The Sabbath, the Crystal Palace, and the People

by James Baldwin Brown

The Crystal Palace of 1853 will have another and profounder character. It is an attempt to consecrate these fruits of the world’s strivings to the education and elevation of the great masses, whom commerce has too long used up, and then flung aside to perish. It is a deliberate effort to gather all the ripest fruit of the world’s most earnest strivings, most glorious victories, and present them, in order to minister to the development of the men, women, and children of the present generation. It is no mere exhibition, except in the sense in which the whole world is an exhibition. It is the grandest conception of a hitherto mechanical and money-loving generation, and has its root far deeper than in a desire for 5 per cent. returns. It grows up through the force of a conviction, which is now wrought into the mind of the community, that the intellect and wealth which commerce has developed, owe a ministry to the people of the land; and that while the merchant princes can pillage the Continent, Egypt, Palestine, India, and China, of their treasures, to minister to their own vanity, amusement, or instruction, the united strength of the intellect and wealth of the country should build a Palace, far transcending all private palaces, for the great people whose industry has made our England the queen of the kingdoms of the earth. It is emphatically a People’s Palace, and the organization of it on this gigantic scale, by men of shrewd understanding, is certainly a sign that the tide of public feeling has turned towards higher, more intellectual, more elevating pursuits and recreations, than it affected some fifteen years ago. The fact that the keenest speculators are now ransacking our world for the treasures of art, science, and the early history of our race, wherewith to adorn this Palace, is a proof that the very class which has been most prone to renounce all the higher attributes of humanity, and to make its life like that of the brutes that perish, is beginning to resume the exercise of those higher attributes, and to waken to a sense of what a man’s life includes. It is possible that many may regard this view of the New Exhibition as overstrained. Many expect that people will go to the Crystal Palace to see the sight, and, when they have seen it, will go to the public-houses and finish there. Such a view is both shallow and faithless. No doubt, those who like to think so will find plenty which will appear to sustain their views. “The people” is a vague term. It needs patient and intelligent observation, not on the outskirts, but in the centre of a great popular movement, to discern its character. The experience of the last few years does not confirm such anticipations. The working classes, who visit the Museum in Great Russell Street, the Zoological Gardens on Monday, Hampton Court, and Kew, add nothing to the disorder and drunkenness of the metropolis. It is wonderfully rare, even in the more distant exhibitions and places of intelligent enjoyment which have been mentioned, to meet with disorder. Certainly, the drunkenness and disorder of London have been greatly diminished by the opening of places of resort for the working classes where mind as well as body may be fed. Every thing in the past justifies the extension of the experiment, and on the grandest scale. To the poor man, these things are not so much exhibitions as they are to us who can more frequent them. They partake of the dignity of events, stir up the fountains of manhood, perhaps long stagnant, and make him feel life’s meaning and life’s worth, and thus they expand his soul. Now, it is worth while seriously to consider—Is this different from the object which God proposed in the institution of the Sabbath day? It stops far short of that object; but, as far as it goes, does it not travel in the same direction, and aim at the lifting man up from the brutish condition into which a too slavish daily toil would plunge him, to feel how much a man is better than a brute? God, in the Sabbath institution, seeks to make him feel that man is so much better than a brute, that he can talk to God as a Friend, and love Him as a Father. No human effort can teach man that;—no Sabbath observance, even of the strictest sort, can make man observe the Lord’s day, as the Lord counts observance; but when men, in the mass, are gone so far from the Sabbath that they systematically prostitute and pollute it, does God frown on human institutions, which work, however slowly and dimly, towards the realization of the benefit? Does He not say of all such, “Forbid them not, for he that is not against us is on our side?” If through the unconscious influence of Christianity, which has leavened even our speculating fraternities, “the earth is helping” the Kingdom; if the back-water of the mill-wheel of the Church has come round, and is adding its strength to the current; let us look on it lovingly and hopefully, as a state of things to be fostered and led onward to what is better, in no wise to be resisted and banned. And if men want to see this thing which is to elevate and educate them on the Lord’s day—the great mass of the people being notoriously averse to the Sabbath of the Church—we should not say, roughly and fiercely, “You shall not,” but recognize it, as far as it goes, as a sign of progress, hoping that, by all the humanizing influences which are brought to bear on them, we may regain a hold on them, and lead them on to a true appreciation of the Christian idea of the Sabbath. The gist of the matter seems to lie here:—at present, we have but slight hold on the working classes; they care not for our Sabbaths, and find no pleasure in our worship. Is it right, on the ground that it would be a formal breach of that Sabbath which is now really and flagrantly violated, to refuse our consent to a movement which will secure for them some portion, at any rate, of benefit on the Lord’s day?

