A Few Words on the Crystal Palace Question

Transcribed from the 1852 John Murray edition by David Price
CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN, D.D.
HEAD MASTER OF HARROW SCHOOL.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET; CROSSLEY AND CLARKE, LEICESTER AND HARROW: MACMILLAN AND CO., CAMBRIDGE.
MDCCCLII.
PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 60, PALL MALL.
No Clergyman who values his own ease will write on either side of a question connected however remotely with that of Sunday observance. If he takes the one side, the world accuses him of bigotry: if the other, his brethren stigmatize him as a Latitudinarian. What is worse, he runs the risk of either furnishing a handle to the irreligious, or perplexing and depressing the thoughtful and serious.
Nor is the danger removed by his occupying a position of the utmost possible moderation, acknowledging the strength of both sides, and endeavouring to adjust with all evenness their conflicting claims. The only result is, that he becomes the prey of both parties: each holds on its way, and the voice of candour is silenced by the uproar.
Yet the truth must be spoken. No personal considerations ought to suppress it. No anxiety for the cause of good can justify a timid compromise with error.
It is impossible to reflect without a sense of deep disquiet upon the present position of the Sunday question in England. It is a point on which men’s professions are at war with their conduct. It is a point on which traditional ideas are held in forced conjunction with altered practices. It is a point on which Christian teachers will not speak out. It is a point on which popular prepossessions are accepted as a convenient fact, even where they are felt to rest on insufficient grounds, and to lead to a most inadequate result.
And what is the consequence? Men’s consciences are perplexed. They ask—and there is no audible answer—Why do I observe the Sunday? Is it on the ground of the Mosaic commandment? If so, who has relaxed the strictness of its terms? Where is the permission to do, what we all do, but what Israel did not, on the Sabbath day? Who taught us that in this one instance the Christian rule of keeping the spirit of God’s commandments implies the licence to break the letter?