history and observation. Some years ago, Mr. Wilberforce endeavoured to
persuade certain lawyers and barristers that Sunday occupations and
consultations would shorten their days. They laughed at his fanaticism,
sneered at him as a “_Saint_,” and were quite ready to “_Charivari_” him;
but all these mockers died before their time. Some of them became
melancholy imbeciles, and more than one committed suicide. We cannot, my
Lord, violate the laws of God, whether written on the digestive organs,
muscles and brain, or in the Bible, without having to pay the dire
penalty of rebellion against the benevolent regulations of our heavenly
Father.
We have heard a great deal of late concerning the Anglo-Saxon race, and
its native vigour, enterprise, intelligence, &c. All our greatness has
been attributed to physical causes, and these causes have been supposed
to originate in the purity of our race. But the argument is absurd,
because we are the most mixed and mongrel people under heaven. We have
all sorts of blood in our veins. We are a compound of Ancient Britons,
Romans, Scots, Irish, Saxons, Danes, Normans, French, Germans,
Phenicians, &c., &c. And yet we boast of being Anglo-Saxons!! There is
more scepticism than science in this vaunting. Men are unwilling to do
homage to Christianity, and “to render to God the things that are God’s.”
We owe all to the Bible and the Sabbath. The former, by circulating
sound principles among us, has given us vigorous minds, and the latter by
the repose of one day in seven, has imparted to us healthy physical
constitutions. The rest from toil and worldly anxiety; the soothing
associations of leisure, home, moral principle, and religious hope, have
wrought wonders on our muscles, nerves, brain, and digestive organs, and
thus have given us vigorous bodies; intrepid, enterprising, and
persevering minds; moral courage; and honourable, humane, and
philanthropic sentiments. What made the sturdy men of the Reformation
and of the Commonwealth, but the Bible and the Sabbath? And if
Anglo-Saxon must be a synonym for physical vigour and moral courage, then
history, science, philosophy, and religion allow us to say, that the
Bible and the Sabbath would make Anglo-Saxons of the Celts, the French,
the Germans, the Chinese, and of all the world. Our venerable ancestors,
both Episcopalians and Puritans, who built up the British constitution
and rendered it the wonder, the glory, and terror of the world, saw that
man must have a day of rest, and therefore made it a statute of the realm
that labour should cease on the Lord’s-day; and we owe our national
preeminence to their wisdom and piety. You ought therefore, my Lord, to
hesitate before you remove those “ancient landmarks which your fathers
set up”; for you may rest assured that as soon as you break up the good
old Sabbath observance habits of our forefathers, and introduce, in its
stead, Sunday labour and dissipation, you will hear no more of the vigour
of the Anglo-Saxon race; for with a continental Sabbath you will have
continental frivolity, effeminacy, fickleness, and revolutions; and it
may be well for your Lordship to consider whether under such a change the
nobility of England will share better than the clergy, the gentry, the
nobles and princes of France under the reign of terror. The Bible and
the Sabbath, if duly studied and observed, would have saved that country
from all the melancholy and frightful calamities which it has had to
suffer during the last sixty or seventy years.
Everyone, my Lord, who advocates Sunday labour, is not only an enemy to
the working man, but an adversary to the country at large. It is
impossible for such a man to be a patriot, because he endeavours to
undermine the physical and moral vigour of the empire. It is no use to
say, that in opening the Crystal Palace on the Sabbath, you advocate the
amusement and not the labour of the masses; because you are going to doom
one body of your countrymen to toil that they may enrich and please
others. And depend upon it, when it is generally understood that railway
directors can have _seven days’ labour_ for fifteen or twenty shillings a
week, other masters will exact the same hard terms from their workpeople.
