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}