{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_63755/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_63755","id":"gutenberg_63755","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63755","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Crystal Palace (Sydenham, London, England)","Sunday legislation -- Great Britain"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1852 John Murray edition by David Price\n\n\n\n\n\n                               A FEW WORDS\n                                    ON\n                       THE CRYSTAL PALACE QUESTION.\n\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    BY\n\n                        CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN, D.D.\n\n                      HEAD MASTER OF HARROW SCHOOL.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                 LONDON:\n\n                      JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET;\n                CROSSLEY AND CLARKE, LEICESTER AND HARROW:\n                      MACMILLAN AND CO., CAMBRIDGE.\n\n                                MDCCCLII.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                   PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 60, PALL MALL.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\nA FEW WORDS\nON\nTHE CRYSTAL PALACE QUESTION.\n\n\nNo Clergyman who values his own ease will write on either side of a\nquestion connected however remotely with that of Sunday observance.  If\nhe takes the one side, the world accuses him of bigotry: if the other,\nhis brethren stigmatize him as a Latitudinarian.  What is worse, he runs\nthe risk of either furnishing a handle to the irreligious, or perplexing\nand depressing the thoughtful and serious.\n\nNor is the danger removed by his occupying a position of the utmost\npossible moderation, acknowledging the strength of both sides, and\nendeavouring to adjust with all evenness their conflicting claims.  The\nonly result is, that he becomes the prey of both parties: each holds on\nits way, and the voice of candour is silenced by the uproar.\n\nYet the truth must be spoken.  No personal considerations ought to\nsuppress it.  No anxiety for the cause of good can justify a timid\ncompromise with error.\n\nIt is impossible to reflect without a sense of deep disquiet upon the\npresent position of the Sunday question in England.  It is a point on\nwhich men\u2019s professions are at war with their conduct.  It is a point on\nwhich traditional ideas are held in forced conjunction with altered\npractices.  It is a point on which Christian teachers will not speak out.\nIt is a point on which popular prepossessions are accepted as a\nconvenient fact, even where they are felt to rest on insufficient\ngrounds, and to lead to a most inadequate result.\n\nAnd what is the consequence?  Men\u2019s consciences are perplexed.  They\nask\u2014and there is no audible answer\u2014Why do I observe the Sunday?  Is it on\nthe ground of the Mosaic commandment?  If so, who has relaxed the\nstrictness of its terms?  Where is the permission to do, what we all do,\nbut what Israel did not, on the Sabbath day?  Who taught us that in this\none instance the Christian rule of keeping the spirit of God\u2019s\ncommandments implies the licence to break the letter?\n\nQuestions such as these are left to answer themselves as they can.  There\nremains a large amount of Sabbatical observance: but it is associated\nwith no little bondage of spirit in what is done, and with no little\nembarrassment of conscience in what is left undone.\n\nAnd where, meanwhile, is the Christian teacher, wise enough and bold\nenough to proclaim from his pastoral watch-tower the yoke with which\nChrist has bound us, the liberty wherewith He has made us free?\n\nWhere is he who can encounter, even as St. Paul encountered it, the\nobloquy which assails in every age the exaltation of the everlasting\nGospel, as, not the summary merely, not the expansion merely, not the\ninterpretation merely, but the END\u2014in every sense of that term\u2014of every\nearlier Dispensation? who ventures to declare that not the fourth\nCommandment only, but the whole Decalogue, has ceased to be, _as such_,\nthe rule of our life? that, although Christians commit neither idolatry\nnor murder nor perjury, it is not because God forbade these crimes by\nMoses, but because they are contrary to the spirit of Christ? that, in\nshort, their obedience to the unchangeable precepts of God\u2019s moral Law is\na homage rendered not to Sinai but to Calvary; so that, if in any point\nthey find in their own Gospel a limitation or a modification or an\nextension of any earlier enactment, they are conscious of no\nembarrassment in the regulation of their allegiance\u2014forasmuch as the\nlater is _their_ law, even as the earlier was that of others?\n\nAnd thus with reference to the observance of the Sabbath, and to every\npoint of moral duty, the appeal lies now, primarily to the Scriptures of\nthe New Testament, and secondarily to any other records which we may\npossess of the practice of the Apostolical age.\n\nNor can it be pretended, when the question is fairly examined, that the\nperpetuation of the Jewish Sabbath is either enjoined, or by implication\nencouraged, in the words or the writings of the first disciples and\nApostles of our Lord.