P.S.—I ought, my Lord, to have added above that some persons, from this expected rage of the poor people to go to the Crystal Palace on Sundays, and its moralizing influence, will draw an argument in favour of the Voluntary Principle in religion which your Lordship has so long condemned. For if these children of destitution will pay such large sums to be educated and moralized at Sydenham, what need of State Education, tithes, or religious endowments? I should not be surprised to hear it proposed to have St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey turned into Crystal Palaces. In making these remarks I am only reasoning on the premises laid down by your Lordship, that the people would be rendered “moral” by going to the Crystal Palace on Sundays. Bishops, priests, deacons, and dissenting ministers, it is presumed, have failed; and now dram shops are to be emptied, and Spitalfields, St. Giles, and Rosemary Lane regenerated by the Sydenham grounds! Certainly, my Lord, before this new experiment is tried, it would be well to inquire, whether the Bible, Christianity, and Religious Instruction are a failure? whether Sabbath breaking will be more moralizing than Sabbath observance? whether the poor people in London will have money enough to go in shoals to Sydenham? and whether those who will really go will not be the persons who have ample time and means to go on the week?
London: Printed for John Snow, 35, Paternoster Row.