To treat the working-classes in the spirit of those who are fomenting this agitation, is unjust and cruel, as well as impolitic. The point has been before adverted to, but will bear amplification. Suppose the Rev. Mr. Orthodox, the popular preacher of the West End, discussing this question of “Sabbath desecration” in the squalid apartment (if ever he has found his way there) of John Starveling, the overworked slop-tailor, of Typhus Court, Westminster. To the weighty arguments of the wealthy rector, on the necessity of shutting up all railways and stopping all conveyances, may not the poor underpaid artizan reply, that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath—that God requires mercy, not sacrifice—that the Sunday trip is to him the safety valve of life—that so long as he is obliged to work for six days out of seven, without intermission, to keep body and soul together, the seventh _must_ be devoted to renovation. Let the charge of mammon-worship rest on the right shoulders. If the Crystal Palace Company, who enable this poor man to inhale the pure air and enjoy the beauties of nature, are actuated by sordid motives, how much more are they—and their name is legion—who allow their passion for money-getting to reduce thousands to a life of slavery, and oblige them to regard Sunday not as the Lord’s Day, but only an opportunity to repair their wasted health and energies.
There is not much doubt or danger in the conclusion that whatever tends to ameliorate the condition of the people, to ennoble their tastes, to expand their ideas, or to improve their physical well-being, opens a more favourable field for the influence of religion. The converse of this truth will be seen in the almost hopelessly-irreclaimable state of the adult “dangerous” classes. Religious bodies mistake in shaping their plans as if there were no medium, looked at from a Christian point of view, between the lowest depths of depraved self-indulgence, and the pure aspirations of devotion. They are not exempt from recognising the truth, that all physical, social, and political improvements, as well as the consistency, meekness, and gentleness of the followers of the Gospel, have a bearing upon the spiritual destinies of mankind. When will they cordially acknowledge in their creed that the man who discountenances the mammon-grasping spirit of the age—who promotes the education of the poor—who advocates a reform of prison discipline—who helps to sweeten an unwholesome neighbourhood—who encourages pure and healthy recreation, is doing more to prepare a soil favourable for the reception of religious truth, and to break down the barriers which interpose between the working classes and the religious world than the No-Popery agitator, the loud-mouthed denouncer of “Sabbath desecration,” or the zealous stickler for outward uniformity and formal observances? The one is doing something to repair dilapidated humanity—the other is interposing fresh obstacles to that great desideratum.