\n\nHow shall we account for the total omission, amidst precepts so\nmultiplied upon every point of Christian duty, of all reference to the\nobligation of the Sabbatical rest?  From whom, if not from the Apostles,\ncould the Gentile Christians derive their knowledge of its existence?\nYet no direction is anywhere to be found for its observance, nor yet any\nreproof for the neglect of it.  In the only passages in which a clear\nreference to it occurs in the Epistles, the language employed is that\neither of indifference to its retention, or even of rebuke for its\nrevival.\n\nWe do indeed find traces in the New Testament of the existence of\n_another_ day of weekly observance; a day on which the disciples came\ntogether to break bread; on which it was natural to collect their\nofferings; to which (before the last of the Apostles was called to his\nrest) was already appropriated the title of the Lord\u2019s Day.\n\nBut that this day was neither identical with the Jewish Sabbath, nor\nsubstituted for it by any formal act of transfer, is sufficiently proved\nby the remarkable circumstance, that there were in the primitive age\nChurches in which _both_ were observed\u2014Saturday in remembrance of the\nMosaic Sabbath, Sunday in commemoration of the Redeemer\u2019s resurrection.\nBy what right shall we assume that, when the former observance died out,\nthe latter was invested with its distinctive attributes? or that, in\ncongregations where the former had never been practised, the latter had\nbeen, all along, synonymous with an institution with which (to judge from\nexisting records) they had never been made acquainted?\n\nThen, if this be so; if the Sabbath is an ordinance of the past; one of\nthose \u201celements or rudiments of the world,\u201d those \u201cshadows of things to\ncome,\u201d of which \u201cthe substance and the reality is Christ;\u201d in what sense\ndo we still read in our Churches the fourth Commandment, and pray for\ngrace to incline our hearts to keep it?\n\nHow low and slavish a spirit is betrayed in this anxiety to have an\nexpress _law_ to show for our Christian Sunday.  How opposite to that\nwhich is the distinctive feature of the Christian character\u2014an earnest\ndesire to catch every intimation, every indication, of our Master\u2019s will,\nthat we may do it not as His slaves but as His children.  Enough if we\nfound even a _human_ institution, which testified throughout Christendom,\nby a speaking sign, by an act at once self-denying and beneficent, our\nfaith in realities unseen and future.  Even _this_ would bind us to its\nobservance.  It would be an ordinance of God\u2019s Providence for us.  It\nwould be our duty to submit to it, if it were but an ordinance of man,\nfor the Lord\u2019s sake.  And surely it would bear upon its very front the\nimpress of a will more than human: it would bespeak itself the creation\nof a Divine philanthropy.  He who should presume to trifle with it\u2014still\nmore, he who should seek to abrogate or to nullify it for his neighbours\nor his countrymen\u2014would be seen, even if this were all, to be fighting\nagainst God.\n\nBut this is _not_ all.  We think that we see indications, from the very\nearliest days of which the Scriptures contain the record, of man\u2019s need\nof a periodical rest, and of God\u2019s purpose to secure it to him.\n\nWe believe that it is essential to the wellbeing of his bodily and mental\nstructure.  That it is adapted to the preservation of his health, to the\nprolongation of his life, to the comfort and efficiency of his work,\nwhether manual or intellectual.  That the man who regards every day as\nequal, who refuses to observe the day of relaxation, will work the worse\nwhile he does work, and decay and die the sooner.  That the man who\nrigidly abstains from labour and from excitement during every seventh\nday, will be a healthier and a happier man for this intermission, more\nserviceable and longer lived.  And all this we believe to have been\nforeseen by man\u2019s Creator, and provided for by the Disposer of man\u2019s\nheart.\n\nThus far, however, we have stopped short of the highest considerations.\nIf no other purpose were answered by the institution of the Christian\nSunday, it is undeniable that the _nature_ of the periodical rest might\nbe left wholly to the individual taste and judgment.  It would be a\nmatter of indifference\u2014a matter with which conscience would have no right\nto intermeddle\u2014whether it were to be spent in seclusion or in society, in\nworship, in novel-reading, or in travelling.\n\nBut we believe, further, that the periodical rest which is essential to\nthe health of man\u2019s body and to the vigour of man\u2019s intellect, is yet\nmore so to the wellbeing of his immortal spirit, to his education for\nthat state in which earthly life issues.  Surrounded by ten thousand\ninfluences drawing his heart downwards and enchaining his interests upon\nearth, he needs the opportunity which God\u2019s Providence has thus afforded\nhim, of cultivating the thoughts and practising the habits which alone\ncan survive death and occupy his everlasting energies.  