With many, much of the argument turns on this word “formal” breach. It is worth while to consider more fully its meaning, and to inquire into the real notions of Sabbath observance which prevail in the Christian church. We are all agreed, that the highest kind of good was contemplated by God in the institution of the Sabbath; we are not all agreed that, failing the highest good, a lesser good which is within our reach may lawfully be secured. Many good people reason thus:—“The Sabbath is God’s day. It is the portion of man’s time which He has cut off and consecrated to himself; the mere time is His, as well as the spirit of the worshipper; to recognize any secular employment of such time, is to recognize a robbery of God.” “Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day.”

To this view of Sabbath observance it may be objected—1. It recognizes a distinction in kind between the common day and the sacred day, which has no warrant in the New Testament Scripture. Is not “work” a command, as well as “worship?” And is not every commandment holy, and obedience holy? Is it only on the first day that we are to be fervent in spirit? Are we not to be serving the Lord by diligence in business, with fervent spirit, every day in the week, in our places of business, and the haunts of men? The idea that the Sabbath is a kind of tribute paid to God, to allow us to go free to work on week-days—a sort of composition—is foreign both to the spirit and the letter of the teaching of the New Testament. The Lord’s day is to be a day of refreshing, of renewing of soul, that every day may be a day of Divine service, and have more, not less, of the sacred element infused into it. The idea of a tribute of one day out of seven, false as it is, rules very much of the feeling of the religious public on this question, and perhaps in a measure affects all our hearts. But a second objection, and a plainer one, to this view of the law of Sabbath observance, is this:—there is hardly a Christian to be found who professes practically to carry it out. How much of our Sabbath is literally spent in devotion, how much in cheerful converse with the family circle, how much in meals, how much in criticism of the sermon, not always of a highly spiritual cast, how much in passing references to the leading topics of the day? Let us be honest and single-minded, and answer from our consciences these questions. If we were to try our Sabbath observance by that law which did consecrate the time in its unity and completeness, which of us could stand? Do we regard this as a sin? By no means; because we feel that Christian Sabbath observance is in the spirit, and not in the letter; in the direction of our thoughts and desires without hindrance from the work-day world to God; in the feeling of rest—of Sabbath calm—of holy peace and joy—which has possessed us, and made our Sabbath more a thing to be measured by the Spirit’s instruments, and registered in the Spirit’s record, than by the clock. And if a man has no homage to render, no spiritual good to gain, because he desires none, what does he gain, what does the Church gain, what does the world gain, if he be compelled in some sort to recognize it, by being debarred from a pursuit which would at any other time be beneficial to him; provided always that his liberty be no detriment to those who have better ways of spending the day? Bring him to church to hear the Gospel! By all means. I would that all places of pleasure were shut up on Sabbaths, because men felt that they had better work on hand than to visit them. But if the man says, “I will not enter your churches—I hate them;”—we ask, where is the gain to him, to any one, in saying, “There are the ale-houses, there are the tea-gardens—you are a sinner for going, but there they are; there is, moreover, a train specially provided by Government for you to travel; but this Crystal Palace, so grand and beautiful, we can and will debar you from. Whatever good it has to offer you, you shall not get it on Sabbath days!” It seems very foolish to confess that all attempts to make the masses devote the hours of the Sabbath to devotion are futile—that no serious limit can be set successfully to the efforts of private speculators to tempt men to demoralizing Sabbath desecration—and yet, when a scheme is set on foot which aims at remedying in some sort the mischief, by elevating instead of degrading men, because it is so good and so complete as to be of national importance, its progress is barred at once.

