that you maydepend upon it, no good will come of this sort of thing in theend,—and so forth: but I fancy I can discern in the finebonnet of the working-man’s wife, or the feather-bedizenedhat of his child, no inconsiderable evidence of good feeling onthe part of the man himself, and an affectionate desire to expendthe few shillings he can spare from his week’s wages, inimproving the appearance and adding to the happiness of those whoare nearest and dearest to him.  This may be a very heinousand unbecoming degree of vanity, perhaps, and the money mightpossibly be applied to better uses; it must not be forgotten,however, that it might very easily be devoted to worse: and iftwo or three faces can be rendered happy and contented, by atrifling improvement of outward appearance, I cannot helpthinking that the object is very cheaply purchased, even at theexpense of a smart gown, or a gaudy riband.  There is agreat deal of very unnecessary cant about the over-dressing ofthe common people.  There is not a manufacturer or tradesmanin existence, who would not employ a man who takes a reasonabledegree of pride in the appearance of himself and those about him,in preference to a sullen, slovenly fellow, who works doggedlyon, regardless of his own clothing and that of his wife andchildren, and seeming to take pleasure or pride in nothing.

The pampered aristocrat, whose life is one continued round oflicentious pleasures and sensual gratifications; or the gloomyenthusiast, who detests the cheerful amusements he can neverenjoy, and envies the healthy feelings he can never know, and whowould put down the one and suppress the other, until he made theminds of his fellow-beings as besotted and distorted as hisown;—neither of these men can by possibility form anadequate notion of what Sunday really is to those whose lives arespent in sedentary or laborious occupations, and who areaccustomed to look forward to it through their whole existence,as their only day of rest from toil, and innocent enjoyment.

The sun that rises over the quiet streets of London on abright Sunday morning, shines till his setting, on gay and happyfaces.  Here and there, so early as six o’clock, ayoung man and woman in their best attire, may be seen hurryingalong on their way to the house of some acquaintance, who isincluded in their scheme of pleasure for the day; from whence,after stopping to take “a bit of breakfast,” theysally forth, accompanied by several old people, and a whole crowdof young ones, bearing large hand-baskets full of provisions, andBelcher handkerchiefs done up in bundles, with the neck of abottle sticking out at the top, and closely-packed apples bulgingout at the sides,—and away they hurry along the streetsleading to the steam-packet wharfs, which are already plentifullysprinkled with parties bound for the same destination. Their good humour and delight know no bounds—for it is adelightful morning, all blue over head, and nothing like a cloudin the whole sky; and even the air of the river at London Bridgeis something to them, shut up as they have been, all the week, inclose streets and heated rooms.  There are dozens ofsteamers to all sorts of places—Gravesend, Greenwich, andRichmond; and such numbers of people, that when you have once satdown on the deck, it is all but a moral impossibility to get upagain—to say nothing of walking about, which is entirelyout of the question.  Away they go, joking and laughing, andeating and drinking, and admiring everything they see, andpleased with everything they hear, to climb Windmill Hill, andcatch a glimpse of the rich corn-fields and beautiful orchards ofKent; or to stroll among the fine old trees of Greenwich Park,and survey the wonders of Shooter’s Hill and LadyJames’s Folly; or to glide past the beautiful meadows ofTwickenham and Richmond, and to gaze with a delight which onlypeople like them can know, on every lovely object in the fairprospect around.  Boat follows boat, and coach succeedscoach, for the next three hours; but all are filled, and all withthe same kind of people—neat and clean, cheerful andcontented.

They reach their places of destination, and the taverns arecrowded; but there is no drunkenness or brawling, for the classof men who commit the enormity of making Sunday excursions, taketheir families with them: and this in itself would be a checkupon them, even if they were inclined to dissipation, which theyreally are not.  Boisterous their mirth may be, for theyhave all the excitement of feeling that fresh air and greenfields can impart to the dwellers in crowded cities, but it isinnocent and harmless.  The glass is circulated, and thejoke goes round; but the one is free from excess, and the otherfrom offence; and nothing but good humour and hilarityprevail.

In streets like Holborn and Tottenham Court Road, which formthe central market of a large neighbourhood, inhabited by a vastnumber of mechanics and poor people, a few shops are open at anearly hour of the morning; and a very poor man, with a thin andsickly woman by his side, may be seen with their little basket inhand, purchasing the scanty quantity of necessaries they canafford, which the time at which the man receives his wages, orhis having a good deal of work to do, or the woman’s havingbeen out charing till a late hour, prevented their procuringover-night.  The coffee-shops too, at which clerks and youngmen employed in counting-houses can procure their breakfasts, arealso open.  This class comprises, in a place like London, anenormous number of people, whose limited means prevent theirengaging for their lodgings any other apartment than a bedroom,and who have consequently no alternative but to take theirbreakfasts at a coffee-shop, or go without it altogether. All these places, however, are quickly closed; and by the timethe church bells begin to ring, all appearance of traffic hasceased.  And then, what are the signs of immorality thatmeet the eye?  Churches are well filled, andDissenters’ chapels are crowded to suffocation.  Thereis no preaching to empty benches, while the drunken and dissolutepopulace run riot in the streets.