Without the\nrecurrence, at brief and regular intervals, of his day of spiritual\nimprovement, his soul would be as incompetent to withstand the\nfascinations of earth, as his body to endure perpetual exercise, or his\nmind incessant application.\n\nAnd when we thus transfer the basis of Sunday observance from the region\nof law to that of privilege and blessing; when we accept as God\u2019s gift to\nus, for certain high and beneficent purposes, what once perhaps we\nregarded as a badge of subjection and servitude; how simple,\ncomparatively, becomes every question which can affect its observance\u2014how\neasy the statement, in words at least, of the principle which should\nguide our use of it.\n\nThe question now is, not, What is it lawful, what is it wrong, to do on\nthe Sunday? how can I so employ it as to avoid breaking God\u2019s Law and\nincurring God\u2019s displeasure? but rather, How can I derive from it all\npossible good? how can I turn to the best account, for myself and others,\nin soul and body, the blessing which God has thus conferred upon me?\n\nAnd shall those who look back through long years upon their frequent\nfailures to improve this blessing, see no reason for the confession which\nbewails their past neglect of it, and the prayer which asks help to\nhonour it hereafter?\n\nWhatever tends to refresh the mind and body without the stimulus of an\nundue excitement, will be, in itself, a desirable occupation for the\nChristian Sunday.\n\nBut, if this relaxation of the body and mind be attended with no\ncorresponding benefit to the soul; still more, if it involve an\nexcitement unfavourable to the remembrance of God, so that, at the end of\nthe day, Heaven shall be more distant than at its beginning; then that\nrelaxation has been of a mistaken and injurious kind; the purposes of the\ninstitution have been this day rather defeated than answered; it is not\nso much that we have broken a law, as that we have missed a blessing; we\nhave been unthankful for a great privilege, we have thrown away a great\nopportunity of good.\n\nAll this is plain enough as respects an individual: few will gainsay its\ntruth.\n\nBut we are now concerned rather with the _national_ observance of the\nSunday.  How are we to apply these principles to the case of _others_?\nmore especially, if the question be one of government, of legislation?\n\nLet us, in the first place, take clearly into view what can, and what\ncannot, be done by legislation on such a subject.\n\nIt is quite idle to suppose that a Christian use of the Sunday can ever\nbe secured by authoritative enactment.  We cannot, by all the legislation\nin the world, augment by one the number of the worshippers in our\nChurches; we cannot open one Bible, we cannot elicit one prayer, we\ncannot awaken in one heart the feelings of faith or hope or love.  The\nobservance of the Sunday, as it rests not on law as its basis, so neither\ncan it rest on legislation for its enforcement.\n\nWhat then _can_ be done?\n\nLegislation can _protect_ the observance of the day.  It cannot prevent\nhim who will from desecrating it, in his heart, in his house, in thought,\nword, or act.  But it can limit the operation of this desecration upon\nothers.  It can refuse to him the absolute command of the services of\nothers in effecting this desecration.  It can coerce within somewhat\nnarrow bounds his power to keep others waiting upon his amusements to the\nloss of the privileges of the day for themselves.  It can say, Such and\nsuch places shall be inaccessible on that day; such and such means of\nconveyance withdrawn; such and such servants of the Public excused from\ntheir attendance.\n\nAnd, besides its protective power, legislation has also a strong\n_negative_ operation.  There are barriers which can only be removed by\nits assistance.  At all events, its interposition may at any moment be\ninvoked to stop such a removal.  It may impede the extension of Sunday\ntravelling: it may refuse its licence to the multiplication of Sunday\namusement: it may refrain from sanctioning the creation of those haunts\nand rendezvous of public attraction which make just the difference\noftentimes between neglect and contempt, between disregard and defiance,\nbetween indifference and desecration.  It is one thing to know that a\nmultitude of individuals, however numerous, fail to honour the day;\nanother, to parade before the eyes of the world the legalization of that\nfailure.\n\nIn what manner then do these remarks bear upon the particular subject now\nbefore us; the design (as it is commonly understood) of opening to the\nPublic during certain hours of the Sunday some portions of the Crystal\nPalace?\n\nI have no sympathy with an outcry founded in whole or in part upon what\nappears to me to be an untenable notion of the nature of our Christian\nSunday.  And I confess that I could forgive a Statesman who should\nreceive on the present occasion with deep suspicion the remonstrances of\nmen who but three years ago fostered and aggravated the same outcry on a\nplea which the slightest examination would have shown to be fallacious.\nThose who have lent themselves in former instances to swell the chorus of\nan ignorant and fanatical clamour, have no claim to attention now but\nthat with which the actual merits of their case may furnish them.