This is the true secret of much serious opposition. The national character of this act is felt by many to be the chief objection to it. Now let us understand what the word “national” implies. There is, no doubt, a very true sense in which a Government represents a nation. But it may represent truly or falsely; if falsely, does God regard it as the representative of the national mind and will? If the nation is bent on not keeping the Sabbath in the highest manner, would the dictum of the Government against all other ways of spending it, constitute a national Sabbath observance? All that we could gain in that case would be an appearance—an appearance how awfully contradicted in Clerkenwell, Rag-fair, Lambeth, Chelsea, Greenwich, and in every place of dense population or public resort. And does God care for this appearance? Is it a cloak that hides any thing from his eye? Think you, that it seems to Him a thing for the sake of which it is worth while to sacrifice one instrument which may help man out of the pit of brutal degradation which the Sabbaths of this metropolis disclose to us, yawning in the very heart of the wisest, the greatest, the richest, the most godly city in the world? Many remember fondly what Sabbaths once were, and willingly shut their eyes to the change. In spite of the decent appearance of our streets—and God forbid that we should ever lose it!—the reality is too decisively the other way, for us to hope that a Government Act can give to us a character before man or before God. The national thought and feeling utters itself every year more loudly. It will not help us, while the fire is raging, to batten down the hatches, and step the deck as trimly as if the cry of alarm had never been heard. We may shut the Crystal Palace and be no nearer a national Sabbath keeping, nay, farther from it,—as plagues pent up in the kilns of their own corruption but taint the air more widely, and cover with their black shadow a broader surface of the land.

Some fear that the act of the Legislature will add a sanction to Sabbath breaking by which many will be emboldened. Alas! the balance is not so tremulous that the weight of Government in either scale will make it kick the beam. It is to be feared that many will frequent the Crystal Palace on Sunday, who otherwise would be in the House of God. This is, no doubt, a very serious matter, but a simply preventive legislation will not remedy the moral mischief out of which the evil springs. For such, no system of safeguards can be successful. Men are beyond the reach of protection, who would use the term “national sanction” as the cloak of sin.

Thus much on the opposition arising from views of the nature of Sabbath observance and its claims. We must now pass on to notice a class of objections founded on the nature of the Exhibition itself, and its probable influence on the heart, mind, and manners of men. Many expect that men will get more harm from the accessories than good from the thing itself. Here, again, much is to be said on either side. There will, doubtless, be beer-houses, tea-gardens, skittle-grounds, and all the apparatus of demoralization (though the licensing magistrates may do much to prevent it); but may we not fairly expect that large numbers will spend, on their travelling and admission, money which, if they stayed at home, would be drunk or played away; that many will take their families with them, which is always an elevating thing to the poor; that some, at any rate, who go for pleasure, may find deeper thoughts awakened, and turn with disgust from grosser amusements which, in other states of mind, would delight them; and that, on the whole, an immense amount of vice and sensuality will be spared, though, alas, there will be enough to waken sorrow in all good men. There will just be a battle between the interest which the Crystal Palace will awaken, and meaner, grosser things. Will the baser triumph, when both are fairly brought to bear on men? There is enough in the history of public exhibitions, during the last twenty years, to rebuke our faithlessness and teach us hope. My whole argument rests on the fact of existing and increasing neglect of worship and church ordinances on the Sabbath day. For how much of the existing disaffection the Church is responsible, God only knoweth; but, certainly, obstruction and prevention come from us with singularly bad grace. Attraction is our one great power. What we can attract and win, we keep. What we constrain we cannot attach, and our chains are but ropes of sand.