Here is a fashionable church, where the service commences at alate hour, for the accommodation of such members of thecongregation—and they are not a few—as may happen tohave lingered at the Opera far into the morning of the Sabbath;an excellent contrivance for poising the balance between God andMammon, and illustrating the ease with which a man’s dutiesto both, may be accommodated and adjusted.  How thecarriages rattle up, and deposit their richly-dressed burdensbeneath the lofty portico!  The powdered footmen glide alongthe aisle, place the richly-bound prayer-books on the pew desks,slam the doors, and hurry away, leaving the fashionable membersof the congregation to inspect each other through their glasses,and to dazzle and glitter in the eyes of the few shabby people inthe free seats.  The organ peals forth, the hired singerscommence a short hymn, and the congregation condescendingly rise,stare about them, and converse in whispers.  The clergymanenters the reading-desk,—a young man of noble family andelegant demeanour, notorious at Cambridge for his knowledge ofhorse-flesh and dancers, and celebrated at Eton for his hopelessstupidity.  The service commences.  Mark the soft voicein which he reads, and the impressive manner in which he applieshis white hand, studded with brilliants, to his perfumedhair.  Observe the graceful emphasis with which he offers upthe prayers for the King, the Royal Family, and all the Nobility;and the nonchalance with which he hurries over the moreuncomfortable portions of the service, the seventh commandmentfor instance, with a studied regard for the taste and feeling ofhis auditors, only to be equalled by that displayed by the sleekdivine who succeeds him, who murmurs, in a voice kept down byrich feeding, most comfortable doctrines for exactly twelveminutes, and then arrives at the anxiously expected ‘Now toGod,’ which is the signal for the dismissal of thecongregation.  The organ is again heard; those who have beenasleep wake up, and those who have kept awake, smile and seemgreatly relieved; bows and congratulations are exchanged, thelivery servants are all bustle and commotion, bang go the steps,up jump the footmen, and off rattle the carriages: the inmatesdiscoursing on the dresses of the congregation, andcongratulating themselves on having set so excellent an exampleto the community in general, and Sunday-pleasurers inparticular.

Enter a less orthodox place of religious worship, and observethe contrast.  A small close chapel with a white-washedwall, and plain deal pews and pulpit, contains a closely-packedcongregation, as different in dress, as they are opposed inmanner, to that we have just quitted.  The hymn issung—not by paid singers, but by the whole assembly at theloudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musicalinstrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, bythe clerk.  There is something in the sonorous quavering ofthe harsh voices, in the lank and hollow faces of the men, andthe sour solemnity of the women, which bespeaks this astrong-hold of intolerant zeal and ignorant enthusiasm.  Thepreacher enters the pulpit.  He is a coarse, hard-faced manof forbidding aspect, clad in rusty black, and bearing in hishand a small plain Bible from which he selects some passage forhis text, while the hymn is concluding.  The congregationfall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness ashe delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon theSacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, interms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to bedescribed.  He begins his oration in a drawling tone, andhis hearers listen with silent attention.  He grows warmeras he proceeds with his subject, and his gesticulation becomesproportionately violent.  He clenches his fists, beats thebook upon the desk before him, and swings his arms wildly abouthis head.  The congregation murmur their acquiescence in hisdoctrines: and a short groan, occasionally bears testimony to themoving nature of his eloquence.  Encouraged by thesesymptoms of approval, and working himself up to a pitch ofenthusiasm amounting almost to frenzy, he denouncessabbath-breakers with the direst vengeance of offendedHeaven.  He stretches his body half out of the pulpit,thrusts forth his arms with frantic gestures, and blasphemouslycalls upon The Deity to visit with eternal torments, those whoturn aside from the word, as interpreted and preachedby—himself.  A low moaning is heard, the women rocktheir bodies to and fro, and wring their hands; thepreacher’s fervour increases, the perspiration starts uponhis brow, his face is flushed, and he clenches his handsconvulsively, as he draws a hideous and appalling picture of thehorrors preparing for the wicked in a future state.  A greatexcitement is visible among his hearers, a scream is heard, andsome young girl falls senseless on the floor.  There is amomentary rustle, but it is only for a moment—all eyes areturned towards the preacher.  He pauses, passes hishandkerchief across his face, and looks complacently round. His voice resumes its natural tone, as with mock humility heoffers up a thanksgiving for having been successful in hisefforts, and having been permitted to rescue one sinner from thepath of evil.  He sinks back into his seat, exhausted withthe violence of his ravings; the girl is removed, a hymn is sung,a petition for some measure for securing the better observance ofthe Sabbath, which has been prepared by the good man, is read;and his worshipping admirers struggle who shall be the first tosign it.

But the morning service has concluded, and the streets areagain crowded with people.  Long rows of cleanly-dressedcharity children, preceded by a portly beadle and a witheredschoolmaster, are returning to their welcome dinner; and it isevident, from the number of men with beer-trays who are runningfrom house to house, that no inconsiderable portion of thepopulation are about to take theirs at this early hour.  Thebakers’ shops in the humbler suburbs especially, are filledwith men, women, and children, each anxiously waiting for theSunday dinner.  Look at the group of children who surroundthat working man who has just emerged from the baker’s shopat the corner of the street, with the reeking dish, in which adiminutive joint of mutton simmers above a vast heap ofhalf-browned potatoes.  How the young rogues clap theirhands, and dance round their father, for very joy at the prospectof the feast: and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of thelot, lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into theinterior of the dish.  They turn up the street, and thechubby-faced boy trots on as fast as his little legs will carryhim, to herald the approach of the dinner to ‘Mother’who is standing with a baby in her arms on the doorstep, and whoseems almost as pleased with the whole scene as the childrenthemselves; whereupon ‘baby’ not preciselyunderstanding the importance of the business in hand, but clearlyperceiving that it is something unusually lively, kicks and crowsmost lustily, to the unspeakable delight of all the children andboth the parents: and the dinner is borne into the house amidst ashouting of small voices, and jumping of fat legs, which wouldfill Sir Andrew Agnew with astonishment; as well it might, seeingthat Baronets, generally speaking, eat pretty comfortable dinnersall the week through, and cannot be expected to understand whatpeople feel, who only have a meat dinner on one day out of everyseven.

The bakings being all duly consigned to their respectiveowners, and the beer-man having gone his rounds, the church bellsring for afternoon service, the shops are again closed, and thestreets are more than ever thronged with people; some who havenot been to church in the morning, going to it now; others whohave been to church, going out for a walk; and others—letus admit the full measure of their guilt—going for a walk,who have not been to church at all.  I am afraid the smartservant of all work, who has been loitering at the corner of thesquare for the last ten minutes, is one of the latterclass.  She is evidently waiting for somebody, and thoughshe may have made up her mind to go to church with him one ofthese mornings, I don’t think they have any such intentionon this particular afternoon.  Here he is, at last. The white trousers, blue coat, and yellow waistcoat—andmore especially that cock of the hat—indicate, as surely asinanimate objects can, that Chalk Farm and not the parish church,is their destination.  The girl colours up, and puts out herhand with a very awkward affectation of indifference.  Hegives it a gallant squeeze, and away they walk, arm in arm, thegirl just looking back towards her ‘place’ with anair of conscious self-importance, and nodding to herfellow-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 thefellow-servant: a proceeding which affords unmitigatedsatisfaction to all parties, and impels the fellow-servant toinform Miss Emily confidentially, in the course of the evening,‘that the young man as Mary keeps company with, is one ofthe most genteelest young men as ever she see.’