\n\nBut the two occasions are, as I believe, widely different.  The contrast\nis unimportant: I will come at once to the present.\n\nAnd let me admit, once for all, that it is with things _as they are_ that\nwe have to do; not with things as they _might_ exist in a totally\nopposite condition.  We must take the state of the poor man as it is, and\nthe state of Sunday observance as it is.  We might _wish_ indeed that\nboth were widely different.  We might form to ourselves the picture of a\npoor man\u2019s Sunday, such as in rare instances we have seen it: the clean\nthough humble dwelling, the early prayer of the household, the open\nBible, the walk to Church, the one comfortable meal of the week, the holy\nand loving converse of the evening, the prayer and the blessing with\nwhich the day ended as it began.  And we might say, and say with truth,\nthat, for a family thus resting in holy union throughout its weekly\nfestival of Christian devotion and thankfulness, no change could come\nthat were not for the worse.  No want is here felt of anything which God\nhas not given: enough for that happy home is the change which Sunday has\nbrought with it over the aspect of every familiar object; the rest from\nlabour, enjoyed with those dearest on earth, in the remembrance of One\nloved above all\u2014this is all that they ask\u2014more would destroy it.\n\nBut this, alas! is a spectacle as rare as it is beautiful: we may wish\nfor a theoretical good, but we must choose the practical.  Next below the\ncase just pictured, stands that of him whose piety perhaps is less\nfervent, his desire for relaxation less easily satisfied, and who,\nthirsting for one glimpse of nature, one breath of God\u2019s air, one ray of\nGod\u2019s sunshine, must seek them where they can be found, must travel, in\nshort, in quest of them.  Shall we pass upon this man a sentence of\nharsh, of unqualified, censure?  Shall we say that he who carries with\nhim on the Sunday his wife and his children to some quiet country spot\nwhere he may shake off the distractions of business, refresh himself with\nthe sights and sounds of freedom, and pray with his family in a Church\nless dark and less dank than he could find in the neighbourhood of his\ndwelling\u2014shall we say that this man breaks God\u2019s Law, and does despite to\nHis holy day?  Let others record this sentence\u2014I dare not.\n\nBut this I would say\u2014that a freedom which he takes ought not to be made a\nyoke of bondage to another; that this liberty of his, so refreshing (if\nit be enjoyed in a Christian spirit) to soul and body, must be purchased\nfor him at as small a cost as possible of Sunday toil on the part of\nothers: let not the necessity which he feels, for entire relaxation on\nhis day of rest, entail upon the servants of the Public a burdensome load\nof labour on a day of which they perhaps equally need the enjoyment: let\nthe protective hand of legislation, if it be necessary, be interposed to\nregulate the hours and the method of his coming and going, that others\nmay rest as well as he.\n\nAnd, further, I would urge that it is essential to the beneficial effects\nof this indulgence, that it should be enjoyed, as far as may be, in\ntranquillity and retirement; that it is one thing to travel on the Sunday\nto a country village, and another to be immersed in the bustle and\nexcitement of a crowded fair; that that quietness of mind and feeling,\nwhich is one of the main blessings of a Christian Sunday, is necessarily\nimpaired if the scene of relaxation be a focus of popular attraction,\ninvolving the visitor, without the possibility of escape, in the noise\nand the glare of a tumultuous assembly.\n\nNor, once more, could I regard as a matter of indifference the\nauthoritative bisection of the Sunday into a morning of worship and an\nafternoon of pleasure.  Whatever be the character of the day, it is one,\nnot twofold.  It is indeed one of the chief duties\u2014perhaps the chief\nostensible duty\u2014of the day, to attend its public services, but we have no\nwarrant for representing its character as changed when the first or even\nthe second of those services is ended: whatever it be\u2014whether a day of\ndevotion, or a day of inaction, or a day of amusement\u2014that it is\nthroughout: and, however little it may be designed, the effect of the\nproposed distinction would assuredly be, not so much to increase the\nsanctity of the morning as to destroy that of the evening.  Henceforth\nthe claims of _evening_ worship,\u2014and still more the claims of the whole\nday upon a thoughtful and serious spirit,\u2014would be materially disparaged:\nso far as the effects of this measure extend, they will cause the day to\nclose at noon: and what will it be thenceforth to those countless\nthousands of our countrymen who are debarred by absolute necessity from\nattending the service of the morning?\n\nI know it may be urged that such arguments presuppose the existence of a\nvery different state of Sunday observance from the present; that the\nquestion really lies not between the Crystal Palace and the Church, but\nbetween the Crystal Palace and the street or the gin-shop.  