They will naturally ask, Who are we that we should pay as much for _six
days_, as the railway lords do for _seven_? The certain result to the
working classes will be increased labour and diminished wages; and thus
under this pretence of giving Sunday recreation to operatives and others,
one of the most deadly injuries will be inflicted upon them. They have
often been duped by designing demagogues, but now it seems Conservative
Lords and Radical Dissenters are to be their deceivers. Of old Herod and
Pontius Pilate were made friends when the Son of God was to be crucified;
and in our time, we have lords and plebeians, Conservatives, Whigs,
Radicals, Chartists, Atheists, debauchees, Episcopalians and
ultra-Dissenters—all leagued together to rob the poor brethren of Jesus
Christ, of their day of rest, and the ten thousand blessings connected
therewith. We congratulate you, my Lord, on your companions, coadjutors,
and fellow labourers: though we know that you must not hope much from the
certain result of your zeal. It is often said that our Norman nobility
have never naturalized themselves in this foreign land, and the present
effort to destroy the physical and moral greatness of the nation by
Sunday labour will go far to prove that they have not as yet become
English patriots. Sabbath amusement for one class will be Sabbath
slavery to another; and as this Sabbath labour and desecration increases,
the nation will fall and will most certainly involve the nobility in its
ruin.
Much is said of recreation and comfort for the working classes, but we
must be just before we are generous, and not forget the rights and
happiness of those who are to be worked. I have before said that England
owes much to its domestic circles and its homes. “Home! sweet Home!” is
an air which charms everyone among us; but do away with the Sabbath, and
you destroy the English home. “Mother,” said a child, “you seem so happy
always on a Sunday, I wish it were Sunday every day.” “You are always
better on a Sunday when father’s at home,” said a little girl to her sick
mother. Another said, “Oh, we are so uncomfortable to-day, it don’t seem
like Sunday, because father has been at work all day, and has not cleaned
himself.” “Don’t the sun always shine brighter on the Sunday? and it is
never such nasty wet rain on a Sunday as on other days,” exclaimed
another group of children. But the sick wife of the railway servant, and
the fond children, are to know nothing of these Sabbath endearments.
Sunday suns and Sunday rains will be week day suns and rains to them, and
this will continue from year’s end to year’s end. Really, my Lord, as a
religious individual, and consequently a very feeling, sympathetic, and
humane man, you ought to hesitate before you resolve to destroy domestic
ties and affections to which your country owes so much of its happiness,
prosperity, and greatness. Your good Lady, the Duchess of Sutherland,
and others, are calling loudly upon the Americans to pity the poor negro,
and we beg your Lordship to have some compassion for these intended
Crystal Palace slaves, and not allow their homes to be broken up and
their wives to be as widows and their children orphans.
The idea, my Lord, that large numbers of the masses will run down to the
Crystal Palace _every_ Sunday is an idle fancy. What will it cost for a
man to take his wife and children to Sydenham? In many instances from
six to ten shillings will be needed! Will Mr. Mayhew’s Spitalfields
weavers be able to spare this sum? How many times a year will they go?
How many of them will go? For unless they go very often, we are afraid
that their moral improvement will not be very great; and, during the
Sabbaths that the people stay at home, there will be no very great
diminution of the crowds that occupy the filthy lanes and alleys of
London. Will enough on any one Sunday leave their houses to cause any
visible decrease of the inhabitants? Will whole families go? or will
there not be a separation of its members—some gone to the Crystal Palace,
and coming home drunk or ruined, while the poor wife and other portions
of the household will be left in solitude at home? One would suppose, to
hear some people talk, that as soon as Sydenham is opened, all the
miserable wretches in London, all the ragged half starved creatures, and
especially all the poor operatives in Spitalfields, will, by some magic
or miracle, be well clothed, have plenty of cash in their pockets, and
after going to church very devoutly one half of the Sabbath, hurry away
in full glee to the Crystal Palace on the other, and thus their future
Sundays all through the year will be passed between the celestial
paradise of the temple and the earthly Elysium at Sydenham!! No one
after this will laugh, if a new body of speculators should arise and
propose to take these said paupers and operatives to visit the moon and
all the planets every Lord’s-day. And thus, my Lord, for an imagined
good, which it would be the most arrant folly to anticipate, you are
about to sacrifice the home comforts, the health, the morals, and the
lives of a large number of the most valuable of your countrymen. The
same principle that led you to legislate respecting cruelty to animals,
and to the men, women, and children in factories and mines, calls upon
you to interpose the authority of the law, and say to the Sydenham
gentlemen, “There shall be no labour on the Sabbath.”