The two young people who have just crossed the road, and arefollowing this happy couple down the street, are a fair specimenof another class of Sunday—pleasurers.  There is adapper smartness, struggling through very limited means, aboutthe young man, which induces one to set him down at once as ajunior clerk to a tradesman or attorney.  The girl no onecould possibly mistake.  You may tell a young woman in theemployment of a large dress-maker, at any time, by a certainneatness of cheap finery and humble following of fashion, whichpervade her whole attire; but unfortunately there are othertokens not to be misunderstood—the pale face with itshectic bloom, the slight distortion of form which no artifice ofdress can wholly conceal, the unhealthy stoop, and the shortcough—the effects of hard work and close application to asedentary employment, upon a tender frame.  They turntowards the fields.  The girl’s countenance brightens,and an unwonted glow rises in her face.  They are going toHampstead or Highgate, to spend their holiday afternoon in someplace where they can see the sky, the fields, and trees, andbreathe for an hour or two the pure air, which so seldom playsupon that poor girl’s form, or exhilarates her spirits.

I would to God, that the iron-hearted man who would deprivesuch people as these of their only pleasures, could feel thesinking of heart and soul, the wasting exhaustion of mind andbody, 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 protracteduntil the silence of midnight, and resumed with the first stir ofmorning.  How marvellously would his ardent zeal for othermen’s souls, diminish after a short probation, and howenlightened and comprehensive would his views of the real objectand meaning of the institution of the Sabbath become!

The afternoon is far advanced—the parks and publicdrives are crowded.  Carriages, gigs, phaetons, stanhopes,and vehicles of every description, glide smoothly on.  Thepromenades are filled with loungers on foot, and the road isthronged with loungers on horseback.  Persons of every classare crowded together, here, in one dense mass.  Theplebeian, who takes his pleasure on no day but Sunday, jostlesthe patrician, who takes his, from year’s end toyear’s end.  You look in vain for any outward signs ofprofligacy or debauchery.  You see nothing before you but avast number of people, the denizens of a large and crowded city,in the needful and rational enjoyment of air and exercise.

It grows dusk.  The roads leading from the differentplaces of suburban resort, are crowded with people on theirreturn home, and the sound of merry voices rings through thegradually darkening fields.  The evening is hot andsultry.  The rich man throws open the sashes of his spaciousdining-room, and quaffs his iced wine in splendid luxury. The poor man, who has no room to take his meals in, but the closeapartment to which he and his family have been confinedthroughout the week, sits in the tea-garden of some famoustavern, and drinks his beer in content and comfort.  Thefields and roads are gradually deserted, the crowd once more pourinto the streets, and disperse to their several homes; and bymidnight all is silent and quiet, save where a few stragglerslinger beneath the window of some great man’s house, tolisten to the strains of music from within: or stop to gaze uponthe splendid carriages which are waiting to convey the guestsfrom the dinner-party of an Earl.

There is a darker side to this picture, on which, so far fromits being any part of my purpose to conceal it, I wish to layparticular stress.  In some parts of London, and in many ofthe manufacturing towns of England, drunkenness and profligacy intheir most disgusting forms, exhibit in the open streets onSunday, a sad and a degrading spectacle.  We need go nofarther than St. Giles’s, or Drury Lane, for sights andscenes of a most repulsive nature.  Women with scarcely thearticles of apparel which common decency requires, with formsbloated by disease, and faces rendered hideous by habitualdrunkenness—men reeling and staggering along—childrenin rags and filth—whole streets of squalid and miserableappearance, whose inhabitants are lounging in the public road,fighting, screaming, and swearing—these are the commonobjects which present themselves in, these are the well-knowncharacteristics of, that portion of London to which I have justreferred.

And why is it, that all well-disposed persons are shocked, andpublic decency scandalised, by such exhibitions?

These people are poor—that is notorious.  It may besaid that they spend in liquor, money with which they mightpurchase necessaries, and there is no denying the fact; but letit be remembered that even if they applied every farthing oftheir earnings in the best possible way, they would still bevery—very poor.  Their dwellings are necessarilyuncomfortable, and to a certain degree unhealthy. Cleanliness might do much, but they are too crowded together, thestreets are too narrow, and the rooms too small, to admit oftheir ever being rendered desirable habitations.  They workvery hard all the week.  We know that the effect ofprolonged and arduous labour, is to produce, when a period ofrest does arrive, a sensation of lassitude which it requires theapplication of some stimulus to overcome.  What stimulushave they?  Sunday comes, and with it a cessation oflabour.  How are they to employ the day, or what inducementhave they to employ it, in recruiting their stock ofhealth?  They see little parties, on pleasure excursions,passing through the streets; but they cannot imitate theirexample, for they have not the means.  They may walk, to besure, but it is exactly the inducement to walk that theyrequire.  If every one of these men knew, that by taking thetrouble to walk two or three miles he would be enabled to sharein a good game of cricket, or some athletic sport, I very muchquestion whether any of them would remain at home.

But you hold out no inducement, you offer no relief fromlistlessness, you provide nothing to amuse his mind, you affordhim no means of exercising his body.  Unwashed and unshaven,he saunters moodily about, weary and dejected.  In lieu ofthe wholesome stimulus he might derive from nature, you drive himto the pernicious excitement to be gained from art.  Heflies to the gin-shop as his only resource; and when, reduced toa worse level than the lowest brute in the scale of creation, helies wallowing in the kennel, your saintly lawgivers lift uptheir hands to heaven, and exclaim for a law which shall convertthe day intended for rest and cheerfulness, into one of universalgloom, bigotry, and persecution.

