Shall the new Crystal Palace be open on Sunday? This question is exciting a good deal of attention—especially in the religious world, and is likely to attract more, ere finally set at rest. It is a question of magnitude, and possibly of political importance. It becomes, therefore, the duty of all who feel interested in its solution, to ascertain clearly the facts upon which it is based, the principles with which it is bound up, and the consequences which will flow from its decision. The occasion seems to have been seized upon by what may be called the Sabbatarian party, to make a determined stand on behalf of the principle for which they have often fought and been vanquished—the right of the religious world to impose their notions of Sabbath observance upon the community at large. The particular point at issue may be readily decided by any unbiassed mind, on examination of the actual facts. But the Sabbatarians refuse to be bound down to the case as it stands. They exaggerate and pervert the facts; and, under cover of the smoke and excitement thus created, advance to a general assault upon what they term “Sabbath desecration.” The design of the next few pages is rather to point out the impolicy, danger, and hopelessness of any public movement to prevent the opening of this place of recreation on the Sunday, than to advocate or defend that step.
Although the facts of the case are conveniently lost sight of by the agitators in question, they are really so important to a right understanding of its merits as to admit of re-statement. It appears, then, that the New Crystal Palace at Sydenham is in the hands of a joint-stock company, and is to be conducted on the same commercial principles as all speculations of a like character. Their object is familiar to every newspaper reader. In brief, they propose to provide for the people recreation and instruction of a kind not now within their reach. If the programme be faithfully carried out, the project will unquestionably tend to improve the health, enlarge the knowledge, and refine the taste of the public. The Company have applied for a Royal Charter of Incorporation, the effect of which, as is well known, is to confine the liability of individual shareholders to the amount of their shares. In making their application to Lord Derby, the Directors, we are told by the Times, communicated to his Lordship the terms upon which they proposed to open the building and grounds on Sunday. “They were of opinion that until after one o’clock no trains should run from London, and the Crystal Palace itself should be strictly closed. After that hour they proposed to throw open the park and the winter-garden, but not to exhibit those departments of the building which will partake exclusively of a manufacturing and commercial character, the intention being to devote a certain portion of the space to specimens of manufacture, &c., which the public will be invited, upon certain conditions, to display. In the third place, the Directors undertook that on Sunday no spirituous liquors should be sold in their grounds.” After an interview with the Directors, Lord Derby acquiesced in the stipulations proffered by the Crystal Palace Company, suggested a few trifling variations, and promised to grant the required Charter.
The announcement of this decision or promise—for it can scarcely be regarded as a fait accompli —has excited not a little alarm amongst a section of the religious world. The Lord’s Day Society have taken up the matter very warmly—publishing pamphlets and holding public meetings in condemnation of the arrangement. The Evangelical Alliance, a wide-spread organization, at its recent Conference in Dublin, adopted a strongly-worded resolution and memorial to the Prime Minister to the same effect. These acts of organized bodies have been vigorously followed up by journals representing respectively the Evangelical clergy of the Establishment, Wesleyans, Free Churchmen, and a portion of the Dissenting community; who call upon their readers, in every capacity, and by every means, to resist the proposed “wholesale violation of the Lord’s Day.”[6] The strength of this disapprobation and alarm may be gathered from one or two quotations. A widely-circulated religious magazine denounces the proposal as “sinful,” and calculated to “lead to sin on an extensive and alarming scale,” and calls “upon all religious and moral men, throughout the United Kingdom, to lift up their voices like a trumpet, and to cause them to be heard on this great and vital question.” A very influential newspaper in the North predicts that “the measure will have a most fatal operation on the religious interests of the country,” and urges a general expression of public opinion “to prevent the Minister from persevering in his intention to grant a Charter containing permission to open the Crystal Palace on Sunday.” A Clapham clergyman, in a pamphlet very loosely put together,[7] says, “The projected aggression of pleasure in 1853, is to me a greater object of dread than the aggression of Popery in 1850, because it falls in with the taste of the vast majority of mankind.” A metropolitan Dissenting journal speaks of the question as one involving a principle “that would speedily extend itself to other institutions,” and expresses its belief that the recognition by the State that the Sabbath ends at one o’clock, would be “a far deeper stab to public morality, and afford a greater triumph to Popery and Infidelity, than any act of the British Government since the days of James II.” Ministers of religion, of every denomination, are therefore called upon to protest against the threatened evil, and Sunday-school teachers to petition against a measure aiming a deadly blow at those institutions. Another London paper is even more emphatic, not to say intemperate, upon the subject, describing “this new guild of Sunday traders as craving, through the sign-manual of the Sovereign, license to open a gorgeous temple of rampant pleasure, and to filch, by Royal authority, both coin and conscience from every unit of the countless myriads, which from Sunday to Sunday, they know, will throng to this haunt of unzoned enjoyment, and this under the wicked plea of sympathy for the poor.” These are but specimens of the style of writing adopted by the self-elected defenders of “Sabbath observance,” in order to excite their readers to the proper pitch of apprehension. But ex pede Herculem. They will suffice to indicate the real or affected panic which seems to have seized the leading organs of the religious world, at the proposed boon to the Crystal Palace Company—an alarm, be it observed, which may be communicated to thousands of minds, and result in a virulent, perhaps a formidable movement. Before matters have assumed this shape, it in worth while to inquire what occasion there is for all this outcry, and whether Christian men are either right, honest, or wise, in originating a wide-spread agitation to prevent the concession of the promised Charter.
