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sion , if not of armed resistance , to the great Republic . We are confident that an appeal to the spirit of justice in the American people , especially if it were made in a tone , not of humility , but of f airness , sincerity , and outspeaking candour , would meet with the reception that it deserves ; but by the petty course of repelling American vessels , even under the American flag and officered by the federal commission , precludes the Government of Spain from making that appeal which the American people could receive . That the American Government has been remarkable in its forbearance , has indeed almost exhausted the
patience of its own people in resisting the temptation to take advantage of Spanish insults , we know . It has , as long as possible , kept the negociations with Spain and her colony on a strictly diplomatic footing , according to the rules of international law . It is Spain , with her local G overnment , who . is removing the controversy from that amicable and peaceable field to an issue of force ; and it is not the Government of Washington that can he blamed for the consequences . The result , indeed , can be foreseen by any statistical writer who is able to compare , the ost
even in m cursory manner , the resources of the two conflicting States ; and it is Spain , we repeat , who has chosen the issue for herself . But the reason which makes us so well pleased to see the able writer in the leading journal confronting the facts is , that we are most anxious for our own Government , and still more for our own public , to understand the nature of the eontest , and of the forces and interests engaged in it . There has been some talk of dragging England into the dispute . She could scarcely enter it at all , to remain passive and neutral : she must either keep firmly out of it , or must be content to share the disasters which Spain is drawing upon herself , or must take some other
course , dictated with a view to her own interest , to the inevitable career of the great Hepublic , and to the ultimate destinies of mankind , which England and America , divided , may influence so mournfully—united , so blessedly . And it is against America that France is said to be leaguing Europe ! The project is natural for any adventurer speculating in the patronage of the despotic powers ; and if England were one on the side of so infamous an alliance , a force might be formed which could for some years oppress the European peoples , and harass the American Hepublic . But where would the victory remain in the end P America is too strong in her territory , her youth , her ambitions , and her vigour , to rest content with defeat . She will
continue to grow , and to fight , until she conquer . And where would English interests be in the mean time P Waging a war of extermination on the ocean against her great naval rival , they would be terribly damaged , year by year , and possibly at last exterminated . England sacrificed for the benefit of an ephemeral Napoleon and his despot patrons ! " Wo do not know whether this rumoured project bo seriously in deliberation , or really advancing ; but the English public ought to know what its Government intends , or rather , ought to know that England will have nothing to do with any such suicidal infamies .
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IHE PROFANITY OF PRESENT " SABHATH OBSERVANCES . " ¦ At n , period when the use and genuineness of the Christianit y professed by the Church of England is beginning to ho questioned , boldly , but not irreverently , by large numbers of thinking nicn , in more quarters than one , it is certainly I'lcumhent on the Ministers of that church to vindicate- their principles , and the application of 'how ) principles to the necessities or the world around thorn , on every possible occasion , and in ''«»« e , lonrest . possible form . The Venerable Archdeacon Hale , and eighty of the London dorgy , j PP « ar to be of thin opinion . So they meet togothor at Sion-eollogo , ( on Thursday , October I "') . 'o lot us see how implicitly wo , who are bo laity , ean trust in them uh fair and competent interpreters of the teaching and example of the ¦ l ^ oundor of Ch ristianity—by protesting against «•«« opening of the Crystal Palace at . Sydenlmm , 011 « unday afternoon , to tho vast , mans of the population of London who can only visit it 011
servance" fanaticism . We have already argued and re-argued the question now before us ; we have found that our convictions are partaken by fair-minded men of all classes and all creeds , good churchmen included ; and we had hoped that this miserable agitation against a Sunday walk through a beautiful building filled with beautiful objects * had been set at rest—smothered in its own pulpit cushions- —for ever . The meeting at Sion-college shows the enemy to be once more in the field . We have no resource , therefore , but to come out , and do battle again in the cause of Christianity and common sense .
The best known of the reverend speakers at the Archdeacon ' s meeting , and their chief , jud g ing by the length and elaborateness of his oration , was Dr . Croly . We shall certainly do our opponents no injustice if we proceed to estimate the truth that is m them , and in their convictions , by the arguments and opinions of the author of " Salathiel . " The Doctor began with " Paradise , " " the Wilderness , " " the Ten Commandments , " " the local law of Moses , " and " the seventy years captivity . " As all this concerns the Jews ,
and as we happen to be a Christian people , we beg to be excused from saying a word to Doctor Croly in his character of an Israelitish . archaeologist . We will also give him the full oratorical benefit of a certain proclamation of James I ., to which he next alluded—being of opinion that people who live in the nineteenth century , and in the reign of Queen Victoria , have got rather
beyond the reach of precedents drawn from the Eeri od of James I . Having pretty well disurthened himself of his historical responsibilities as a speaker , by beginning with the garden of Eden , and ending with Charles I . and " Laud's Popish tendencies , " Doctor Croly was at length at liberty to occupy himself with present affairs , and to tell us why he and his brethren objected to the opening of the New Crystal Palace on Sunday afternoon .