II
AS SABBATH BILLS WOULD MAKE IT

The provisions of the billintroduced into the House of Commons by Sir Andrew Agnew, andthrown out by that House on the motion for the second reading, onthe 18th of May in the present year, by a majority of 32, mayvery fairly be taken as a test of the length to which thefanatics, of which the honourable Baronet is the distinguishedleader, are prepared to go.  No test can be fairer; becausewhile on the one hand this measure may be supposed to exhibit allthat improvement which mature reflection and long deliberationmay have suggested, so on the other it may very reasonably beinferred, that if it be quite as severe in its provisions, and tothe full as partial in its operation, as those which havepreceded it and experienced a similar fate, the disease underwhich the honourable Baronet and his friends labour, is perfectlyhopeless, and beyond the reach of cure.

The proposed enactments of the bill are brieflythese:—All work is prohibited on the Lord’s day,under heavy penalties, increasing with every repetition of theoffence.  There are penalties for keeping shopsopen—penalties for drunkenness—penalties for keepingopen houses of entertainment—penalties for being present atany public meeting or assembly—penalties for lettingcarriages, and penalties for hiring them—penalties fortravelling in steam-boats, and penalties for takingpassengers—penalties on vessels commencing their voyage onSunday—penalties on the owners of cattle who suffer them tobe driven on the Lord’s day—penalties on constableswho refuse to act, and penalties for resisting them when theydo.  In addition to these trifles, the constables areinvested with arbitrary, vexatious, and most extensive powers;and all this in a bill which sets out with a hypocritical andcanting declaration that ‘nothing is more acceptable to Godthan the true and sincereworship of Him according to Hisholy will, and that it is the bounden duty of Parliament topromote the observance of the Lord’s day, by protectingevery class of society against being required to sacrifice theircomfort, health, religious privileges, and conscience, for theconvenience, enjoyment, or supposed advantage of any other classon the Lord’s day’!  The idea of making a mantruly moral through the ministry of constables, and sincerelyreligious under the influence of penalties, is worthy of the mindwhich could form such a mass of monstrous absurdity as this billis composed of.

The House of Commons threw the measure out certainly, and byso doing retrieved the disgrace—so far as it could beretrieved—of placing among the printed papers ofParliament, such an egregious specimen of legislative folly; butthere was a degree of delicacy and forbearance about the debatethat took place, which I cannot help thinking as unnecessary anduncalled for, as it is unusual in Parliamentarydiscussions.  If it had been the first time of Sir AndrewAgnew’s attempting to palm such a measure upon the country,we might well understand, and duly appreciate, the delicate andcompassionate feeling due to the supposed weakness and imbecilityof the man, which prevented his proposition being exposed in itstrue colours, and induced this Hon. Member to bear testimony tohis excellent motives, and that Noble Lord to regret that hecould not—although he had tried to do so—adopt anyportion of the bill.  But when these attempts have beenrepeated, again and again; when Sir Andrew Agnew has renewed themsession after session, and when it has become palpably evident tothe whole House that

His impudence of proof in every trial,
Kens no polite, and heeds no plain denial—

it really becomes high time to speak of him and hislegislation, as they appear to deserve, without that gloss ofpoliteness, which is all very well in an ordinary case, butrather out of place when the liberties and comforts of a wholepeople are at stake.

In the first place, it is by no means the worst characteristicof this bill, that it is a bill of blunders: it is, frombeginning to end, a piece of deliberate cruelty, and craftyinjustice.  If the rich composed the whole population ofthis country, not a single comfort of one single man would beaffected by it.  It is directed exclusively, and without theexception of a solitary instance, against the amusements andrecreations of the poor.  This was the bait held out by theHon. Baronet to a body of men, who cannot be supposed to have anyvery strong sympathies in common with the poor, because theycannot understand their sufferings or their struggles.  Thisis the bait, which will in time prevail, unless public attentionis awakened, and public feeling exerted, to prevent it.

Take the very first clause, the provision that no man shall beallowed to work on Sunday—‘That no person, upon theLord’s day, shall do, or hire, or employ any person to doany manner of labour, or any work of his or her ordinarycalling.’  What class of persons does thisaffect?  The rich man?  No.  Menial servants, bothmale and female, are specially exempted from the operation of thebill.  ‘Menial servants’ are among the poorpeople.  The bill has no regard for them.  TheBaronet’s dinner must be cooked on Sunday, theBishop’s horses must be groomed, and the Peer’scarriage must be driven.  So the menial servants are pututterly beyond the pale of grace;—unless indeed, they areto go to heaven through the sanctity of their masters, andpossibly they might think even that, rather an uncertainpassport.

There is a penalty for keeping open, houses ofentertainment.  Now, suppose the bill had passed, and thathalf-a-dozen adventurous licensed victuallers, relying upon theexcitement of public feeling on the subject, and the consequentdifficulty of conviction (this is by no means an improbablesupposition), had determined to keep their houses and gardensopen, through the whole Sunday afternoon, in defiance of thelaw.  Every act of hiring or working, every act of buying orselling, or delivering, or causing anything to be bought or sold,is specifically made a separate offence—mark theeffect.  A party, a man and his wife and children, enter atea-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 theinformer’s note-book—penalty on the father forhiring, on the waiter for delivering, and on the landlord forselling, on the Lord’s day.  But it does not stophere.  The waiter delivers the ale, and darts off, littlesuspecting 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 downgoes another case of hiring, another case of delivering, andanother case of selling; and so it would go on adinfinitum, the sum and substance of the matter being, thatevery time a man or woman cried ‘Waiter!’ on Sunday,he or she would be fined not less than forty shillings, nor morethan 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 beyondthe first one, during which he should have his shutters down onthe Sabbath.