We are told that if the men hire themselves out to this drudgery it will
be a _voluntary_ act of their own. Granted, my Lord; but still when a
husband and father, who has a wife and family crying for bread, is told
that he may have employment if he will break the Sabbath, but that famine
shall be the result of his resting on the Lord’s-day, there is great
danger that many will prefer transgression to poverty and want. All
persecutors are perfect voluntaries. It was quite optional for Stephen
to be stoned; for the disciples to be imprisoned; for Huss, Latimer, and
Hooper to be burnt; for the pilgrim fathers to emigrate to America; and
for the Madiai to go to gaol. Persecutors are among the fairest people
under heaven. They generally set comfort and torture, life and death,
before their victims, and give them a perfect choice of either. Formerly
burning was fashionable; but now starvation is nearly all the rage. We
do not burn people in this enlightened day. We are too refined, for we
live in the nineteenth century, to be sure. No persecution now,
forsooth, we are too humane for that. We only say to the famishing
operative or peasant, “You must go to church, or starve!” “you must go to
chapel, or starve!” “you must spend your Sabbaths on Sydenham Railway, or
starve!” Now I really think, my Lord, if you had your choice,
notwithstanding all our boasting of religious liberty and charity, that
you would as soon be burnt by Bonner as starved to death, wife, family
and all, by these more refined modern persecutors. For say what you
will, Sunday labour is not only inhuman and cruel, but it is persecution,
and ought to be as much restrained by the hand of the law as any other
oppression which would prevent men from worshipping God. I knew one of
the best of men in London leave his fatherland and become an emigrant
because of the Sunday labour at the Post Office, and thus the government
lost a good servant by this persecution. And we shall soon have on a
large scale a new race of pilgrim fathers, who will seek refuge in a
foreign land that they may enjoy the Sabbath which they are refused in
their own Christian country. To turn a man off from work because he
fears God and keeps the Sabbath is persecution. The civil government is
as much bound to protect the day for worship as the temple in which the
man worships.
Again we repeat, we desire no interference with the religious opinions of
anyone. Let men spend their Sabbath as they please, provided they do not
compel others to any unnecessary work. The laws respecting murder,
theft, cruelty to animals, prisons, nuisances, factory labour, do not
interfere with the religion of Catholic, Protestant, Episcopalian, or
Dissenter. They merely protect the health, the bodies and rights of the
people, and on these principles we call on the legislature in the name of
humanity, of justice, of health, life, right, and freedom, to prohibit
Sabbath labour.
Drowning men catch at straws, and you are in danger, my Lord, of being
seduced by certain individuals who call themselves liberal dissenters,
and profess to expound the sentiments of their brethren. They will tell
you that you must not legislate to prevent the poor man from being robbed
and killed by Sunday labour, because it is a religious question!! But
you must beware of these gentlemen. They have not the confidence of
their brethren, nor do they represent their views. Their sentiments are
as outrageous as they are ultra. To say that Dissent allows the working
man to be robbed and slain by oppressive masters; to be starved to death,
or persecuted into exile, is one of the foulest libels that has ever been
uttered. These men have not yet learnt the duties of civil legislation.
They have not distinguished between physical and religious—between bodily
and spiritual matters; they have not learnt that in some points human and
divine legislation must go hand in hand; nor have they ascertained where
the one is to stop or where the two are to diverge. A man who holds with
a “Ten Hours Bill,” with laws to prevent cruelty to women, children, and
animals; with statutes to prevent murder, theft, and swindling, and yet
protests that you must not protect the bodies of men from Sabbath labour,
is a novice in humanity, and has yet to learn his political alphabet.
