A Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Derby / on the cruelty and injustice of opening the Crystal Palace on the Sabbath

Transcribed from the 1853 John Snow edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
“Remember the Day of Rest to keep it holy.”— Fourth Commandment . “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”— The Gospels .
BY THE REV. B. PARSONS, OF EBLEY;
AUTHOR OF “ANTI-BACCHUS;” “THE MENTAL AND MORAL DIGNITY OF WOMAN;” “EDU- CATION THE NATURAL WANT OF EVERY HUMAN BEING;” “THE GREATNESS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE TRACED TO ITS PRINCIPAL SOURCES;” ETC. ETC.
LONDON: JOHN SNOW, 35, PATERNOSTER ROW; BUCKNALL & HARMER, STROUD; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
1853.
Price One Shilling .
My Lord,
Divided as the country is in its political and religious sentiments, there is one subject on which there is a very great unanimity: and I may add also that this union of opinion exists among the most moral of your countrymen; the most loyal supporters of the throne and the constitution; the most enlightened members of the community; and the most benevolent and philanthropic individuals in the empire. I need not say that the point on which all these persons are agreed is “The observance of Sabbath.” Here, my Lord, you have thousands or rather millions of citizens who never trouble the realm in any way by their vices or disorderly conduct; who are never brought before magistrates or judges for their offences; and who require no soldiers or police to watch over them and keep them from disturbing the commonwealth.
It is a matter of surprise to all sober and reflecting minds that you, my Lord, should wish to set yourself in an attitude of antagonism towards all these peaceful and religious men and women; and especially that you should do this most gratuitously and in defiance of your own creed .
In proposing to have the Pleasure Grounds of the new Crystal Palace thrown open during one half of the Lord’s-day, you involved yourself in a responsibility which no one called upon you to incur, except a small body of railway speculators, and a few theoretic and practical rejectors of the commandments of the Most High. Your coadjutors and instigators are those who never allow a word of Scripture to stand in the way of their views, their pleasures, their prejudices, or their love of gain. It has become popular of late years for prime ministers “to do evil that good may come.” The Maynooth grant was asked for by few. The Catholics themselves did not want it. There has rarely been a measure which met with such unanimous opposition; but still it was carried— most tyrannically carried—in defiance of the voice of the nation: and, how has it worked? The believers in Roman Catholicism knew that it was intended as a bribe, and therefore an insult; and have resolved that they will not be converted into spiritual chattels, or have their zeal quenched or consciences silenced by Government pay. The money was taken from our pockets to purchase state patronage for the premier and his partisans, but the artifice has proved a perfect failure, for the followers of Pio Nono have shown that they are not to be bought. Your measure, my Lord, concerning the Sabbath is as perfectly gratuitous as the Maynooth scheme.