With one exception, there are perhaps no clauses in the wholebill, so strongly illustrative of its partial operation, and theintention of its framer, as those which relate to travelling onSunday.  Penalties of ten, twenty, and thirty pounds, aremercilessly imposed upon coach proprietors who shall run theircoaches on the Sabbath; one, two, and ten pounds upon those whohire, or let to hire, horses and carriages upon the Lord’sday, but not one syllable about those who have no necessity tohire, because they have carriages and horses of their own; notone word of a penalty on liveried coachmen and footmen.  Thewhole of the saintly venom is directed against the hiredcabriolet, the humble fly, or the rumbling hackney-coach, whichenables a man of the poorer class to escape for a few hours fromthe smoke and dirt, in the midst of which he has been confinedthroughout the week: while the escutcheoned carriage and thedashing cab, may whirl their wealthy owners to Sunday feasts andprivate oratorios, setting constables, informers, and penalties,at defiance.  Again, in the description of the places ofpublic 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 thepeople become enlightened enough to deride the last efforts ofbigotry and superstition.  There is a stringent provisionfor punishing the poor man who spends an hour in a news-room, butthere is nothing to prevent the rich one from lounging away theday in the Zoological Gardens.

There is, in four words, a mock proviso, which affects toforbid travelling ‘with any animal’ on theLord’s day.  This, however, is revoked, as relates tothe rich man, by a subsequent provision.  We have then apenalty of not less than fifty, nor more than one hundred pounds,upon any person participating in the control, or having thecommand of any vessel which shall commence her voyage on theLord’s day, should the wind prove favourable.  Thenext time this bill is brought forward (which will no doubt be atan early period of the next session of Parliament) perhaps itwill be better to amend this clause by declaring, that from andafter the passing of the act, it shall be deemed unlawful for thewind to blow at all upon the Sabbath.  It would remove agreat deal of temptation from the owners and captains ofvessels.

The reader is now in possession of the principal enactingclauses of Sir Andrew Agnew’s bill, with the exception ofone, for preventing the killing or taking of ‘fish,or other wild animals,’ and the ordinary provisionswhich are inserted for form’s sake in all acts ofParliament.  I now beg his attention to the clauses ofexemption.

They are two in number.  The first exempts menialservants from any rest, and all poor men from any recreation:outlaws a milkman after nine o’clock in the morning, andmakes eating-houses lawful for only two hours in the afternoon;permits a medical man to use his carriage on Sunday, and declaresthat a clergyman may either use his own, or hire one.

The second is artful, cunning, and designing; shielding therich man from the possibility of being entrapped, and affectingat the same time, to have a tender and scrupulous regard, for theinterests of the whole community.  It declares, ‘thatnothing in this act contained, shall extend to works of piety,charity, or necessity.’

What is meant by the word ‘necessity’ in thisclause?  Simply this—that the rich man shall be atliberty to make use of all the splendid luxuries he has collectedaround him, on any day in the week, because habit and custom haverendered them ‘necessary’ to his easy existence; butthat the poor man who saves his money to provide some littlepleasure for himself and family at lengthened intervals, shallnot be permitted to enjoy it.  It is not‘necessary’ to him:—Heaven knows, he very oftengoes long enough without it.  This is the plain English ofthe 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 thebishop and the nobleman; but the hackney-coach, the hired gig, orthe taxed cart, cannot possibly be ‘necessary’ to theworking-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: butthe pint of beer and the plate of meat, degrade the nationalcharacter in an eating-house.

Such is the bill for promoting the true and sincere worship ofGod according to his Holy Will, and for protecting every class ofsociety against being required to sacrifice their health andcomfort on the Sabbath.  Instances in which its operationwould be as unjust as it would be absurd, might be multiplied toan endless amount; but it is sufficient to place its leadingprovisions before the reader.  In doing so, I have purposelyabstained from drawing upon the imagination for possible cases;the provisions to which I have referred, stand in so many wordsupon the bill as printed by order of the House of Commons; andthey can neither be disowned, nor explained away.

Let us suppose such a bill as this, to have actually passedboth branches of the legislature; to have received the royalassent; and to have come into operation.  Imagine its effectin a great city like London.

Sunday comes, and brings with it a day of general gloom andausterity.  The man who has been toiling hard all the week,has been looking towards the Sabbath, not as to a day of restfrom labour, and healthy recreation, but as one of grievoustyranny and grinding oppression.  The day which his Makerintended as a blessing, man has converted into a curse. Instead of being hailed by him as his period of relaxation, hefinds it remarkable only as depriving him of every comfort andenjoyment.  He has many children about him, all sent intothe world at an early age, to struggle for a livelihood; one iskept in a warehouse all day, with an interval of rest too shortto enable him to reach home, another walks four or five miles tohis employment at the docks, a third earns a few shillingsweekly, as an errand boy, or office messenger; and the employmentof the man himself, detains him at some distance from his homefrom morning till night.  Sunday is the only day on whichthey could all meet together, and enjoy a homely meal in socialcomfort; and now they sit down to a cold and cheerless dinner:the pious guardians of the man’s salvation having, in theirregard for the welfare of his precious soul, shut up thebakers’ shops.  The fire blazes high in the kitchenchimney of these well-fed hypocrites, and the rich steams of thesavoury dinner scent the air.  What care they to be toldthat this class of men have neither a place to cook in—normeans to bear the expense, if they had?

Look into your churches—diminished congregations, andscanty attendance.  People have grown sullen and obstinate,and are becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them tosuch a day as this, once in every seven.  And as you cannotmake people religious by Act of Parliament, or force them tochurch by constables, they display their feeling by stayingaway.

Turn into the streets, and mark the rigid gloom that reignsover everything around.  The roads are empty, the fields aredeserted, the houses of entertainment are closed.  Groups offilthy and discontented-looking men, are idling about at thestreet corners, or sleeping in the sun; but there are nodecently-dressed people of the poorer class, passing to andfro.  Where should they walk to?  It would take them anhour, at least, to get into the fields, and when they reachedthem, they could procure neither bite nor sup, without theinformer and the penalty.  Now and then, a carriage rollssmoothly on, or a well-mounted horseman, followed by a liveriedattendant, canters by; but with these exceptions, all is asmelancholy and quiet as if a pestilence had fallen on thecity.