Sabbath labour is inhuman; Sabbath labour is robbery; Sabbath labour is
cruelty; Sabbath labour is persecution; Sabbath labour is deadly; and
therefore ought to be restrained by the authority of the law.
Some of them become very religious and tell you that every day, under the
Christian dispensation, is to be a Sabbath; but they do not mean what
they say. Sabbath, my Lord, signifies REST from labour; and if every day
is to be a Sabbath, then we must rest from labour everyday, and never do
any work at all! Jehovah has said, “six days shalt thou labour and do
all that thou hast to do, but the seventh is the DAY OF REST.” Rest from
labour is one of the _essential_ ideas included in the word Sabbath; and
these pious people say that every day is to be a _Sabbath_, and therefore
a day of _rest_ from toil; for where there is no cessation from labour,
there is no _Sabbath_ in the scriptural meaning of the term. But so
perverted are these reasoners, that they tell us though Sabbath means
rest from labour, yet people are now at perfect liberty to work all the
day, and Sydenham adventurers ought therefore to be allowed to rob,
demoralize, and kill a portion of the population by Sunday toil!! The
reasoning of these gentlemen is as logical as their legislation is
liberal and humane.
“Ah, but” they say, “The Sabbath is abolished!” But where, my Lord, is
the repeal mentioned? “Oh,” they gravely reply, “The Sabbath was made
for man.” That is, it was benevolently instituted for the rest of his
physical frame and the edification of his soul. _Ergo_, it is
abolished!! Glorious reasoning, my Lord! But still they argue, “The Son
of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” _Ergo_, the Sabbath is abrogated, and he
is the Lord of a nonentity!!
“No _man_ is to judge us in respect of new moons and Sabbaths.” ERGO,
the _Lord_ is not to judge us, although he has given us the ten
commandments, and told us that they are not abolished, and that the law
is not in any point made void by faith.
“The day is changed from the seventh to the first. _Ergo_, it is
abolished!!” _Change_ and _abolition_ synonyms!! The Apostles for a
while observed the seventh day that they might preach to the Jews, and
the _first_ day that they might assemble as Christians, and at length, in
obedience to their Lord’s will, these _inspired_ men dropped the seventh
and kept the first alone, but retained the spirit of the law by
assembling _every seventh_ day, and therefore, to be sure, broke up the
Sabbath altogether!! Whether these are “_sequiturs_” or “_non
sequiturs_,” I leave your Lordship to judge.
But then we are so spiritual in these Gospel days, that we do not need a
Sabbath. ERGO, we show our spirituality by _secularizing_ the Sabbath!!
Of course we are more spiritual than the Creator who consecrated one day
in seven; more spiritual than Adam in innocency; than Moses, Samuel,
Isaiah, the Prophets, our Lord, or the Apostles; and therefore we can do
without such vulgar things as Sabbaths or religious instruction.
Doubtless the Gospel has given us iron nerves and muscles to labour
incessantly; and now forsooth we are all born with instinctive morality,
theology, and devotion, and can do without such old fashioned, obsolete
lumber as religious edification! And yet, my Lord, we who thus boast are
the most Mammon worshipping, worldly minded people under heaven. We are
so spiritually minded that we wish the labourer to work _seven_ days
instead of _six_; that we open the Crystal Palace on Sundays for the sole
purpose of getting money out of the pockets of the people! We are so
spiritual that almost everything we do is contaminated with selfishness!
We are so evangelical and heavenly that we are robbing and killing our
fellow creatures by Sunday labour, and are agitating to increase these
hecatombs of human victims offered to avarice. “The Song of the Shirt”
is no exaggeration, and therefore what a spiritual and benevolent people
we must be! What wicked fellows those infidels are who doubt the divine
origin of this cruel caricature of Christianity which we give them in our
deeds, and how depraved they must be to say to such spiritually minded
souls, “What do ye more than others?” What a blessed proof of heavenly
mindedness, that we can rob men of their Sabbath and lives, and then
thank God that we are not as other men are!
