This Bill was not proceeded with. It required a member like Samuel Morley, of known Christianity and a conscience, to carry it through the House.
A theory has been started that by registering an association, under the Friendly Societies Act, it would legalise its proceedings and virtually repeal all the laws confiscating bequests. No case of this kind has come before the higher courts. To do the Government justice, I know no case in which the Crown has interfered to confiscate a bequest on the ground of heresy in its use. Members of families, legally entitled to the property of a testator, may claim the money and get it. If the family enters no claim the bequest takes effect. In the meantime the state of the law prevents testators leaving property for the maintenance of their opinions, and Christians bring charges against philosophical thinkers for lack of generosity in building halls as Christians do chapels. The Christian reproaches the philosopher for not giving, when he has confiscated the bequest of the philosopher and the power of giving.
Priests often mourn at the disinclination to listen to the tenets they proclaim, and advertise in the newspapers the melancholy fact that only one person in five is found on Sunday in a place of worship, and do not remember how many persons remain away, not so much from dislike of the tenets preached, as from dislike of the injustice which they would have to share if they belonged to any Christian communion.
CHAPTER XXXIX. TWO SUNDAYS
None of our Sunday Societies or Sunday Leagues seem ever to have thought of the advantages of advocating as I have long done—two Sundays—a Devotional Sunday and a Secular Sunday.
The advocacy of two Sundays would put an end to the fear or pretence that anybody wants to destroy the one we have.
The Policy of a Second Sunday is a necessity.
It would put an end to the belief that the working classes are mad, and not content with working six days want to work on the seventh.
It would preserve the present Sunday as a day of real rest and devotion. The one Sunday we now have is neither one thing nor the other. Its insufficiency for rest prevents it being an honest day of devotion. Proper recreation is out of the question. There is too little time for excursions out of town on the Saturday half-day holiday. Imprisonment in town irritates rather than refreshes—mere rest is not recreation.