The end sought by the objectors is twofold—first, the prevention of the threatened act of “Sabbath desecration” by Royal authority; and second, the entire closing of the Palace on Sunday. To produce the greater effect upon the public, the two questions are ingeniously, but unscrupulously, mixed up, and furnish a wide margin for that kind of indignant declamation on encroaching upon “the poor man’s day of rest,” opening the floodgates of vice and irreligion, &c., &c., which is likely to tell on the unreflecting. For purposes of dispassionate inquiry, the questions are better separated.
It appears, then, that the Sabbatarian party are greatly alarmed at the contemplated sanction by the Crown of the opening of this great theatre of secular enjoyment on Sunday. It is, they say, a public recognition by the State of the Sabbath as a secular institution—official encouragement to Sabbath-breaking. It may be objected, in limine, that the facts of the case do not bear out their assertion in the form presented. When the new Company went to Government, they were already in possession of the right to open their grounds on Sunday. The Crystal Palace is private property; and if the law permits Cremorne and Rosherville Gardens to be open on that day, what is to prevent the Sydenham Company from using the same privilege? They, like other joint-stock companies, could exist and conduct the speculation without the advantages of a Royal Charter. It is, then, clearly a mistake to suppose that they request Government to sanction the exercise of that right. They do no such thing. In asking for the advantages of a Charter, they volunteer certain concessions to the feelings of the religious world. If Lord Derby had declared himself not satisfied with the conditions, they might have turned round and said: “We will, then, do without the privilege, and pursue our own course unshackled by any restrictions beyond what the law imposes.” Whichever way, therefore, the question is settled, it cannot be fairly alleged that the State makes itself a party to “Sabbath desecration.”
It may further be urged, that Government have no right to refuse, on religious grounds, a privilege which it happens to be at their discretion to confer. To upholders of the principle of a State religion this argument will, of course, not avail. They will maintain that the Queen is the Head of the Church, which, by a legal fiction, includes the nation; and that, therefore, the exercise of her influence in this matter is perfectly legitimate. But where is the educated man who, in the present day, advocates the theory of a church establishment in all its entirety—that is, who would insist upon the duty of the State to maintain “the truth,” or, in other words, to exclude all Dissenters and Catholics from Parliament, and repeal the Toleration Act? The present system of toleration is confessedly a half-way house to full religious freedom. So long as Dissent in any shape is recognised by the Government, that Government—which, for civil purposes, represents the whole community, and is, moreover, virtually chosen and controlled by a power composed of diverse religious elements—has no right to make itself the partisan of any religious opinions. It has long given up the principle in practical legislation, and the nation has ratified the decision. It is really surprising that any Dissenters, the fundamental principle of whose nonconformity is the repudiation of State interference in religious matters, can, by any sophistry, reconcile their minds to such a violation of it as is involved in the demand made upon Government to become the organ of particular religious views on the Sabbath.
“Oh! but,” these Sabbatarians will, doubtless, reply, “we only call upon the Crown to preserve the Sabbath as a civil institution—a day of rest from toil—a barrier to the encroachments of ‘money-getting’ companies and capitalists.” This style of argument is very much like begging the question. It is simply a claim that the State should accept their definition of what constitutes “a day of rest.” Is it not an enormous fallacy for religious men to seek to impose upon Government their interpretation of the Sabbath,—which, moreover, it cannot be denied, is at variance with that of the bulk of the population,—and require that on “civil” grounds it shall have the force of law upon the nation? Cessation from labour, and the observance of certain religious duties, are by no means one and the same thing. The former may be perfectly consistent with an excursion into the country, or recreation amid the woodland scenery of Sydenham—which is the precise thing the religious agitators, repudiate, and are trying to prevent. The argument has force only when applied to the case of the servants of the new company, who will be required to perform certain work on the Sabbath; but even to it is exceptional; for there are cases in which even the most rigid Sabbatarians would admit of deviations from its conclusions.