Bend your steps through the narrow and thickly-inhabitedstreets, and observe the sallow faces of the men and women whoare lounging at the doors, or lolling from the windows. Regard well the closeness of these crowded rooms, and the noisomeexhalations that rise from the drains and kennels; and then laudthe triumph of religion and morality, which condemns people todrag their lives out in such stews as these, and makes itcriminal for them to eat or drink in the fresh air, or under theclear sky.  Here and there, from some half-opened window,the loud shout of drunken revelry strikes upon the ear, and thenoise of oaths and quarrelling—the effect of the close andheated atmosphere—is heard on all sides.  See how themen all rush to join the crowd that are making their way down thestreet, and how loud the execrations of the mob become as theydraw nearer.  They have assembled round a little knot ofconstables, who have seized the stock-in-trade, heinously exposedon Sunday, of some miserable walking-stick seller, who followsclamouring for his property.  The dispute grows warmer andfiercer, until at last some of the more furious among the crowd,rush forward to restore the goods to their owner.  A generalconflict takes place; the sticks of the constables are exercisedin all directions; fresh assistance is procured; and half a dozenof the assailants are conveyed to the station-house, struggling,bleeding, and cursing.  The case is taken to thepolice-office on the following morning; and after a frightfulamount of perjury on both sides, the men are sent to prison forresisting the officers, their families to the workhouse to keepthem from starving: and there they both remain for a monthafterwards, glorious trophies of the sanctified enforcement ofthe Christian Sabbath.  Add to such scenes as these, theprofligacy, idleness, drunkenness, and vice, that will becommitted to an extent which no man can foresee, on Monday, as anatonement for the restraint of the preceding day; and you have avery faint and imperfect picture of the religious effects of thisSunday legislation, supposing it could ever be forced upon thepeople.

But let those who advocate the cause of fanaticism, reflectwell upon the probable issue of their endeavours.  They mayby perseverance, succeed with Parliament.  Let them ponderon the probability of succeeding with the people.  You maydeny the concession of a political question for a time, and anation will bear it patiently.  Strike home to the comfortsof every man’s fireside—tamper with every man’sfreedom and liberty—and one month, one week, may rouse afeeling abroad, which a king would gladly yield his crown toquell, and a peer would resign his coronet to allay.

It is the custom to affect a deference for the motives ofthose who advocate these measures, and a respect for the feelingsby 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 theydo NOT legislate inignorance.  Public prints, and public men, have pointed outto them again and again, the consequences of theirproceedings.  If they persist in thrusting themselvesforward, let those consequences rest upon their own heads, andlet them be content to stand upon their own merits.

It may be asked, what motives can actuate a man who has solittle regard for the comfort of his fellow-beings, so littlerespect for their wants and necessities, and so distorted anotion of the beneficence of his Creator.  I reply, anenvious, heartless, ill-conditioned dislike to seeing those whomfortune has placed below him, cheerful and happy—anintolerant confidence in his own high worthiness before God, anda lofty impression of the demerits of others—pride, selfishpride, as inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity itself, asopposed to the example of its Founder upon earth.

To these may be added another class of men—the stern andgloomy enthusiasts, who would make earth a hell, and religion atorment: men who, having wasted the earlier part of their livesin dissipation and depravity, find themselves when scarcely pastits meridian, steeped to the neck in vice, and shunned like aloathsome disease.  Abandoned by the world, having nothingto fall back upon, nothing to remember but time mis-spent, andenergies misdirected, they turn their eyes and not their thoughtsto Heaven, and delude themselves into the impious belief, that indenouncing the lightness of heart of which they cannot partake,and the rational pleasures from which they never derivedenjoyment, they are more than remedying the sins of their oldcareer, and—like the founders of monasteries and buildersof churches, in ruder days—establishing a good set claimupon their Maker.

III
AS IT MIGHT BE MADE

The supporters of Sabbath Bills,and more especially the extreme class of Dissenters, lay greatstress upon the declarations occasionally made by criminals fromthe condemned cell or the scaffold, that to Sabbath-breaking theyattribute their first deviation from the path of rectitude; andthey point to these statements, as an incontestable proof of theevil consequences which await a departure from that strict andrigid observance of the Sabbath, which they uphold.  Icannot help thinking that in this, as in almost every otherrespect connected with the subject, there is a considerabledegree of cant, and a very great deal of wilful blindness. If a man be viciously disposed—and with very fewexceptions, not a man dies by the executioner’s hands, whohas not been in one way or other a most abandoned and profligatecharacter 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 badcharacters as vile as himself; and that in this way, he may tracehis first yielding to temptation, possibly his first commissionof crime, to an infringement of the Sabbath.  But this wouldbe an argument against any holiday at all.  If his holidayhad been Wednesday instead of Sunday, and he had devoted it tothe same improper uses, it would have been productive of the sameresults.  It is too much to judge of the character of awhole people, by the confessions of the very worst members ofsociety.  It is not fair, to cry down things which areharmless in themselves, because evil-disposed men may turn themto bad account.  Who ever thought of deprecating theteaching poor people to write, because some porter in a warehousehad committed forgery?  Or into what man’s head did itever enter, to prevent the crowding of churches, because itafforded a temptation for the picking of pockets?

When the Book of Sports, for allowing the peasantry of Englandto divert themselves with certain games in the open air, onSundays, after evening service, was published by Charles theFirst, it is needless to say the English people werecomparatively rude and uncivilised.  And yet it isextraordinary to how few excesses it gave rise, even in that day,when men’s minds were not enlightened, or their passionsmoderated, by the influence of education and refinement. That some excesses were committed through its means, in theremoter parts of the country, and that it was discontinued inthose places, in consequence, cannot be denied: but generallyspeaking, there is no proof whatever on record, of its having hadany tendency to increase crime, or to lower the character of thepeople.