“But the early Christians did not legislate concerning the Sabbath,” say
your new friends. But then you know, my Lord, that they did not ask the
government to make any laws against murder or theft; they did not agitate
against slavery; for the franchise; for corn-laws, or their repeal; for
the Union, or “The Separation of the Church and State,” &c. &c.; and if
we imitate them, we shall give up civil legislation altogether. What
Paul would have done, if he had been a Member of Parliament, we can
hardly say; still, we may safely affirm that he would as soon have voted
to keep men from being robbed, persecuted, and killed by Sabbath labour,
as he would for a bill to prevent cruelty to men, women, children, or
animals, and would hardly have dreamt that in so doing he was violating
the great principles of religious liberty.
Another favourite argument which some use and urge, they tell us, “with
tears in their eyes,” is that you will draw people from the gin palaces.
That is, my Lord, you are “to do evil that good may come.” You have
committed ONE great crime by licensing men to poison, corrupt, and
destroy the population by strong drink; and now you are to give a royal
charter for a second crime, that you may counteract the first! This is
adding sin to sin. Why not shut up all public houses on the Sabbath? It
is as much our duty to do so as to legislate concerning the sale of
stinking fish, or to prevent any nuisance which endangers the health and
rights of the people. And then do you think, my Lord, that these gin
palace visitors will go every Sunday to Sydenham? Some of them now idle
away one, two, or three days a week in pothouses, and spend money enough
to pay for sight seeing and a railway excursion every week. Will Sabbath
breaking and the Crystal Palace convert them into pious men and women?
“Credat Judæus.”
There are at present in London several parks, which any of these persons
may visit for nothing, and without enslaving any of their fellow citizens
to minister to their amusement; and therefore it is perfectly superfluous
to open the Sydenham Railway on the Sabbath. London, for its wide
thoroughfares, fine buildings, and extensive walks, is one of the most
healthy and splendid cities in the world; and is continually being made
more and more so. Why then wish to license by royal charter a system of
amusement which must be attended with Sabbath desecration and the slavery
of the workmen employed in conducting it? Besides, if there are not
walks enough, let others be made, that the masses may have all the
resources of health at command without injury to the domestic comforts,
rights, and liberties of any of their fellow citizens. We do not want to
shut every man, woman, and child up on a Sabbath. All that we desire is,
that Sunday labour shall be restrained by law; and we demand this on the
same broad principle of justice that we ask for any regulation connected
with the civil rights of the country.
It is a fact that numbers of those who now keep public houses, &c., would
be glad to have a general law passed to close them on the Sabbath. At a
public dinner of licensed victuallers and publicans in Manchester last
October, one of the speakers, who had several houses and carried on a
large trade, entreated his brethren to shut up on the Sabbath; and
assured them that he always did so himself, and had been a great gainer
in consequence of the improved character of his servants, which arose
from their being allowed to rest on the Sabbath, and attend to their
moral improvement. Our gin palaces might all be closed on the
Lord’s-day, and then there would be no drunken population on the Sunday,
and no need of a Sydenham claptrap to pretend to cure one crime by the
committal of another.
Most of our pseudo philanthropists who are agitating for Sabbath
recreations, are after all no real friends to the masses. They seem to
take it for granted that operatives and labourers should never have any
time for amusement but on a Sunday; and that nature intended them to be
“hewers of wood and drawers of water” for twelve or fourteen hours during
every week-day. But we protest against this cruel creed. Let taxes be
lowered, national expenditure economised, sinecures abolished, peace and
free trade with all countries be cultivated; let especially the taxes on
knowledge be repealed, and the lords and squires show that they are
patriots by giving up their pensions and refusing to receive such
enormous salaries; let the wages of the labourer and mechanic be just and
equitable, and let the nobility, clergy, gentry, and religious people do
their duty by teaching and encouraging provident and moral habits; and
then the working men and women of England will be able to enjoy week-day
recreation much more frequently than they would go to the Crystal Palace
on a Sunday: and thus they will be saved the moral deterioration which
must invariably attend on Sabbath desecration, and will have no need to
enslave any of their brethren to minister to their happiness.