One fruitful source of Sabbath desecration is the unnatural condition in which men and women are compelled to live, in the heart of our great cities. Every thing around them blights the gentlest and most gracious thoughts and feelings of our nature. They live from hand to mouth—they snatch at each day’s existence—they have no rest, no sense of possession in the present, no hope for the future. They are out of reach of true rest on the Sabbath. It is mere mockery to talk about it. Keep them at home, and the Sabbath cannot be a delight, except when an enthusiastic spirit can wholly emancipate itself from circumstances. God’s ordinance seems to them a delusion and a snare. Picture the miserable houses, the foul air, the dirty, damp, mouldy walls, the reeking smoke, the pestilential exhalations from the open sewer, the cries of drunkenness, and the curses of blasphemy, amidst which we expect half a million of men in our metropolis to pass the Sabbath. No wonder that they fly from it, fly to the ale-house, and drown there their disgust and despair. They are hardly within reach of our Christian instructions,—alas, for the seed sown in such stony ground! The circumstances of their life expose it to fearful peril; a broad change must pass over the moral and mental condition of these people before, as a class, they can be expected to receive gladly the Gospel and bring forth its fruits. Let them get out to something they will care for—something that will teach them—God’s clear air and sunshine, the violet odour, balmy to them as the breath of Paradise, the bird song, the breeze among the boughs, the fresh clean meadows, the sparkling wreathing river, and they are at once within reach of better and holier thoughts. Or if no thoughts come to them, for impressions shape themselves into thoughts but slowly in minds inept, yet a genial refreshing dew has passed over their spirits—they feel that the city life, with its squalor and misery, is man’s work not God’s,—and at last, though the thought may be long in ripening, they may come to think that it may be true after all, as the Bible says, that in God the poor man has a defender and keeper, and a remedy for all the ills which sin and selfishness have entailed upon the world.

Those who see much of this class will be deeply convinced that we have no means of reaching them at present as a class, though the direct and earnest attention of the Church, in all its branches, to their condition and needs, is a most hopeful symptom; but looking at this great class, and their relation to society—so benighted, so withered in soul, as to resist sternly the Divinest influences—I confess it seems to me a terrible responsibility to keep them away, on any day, from anything which would do them even a little good. It is but little that we can hope, and that little will be slowly realized. With sorrow we open the way for them—sorrow, that they will not choose a more excellent way. We believe in God’s high purpose in the institution of the Sabbath day, and fling wide the gates of our sanctuaries. But if men pass scornfully or scowlingly, let us at least be thankful, tearfully thankful, if they are not passing by our doors to dens of vice and crime. Let us not tell them, If you do not come here, the Lord does not care where you go. Let us tell them that He follows them everywhere with His care,—that He has spread abroad the expanse of nature for them,—that He has given art, science, commerce, and history to man;—it may chance that many, hearing this, may desire to know more of Him, and learn from himself what He means by a Sabbath day.

It may be said, and with justice, that the majority of the frequenters of the Crystal Palace will hardly be of the class which has been described. Not the poorest, but the class above the poorest—the well-paid artizans, the shopmen and shopwomen, the mercantile clerks and the kindred classes will furnish at any rate a large proportion of the visitors to this Exhibition. It is worth one’s while to consider thoughtfully whether we are prepared to apply the same rigid rule, as regards the measure of time to be devoted to public services on the Lord’s day, to the poor workman and shopman confined to the hot dense air of the factory or shop during all the disposable hours of the week, and living probably in a home but sparely visited by the light and air of heaven,—between which home and the sanctuary he ought, according to the present theory, to divide his time on the Sabbath,—and to the rich man who, in the afternoon or evening, can walk in his own garden, pluck the fruit of his own vine and fig-tree, ventilate his lungs in the purest and balmiest air, and, being refreshed in body, can go down to God’s house in comfort and refresh his soul. We must beware, lest we make the lot of the poor more bitter by the yoke of our law of ordinances which are in themselves beautiful and benignant, lest he take the name of his God in vain. Many hold forth a rest day in the week as the remedy. This simply means, in most cases, the sacrifice of four or five shillings a week. Six days’ labour can hardly supply the needs of a poor man’s family, especially its higher needs. The loss of some shillings is certainly the loss of some books, some schooling, some innocent amusements for his children, and is, not seldom, the loss of bread.

The last, and in the estimation of a large number of religious men, the most serious aspect of the question which I will refer to is this:—“The opening of the Crystal Palace,” it is said, “is but the door to the opening of the national institutions, the theatres, and, finally, the factories and shops on the Sabbath.”