The Puritans of that time, were as much opposed to harmlessrecreations 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 theBritish Museum, there is a curious pamphlet got up by the Agnewsof Charles’s time, entitled ‘A Divine Tragedie latelyacted, or a Collection of sundry memorable examples ofGod’s Judgements upon Sabbath Breakers, and other likeLibertines in their unlawful Sports, happening within the realmeof England, in the compass only of two yeares last past, sincethe Booke (of Sports) was published, worthy to be knowne andconsidered of all men, especially such who are guilty of thesinne, or archpatrons thereof.’  This amusingdocument, contains some fifty or sixty veritable accounts ofballs of fire that fell into churchyards and upset the sporters,and sporters that quarrelled, and upset one another, and soforth: and among them is one anecdote containing an example of arather different kind, which I cannot resist the temptation ofquoting, as strongly illustrative of the fact, that this blinkingof the question has not even the recommendation of novelty.

‘A woman about Northampton, the same day that she heardthe booke for sports read, went immediately, and having 3. pencein her purse, hired a fellow to goe to the next towne to fetch aMinstrell, who coming, she with others fell a dauncing, whichcontinued 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, andwithal told the occasion of it, saying it was her falling tosport on the Sabbath, upon the reading of the Booke, so as forthis treble sinfull act, her presumptuous profaning of theSabbath, wh. brought her adultory and that murther.  Sheewas according to the Law both of God and man, put to death. Much sinne and misery followeth upon Sabbath-breaking.’

It is needless to say, that if the young lady near Northamptonhad ‘fallen to sport’ of such a dangerousdescription, on any other day but Sunday, the first result wouldprobably have been the same: it never having been distinctlyshown that Sunday is more favourable to the propagation of thehuman race than any other day in the week.  The secondresult—the murder of the child—does not speak veryhighly for the amiability of her natural disposition; and thewhole story, supposing it to have had any foundation at all, isabout as much chargeable upon the Book of Sports, as upon theBook of Kings.  Such ‘sports’ have taken placein Dissenting Chapels before now; but religion has never beenblamed in consequence; nor has it been proposed to shut up thechapels on that account.

The question, then, very fairly arises, whether we have anyreason to suppose that allowing games in the open air on Sundays,or even providing the means of amusement for the humbler classesof society on that day, would be hurtful and injurious to thecharacter and morals of the people.

I was travelling in the west of England a summer or two back,and was induced by the beauty of the scenery, and the seclusionof the spot, to remain for the night in a small village, distantabout seventy miles from London.  The next morning wasSunday; and I walked out, towards the church.  Groups ofpeople—the whole population of the little hamletapparently—were hastening in the same direction. Cheerful and good-humoured congratulations were heard on allsides, as neighbours overtook each other, and walked on incompany.  Occasionally I passed an aged couple, whosemarried daughter and her husband were loitering by the side ofthe old people, accommodating their rate of walking to theirfeeble pace, while a little knot of children hurried on before;stout young labourers in clean round frocks; and buxom girls withhealthy, laughing faces, were plentifully sprinkled about incouples, and the whole scene was one of quiet and tranquilcontentment, irresistibly captivating.  The morning wasbright and pleasant, the hedges were green and blooming, and athousand delicious scents were wafted on the air, from the wildflowers which blossomed on either side of the footpath.  Thelittle church was one of those venerable simple buildings whichabound in the English counties; half overgrown with moss and ivy,and standing in the centre of a little plot of ground, which, butfor the green mounds with which it was studded, might have passedfor a lovely meadow.  I fancied that the old clanking bellwhich was now summoning the congregation together, would seemless terrible when it rung out the knell of a departed soul, thanI had ever deemed possible before—that the sound would tellonly of a welcome to calmness and rest, amidst the most peacefuland tranquil scene in nature.

I followed into the church—a low-roofed building withsmall arched windows, through which the sun’s rays streamedupon a plain tablet on the opposite wall, which had once recordednames, now as undistinguishable on its worn surface, as were thebones beneath, from the dust into which they had resolved. The impressive service of the Church of England wasspoken—not merely read—by a grey-headedminister, and the responses delivered by his auditors, with anair of sincere devotion as far removed from affectation ordisplay, as from coldness or indifference.  The psalms wereaccompanied by a few instrumental performers, who were stationedin a small gallery extending across the church at the lower end,over the door: and the voices were led by the clerk, who, it wasevident, derived no slight pride and gratification from thisportion of the service.  The discourse was plain,unpretending, and well adapted to the comprehension of thehearers.  At the conclusion of the service, the villagerswaited in the churchyard, to salute the clergyman as he passed;and two or three, I observed, stepped aside, as if communicatingsome little difficulty, and asking his advice.  This, toguess from the homely bows, and other rustic expressions ofgratitude, the old gentleman readily conceded.  He seemedintimately acquainted with the circumstances of all hisparishioners; for I heard him inquire after one man’syoungest child, another man’s wife, and so forth; and thathe was fond of his joke, I discovered from overhearing him ask astout, fresh-coloured young fellow, with a very prettybashful-looking girl on his arm, ‘when those banns were tobe put up?’—an inquiry which made the young fellowmore fresh-coloured, and the girl more bashful, and which,strange to say, caused a great many other girls who were standinground, to colour up also, and look anywhere but in the faces oftheir male companions.

As I approached this spot in the evening about half an hourbefore sunset, I was surprised to hear the hum of voices, andoccasionally a shout of merriment from the meadow beyond thechurchyard; which I found, when I reached the stile, to beoccasioned by a very animated game of cricket, in which the boysand young men of the place were engaged, while the females andold people were scattered about: some seated on the grasswatching the progress of the game, and others sauntering about ingroups of two or three, gathering little nosegays of wild rosesand hedge flowers.  I could not but take notice of one oldman in particular, with a bright-eyed grand-daughter by his side,who was giving a sunburnt young fellow some instructions in thegame, which he received with an air of profound deference, butwith an occasional glance at the girl, which induced me to thinkthat his attention was rather distracted from the oldgentleman’s narration of the fruits of hisexperience.  When it was his turn at the wicket, too, therewas a glance towards the pair every now and then, which the oldgrandfather very complacently considered as an appeal to hisjudgment of a particular hit, but which a certain blush in thegirl’s face, and a downcast look of the bright eye, led meto believe was intended for somebody else than the oldman,—and understood by somebody else, too, or I am muchmistaken.

