The New Crystal Palace and the Christian Sabbath

Transcribed from the 1852 Nisbet and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org, using scans from the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
BY THE REV. JOHN WEIR, MINISTER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, RIVER TERRACE.
LONDON: N. H. COTES, 139, CHEAPSIDE; NISBET AND CO., BERNERS STREET; J. H. JACKSON, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND ISLINGTON GREEN
1852.
(Price 1d., or 7s. per 100.)
I AM very sensible of the imperfections of the following Discourse (delivered on the 24th ult.), but in compliance with the request of many friends, it is now issued in a tract form, as an humble testimony to “present truth” and present duty, and with the earnest prayer that it may be of some service to the cause of the Christian Sabbath.
J. W.
Islington, 3rd November, 1852.
LONDON: C. RICHARDS, 100, ST. MARTIN’S LANE.
Isaiah v. 24.—“Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” Luke xvi. 13.—“Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” 2 Timothy iii. 4.—“Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God: from such turn away.”
A SIMULTANEOUS effort is this day being made in this parish, by ministers of various sections of the one Church of Christ, to direct public attention to a question of no ordinary magnitude, with which the cause of national righteousness is identified; and to stir up the community to unite in vigorous, yet peaceful opposition to a project, which involves the perpetration of a great national sin.
Most of those now present have gazed with admiration on the marvels of the memorable and magnificent Crystal Palace of 1851, the design of which originated with the same Prince who, in his homage to the Supreme Ruler of nations, had previously suggested as an appropriate motto for our Royal Exchange the words now graven on its pediment: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” It was in beautiful harmony with this recognition of the sovereignty of Heaven, and it formed one of its most gratifying features, that the doors of the Crystal Palace were closed on the Lord’s day. England thus solemnly proclaimed to assembled nations that she exalted the spiritual above the material—the eternal above the temporal—the immortal above the perishable—in a word, by this public acknowledgment of the Divine law, the Royal Commissioners, in the nation’s name, put honour on the Sabbath of God.