I believe,\nhowever, that no gallery of painting or of sculpture will have any\nabiding attractions for the class thus described: tastes so brutish will\nnot be transformed by any such expedient: they will remain what they are,\nuntil a mightier engine shall bear upon them: no display of art will\nallure them to civilization.  The class really affected by the change\nproposed will be that already described; neither the highest of all, nor\nthe very lowest.  Those who now travel on the Sunday in a desultory\nmanner will then be found congregated in large numbers upon a single\npoint: and the alteration, so far as it extends, will be for the worse.\n\nIt remains only to assert with all earnestness the _importance_ of the\ncontemplated innovation.  It is the first step in a course which lies\nalready as in a map before us.  The opening of one such building is\nvirtually the opening of all.  The demand for this extension may be\ngradual; but, whenever and wherever made, it must be granted.  At all\nevents, the principle is gone.  England becomes like other nations.  That\ngreat spectacle of reverence for God which was afforded last year in the\nface of assembled Europe can be presented no more.  The very building\nwhich bore so noble a testimony is itself a year later to utter a\ndifferent language.  Yet where, practically, is the distinction between\nthe two cases?  What Sunday was, Sunday is.  If it was an act of becoming\nreverence to close the Great Exhibition on that day, how is it that what\nwas religion then is superstition now?  Assuredly the effects, for good\nor evil, of such a proceeding will not be less striking or less extensive\nnow than then: then too they would have been temporary, now they will be\npermanent.\n\nIf there be yet time to pause\u2014and there _is_ time, for Parliament, at all\nevents, has not yet spoken\u2014may it be seized and used.  It is one thing\nfor an individual, or a host of individuals, to disregard or to abuse\ntheir day of rest: it is another thing for the _nation_ to interpose to\nsanction that neglect, and thus to fling away by her own act a badge\nwhich, once lost, can never be resumed.\n\nHARROW,\n         _November_ 2, 1852.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nThe following Address will be found to comprise the main topics above\ninsisted upon.\n\n                           TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE\n                              THE EARL OF DERBY,\n                                 &c. &c. &c.\n\n    \u201cMY LORD,\n\n    \u201cWe the undersigned venture to express to your Lordship with all\n    deference the regret with which we have heard of an intention to open\n    to the Public on the Sunday (with some limitations) the new Crystal\n    Palace at Sydenham.\n\n    \u201cWe deem it unnecessary for our present purpose to enter into any\n    discussion of the general question of Sunday observance.\n\n    \u201cWe are far from desiring to see such an observance of the day as\n    would rob it of any portion of its character as a day of refreshment\n    and of Christian commemoration.\n\n    \u201cWe can sympathize to the full in the hard lot of those whose whole\n    week is spent in confinement and toil, and to whom Sunday alone\n    brings the opportunity of seeing the light or breathing the air of\n    freedom.\n\n    \u201cBut we value above all price that national recognition of the\n    existence of God, and of the blessings of Christianity, which has\n    been made for so many ages by this country in its maintenance of the\n    observance of our weekly day of rest.\n\n    \u201cWe should lament the sanction, by a Royal Charter, of a departure\n    from the principle of this observance.\n\n    \u201cWe consider the concentration of Sunday travelling upon a single\n    focus of attraction, to be a far greater evil than the more desultory\n    pursuit of health and relaxation at present practised by the lower\n    orders on that day.\n\n    \u201cAnd we should feel that the noble example of national regard for the\n    Sunday, displayed last year before the eyes of Europe in the closing\n    of the Great Exhibition on that day, was ill followed up by giving a\n    public sanction to an opposite practice in the case of a building\n    which professes to be intended to perpetuate the same magnificent\n    design.\n\n    \u201cFor these reasons, we beg leave most respectfully to express our\n    hope that the power now entrusted to the hands of your Lordship may\n    not be employed in the accomplishment of a project which we believe\n    in our hearts to be unfavourable to the Christian character of the\n    nation.\n\n                         \u201cWe have the honour to be,\u201d\n                                 &c. &c. &c.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                          _By the same Author_.\n\n                               TWO LETTERS\n                    ON THE LATE POST OFFICE AGITATION,\n                              1849 AND 1850.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                      JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n        LONDON: PRINTED BY W. NICOL., SHAKSPEARE PRESS, PALL MALL.","title":"A Few Words on the Crystal Palace Question","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":4241}