I was in the very height of the pleasure which thecontemplation of this scene afforded me, when I saw the oldclergyman making his way towards us.  I trembled for anangry interruption to the sport, and was almost on the point ofcrying out, to warn the cricketers of his approach; he was soclose upon me, however, that I could do nothing but remain still,and anticipate the reproof that was preparing.  What was myagreeable surprise to see the old gentleman standing at thestile, with his hands in his pockets, surveying the whole scenewith 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 establishedthe whole thing: that it was his field they played in; and thatit was he who had purchased stumps, bats, ball, and all!

It is such scenes as this, I would see near London, on aSunday evening.  It is such men as this, who would do morein one year to make people properly religious, cheerful, andcontented, than all the legislation of a century could everaccomplish.

It will be said—it has been very often—that itwould be matter of perfect impossibility to make amusements andexercises succeed in large towns, which may be very well adaptedto a country population.  Here, again, we are called upon toyield to bare assertions on matters of belief and opinion, as ifthey were established and undoubted facts.  That there is awide difference between the two cases, no one will be prepared todispute; that the difference is such as to prevent theapplication of the same principle to both, no reasonable man, Ithink, will be disposed to maintain.  The great majority ofthe people who make holiday on Sunday now, are industrious,orderly, and well-behaved persons.  It is not unreasonableto suppose that they would be no more inclined to an abuse ofpleasures provided for them, than they are to an abuse of thepleasures they provide for themselves; and if any people, forwant of something better to do, resort to criminal practices onthe Sabbath as at present observed, no better remedy for the evilcan be imagined, than giving them the opportunity of doingsomething which will amuse them, and hurt nobody else.

The propriety of opening the British Museum to respectablepeople on Sunday, has lately been the subject of somediscussion.  I think it would puzzle the most austere of theSunday legislators to assign any valid reason for opposing sosensible a proposition.  The Museum contains rich specimensfrom all the vast museums and repositories of Nature, and rareand curious fragments of the mighty works of art, in bygone ages:all calculated to awaken contemplation and inquiry, and to tendto the enlightenment and improvement of the people.  Butattendants would be necessary, and a few men would be employedupon the Sabbath.  They certainly would; but how many? Why, if the British Museum, and the National Gallery, and theGallery of Practical Science, and every other exhibition inLondon, from which knowledge is to be derived and informationgained, were to be thrown open on a Sunday afternoon, not fiftypeople would be required to preside over the whole: and it wouldtake treble the number to enforce a Sabbath bill in any threepopulous parishes.

I should like to see some large field, or open piece ofground, in every outskirt of London, exhibiting each Sundayevening on a larger scale, the scene of the little countrymeadow.  I should like to see the time arrive, when aman’s attendance to his religious duties might be left tothat religious feeling which most men possess in a greater orless degree, but which was never forced into the breast of anyman by menace or restraint.  I should like to see the timewhen Sunday might be looked forward to, as a recognised day ofrelaxation and enjoyment, and when every man might feel, what fewmen do now, that religion is not incompatible with rationalpleasure and needful recreation.

How different a picture would the streets and public placesthen present!  The museums, and repositories of scientificand useful inventions, would be crowded with ingenious mechanicsand industrious artisans, all anxious for information, and allunable to procure it at any other time.  The spacioussaloons would be swarming with practical men: humble inappearance, but destined, perhaps, to become the greatestinventors and philosophers of their age.  The labourers whonow lounge away the day in idleness and intoxication, would beseen hurrying along, with cheerful faces and clean attire, not tothe close and smoky atmosphere of the public-house but to thefresh and airy fields.  Fancy the pleasant scene. Throngs of people, pouring out from the lanes and alleys of themetropolis, to various places of common resort at some shortdistance from the town, to join in the refreshing sports andexercises of the day—the children gambolling in crowds uponthe grass, the mothers looking on, and enjoying themselves thelittle game they seem only to direct; other parties strollingalong some pleasant walks, or reposing in the shade of thestately trees; others again intent upon their differentamusements.  Nothing should be heard on all sides, but thesharp stroke of the bat as it sent the ball skimming along theground, the clear ring of the quoit, as it struck upon the ironpeg: the noisy murmur of many voices, and the loud shout of mirthand delight, which would awaken the echoes far and wide, till thefields rung with it.  The day would pass away, in a seriesof enjoyments which would awaken no painful reflections whennight arrived; for they would be calculated to bring with them,only health and contentment.  The young would lose thatdread of religion, which the sour austerity of its professors toooften inculcates in youthful bosoms; and the old would find lessdifficulty in persuading them to respect its observances. The drunken and dissipated, deprived of any excuse for theirmisconduct, would no longer excite pity but disgust.  Aboveall, the more ignorant and humble class of men, who now partakeof many of the bitters of life, and taste but few of its sweets,would naturally feel attachment and respect for that code ofmorality, which, regarding the many hardships of their station,strove to alleviate its rigours, and endeavoured to soften itsasperity.

This is what Sunday might be made, and what it might be madewithout impiety or profanation.  The wise and beneficentCreator who places men upon earth, requires that they shallperform the duties of that station of life to which they arecalled, and He can never intend that the more a man strives todischarge those duties, the more he shall be debarred fromhappiness and enjoyment.  Let those who have six days in theweek for all the world’s pleasures, appropriate the seventhto fasting and gloom, either for their own sins or those of otherpeople, if they like to bewail them; but let those who employtheir six days in a worthier manner, devote their seventh to adifferent purpose.  Let divines set the example of truemorality: preach it to their flocks in the morning, and dismissthem to enjoy true rest in the afternoon; and let them select fortheir text, and let Sunday legislators take for their motto, thewords which fell from the lips of that Master, whose preceptsthey misconstrue, and whose lessons they pervert—‘TheSabbath was made for man, and not man to serve theSabbath.’

Related articles