But, putting aside the principle involved;—on the ground of expediency there are reasons why Government should not refuse the promised Charter on the plea advanced. They would not be acting consistently. Much stress is laid upon the presumption that the granting of this Charter—or, as the Sabbatarians say, the Royal sanction to an act of “Sabbath desecration”—will be a precedent for the opening on Sunday of every other place of amusement or recreation, in the metropolis and kingdom. A precedent forsooth! Has not the metropolis and every large town its tea-gardens, and places of popular resort? The supply of this species of Sunday enjoyment already pretty nearly equals the demand. The only difference between them and the new claimant of popular favour is, that the latter proposes to furnish a higher style of recreation; and having many independent recommendations, asks Government for the concession of a privilege granted to other parties without regard to religious considerations. Would Lord Derby be dealing out “even-handed justice” to higgle with this new Company because it had a boon to ask, for a concession to religious prejudice which was not required in other cases? But, still further, with what decency could he require the Crystal Palace Company to close their grounds on the Sabbath, when the Hampton Court grounds are open to the public by the express authority of the Government and Legislature? The precedent, at which so much alarm has been expressed, has for some years past been established. If, as one of the agitating organs phrases it, the granting of the proposed Charter would transfer the “sin” of Sabbath desecration from individuals to the nation, we have been for some time under the threatened curse.
There is no escape, therefore, from the conclusion, that if the Crystal Palace grounds are to be closed on Sunday—the present law being confessedly inadequate for that purpose—it must be by a new act of legislation, not of specific, but of general application—an act which will include Hampton Court as well as Sydenham, and Rosherville as well as Hampton Court—which will have the effect of shutting up every place of popular recreation on Sunday. Are the objectors to the Crystal Palace Charter prepared for such a wholesale crusade against the recreations of the people? Have they contemplated such an alternative? Probably not—that is, so far as the rank and file of the new agitation are concerned. As respects the leaders, experience is the best test; and from the avowed desire of the Lord’s Day Society, the Agnewites and the Plumptres, to enforce by law the “bitter observance of the Sabbath” upon the nation, it may be easily imagined that they have anticipated such a crisis, and rather chuckle at the dilemma in which many timid friends of religious freedom—panic-stricken at the prospect of increased “Sabbath desecration”—would thereby be placed. Let the latter take warning in time. It is only by a sweeping measure of legislation which would raise the working classes up in arms against the religious world, that the new Crystal Palace, or rather its grounds, can be closed on Sunday.
If there be any truth in the foregoing arguments, the reckless denunciations we have referred to seem very much beside the mark. One might have been better pleased, if the tastes and tendencies of the great bulk of the people were such that the Sydenham Palace were no attraction to them on the Sabbath—their leisure such as that they did not stand in peremptory need of such relaxation. The more highly men value communion with God, the more gladly will they cherish the opportunities of cultivating the spiritual faculty on the day of rest from secular employment. But it is only as the privilege is valued that it is useful. The pleasure and the profit go together. If there be not the spirit of devotion, will the form of it suffice? Does not the very attempt to impose the one where the other is wanting, indicate a misconception of the true spirit of religion? The fuss made by the religious organs about this proposed Charter is wholly inexplicable on any rational grounds consistent with the intelligence and truthfulness of those concerned. To speak of it as fraught with injury to morality and religion is simply a perversion of language—unsupported by evidence or probabilities. For, observe—we are not, or only to a small extent, dealing with a population who now “keep” the Sabbath according to the notions of the religious world, but with people who, if they do not spend the Sunday at Sydenham, will, almost without exception, spend it in a worse manner elsewhere. According to their acceptation of a well-spent Sabbath, it is but a choice of ills. Where, then, is the alarming evil? Is it, that a saunter through the Crystal Palace grounds, reached by a railway, is so much more irreligious than a stroll in the Parks, reached by an omnibus? Does a change of scenery transform the character of the deed? Do a man’s nature and tendencies become metamorphosed by exchanging, for a few hours, his squalid abode for a public-house, a gin-palace, a steamboat, a tea-garden, or a Crystal Palace? Is there something so deleterious in a Sunday glance at the beautiful prospects of Anerley, that the country must be convulsed to prevent it?[12]