He dissented altogether from the notion that the working-classes required amusement on Sunday to refresh them Their proper refreshment was rest , " a " quiet walk , the domestic meal , and the domestic evening . " If Doctor Croly and his friends had been legislating about Sabbath observance for cab-horses , or any other working animals , their definition of proper Sunday refreshment would be perfect . A " quiet walk " ( in the fields ) for poor Dobbin , a " domestic meal" ( of grass ) for Dobbin and his quadruped
friends , and a " domestic evening" for the miserable , exhausted brutes ( say rolling comfortably on their backs arid shaking themselves in companj ) to crown all . Very good and very humane for over-worked / torses on Sunday , —but for over-worked men ! men who have souls ; men who have minds to be cultivated , and hearts to bo refined ; men whose higher God-given faculties collapse under the leaden pressure of labour all the week , —is it unchristian , is it any
infringement of any word spoken by Christ , to make the " quiet wnlk" of these men a walk that shall tend towards informing their minds and ennobling their hearts , that shall do something more for them than morely stretching their muHcles and purifying their lungs P Js such a purpose as this a purpose for clergymen ( or any men ) to protest against ? And is not this really and truly the only object we want to achieve ( and shall achieve ) by opening the Sydenliam Palace ou Sunday afternoon P
As for the " domestic- meal" and the " domestic ; evening , " those who know more about tho ordinary food and ordinary home of tho London artisan , than the eighty London clergymen at Sion Collego would appear to have known , can judge for themselves how far these ingredients in the working-man ' s Sunday-life , are likely to refresh him Hullieiently , in any sense of the word , physical or otherwise . Wo leave our readers to settle this question for themselves , merely observing that our poor "brothers and sisters would
be porhapH belter occupied over their " tea , " better amused through . the rest of thoir evening , by talking of pictures , statuos , beautiful trees and flower *) , wonderful inventions of ncienee , and other subjects of this sort , which tho realization of tho good and groat project that we are now advocating would give them to talk of , than in occupying themselves with tho small gossip of the neighbourhood or the work-shop , which is all that " Sabbath observances" have left to thorn at present , us subjects of conversation through tho fcunday owning and over Ujo Sunday moul .
But "Eeligionrbut " Church-going ?"—When the vast mass of people of whom we have been writing , and to whom we want to open the Crystal Palace on Sunday , are taught so much of their religion by the clergy as may dispose them to go to Church , we shall be happy to show how church-going and innocent sight-seeing may bo perfectly and religiously harmonized , together . At the present time , a walk through any poor neighbourhood in London , dur ing the hours of " Divine-service , " is quite enough to show anybody , even a member of Sion College , that the working-classes do not go to Church . They are
either oasking in the sun , or quarrelling at home , or waiting against the gin-shop walls for the opening of the gin-shop doors . We only want to offer them something better to do than this ; we are willing , out of respect to church-goers , to put off pulling these "humble classes" out of tneir Sunday morning mire , till the Sunday morning service is over ; and one of the results of our attempting to achieve this very fair purpose in this very considerate way is , that Archdeacon Hale and eighty of the London clergy call a meeting with the express object of protesting , on religious grounds , against us and our design .
Doctor Croly dissented also from the notion that " the show" ( as lie called it ) would thin the customers at gin palaces ; and though he was impartially ready to admit that there might possibly be occasional instances of drunkenness on Sunday evening in the streets (!) he really could not remember the time when he himself had seen one of those instances ! There is a description in one of Coleridge ' s poems , of a certain owl who , after first shutting both his eyes , vain gloriously flew about , hooting " at the sun in heaven , " and crying out , " Where is it ? " That owl may not have been a doctor ; but nothing will ever persuado us that his name was not Croly .
Returning for one moment to the assertion , that " the show" would tend to empty the ginpalaces ( to state that they are filled on every Sunday , in every quarter of London , is equivalent , if people choose to open their eyes , to stating that two and two make four ) , we may observe that this assertion simply assumes tho great truth , which Johnson turned into an aphorism , and to which the experience of th © whole civilized world bears witness , that " Public amusements help to keep the people from Private vice . " Give men , as at present , no Sunday choice but the church or the tap-room , and , as we see and know , thousands and tens of thousands choose the tap-room .
But give them a third choice— some such clioico , for instance , as " the show" at Sydenham : are Doctor Croly and his friends bold enough to assert that none of the drinkers in public-houses ( drinkers , because drinking is the only Sunday amusement which Sabbath observances now permit ) would go to see that " show , " and , going to see it , that they would get drunk in tho niidsfe ' of the sightP Men do not intoxicate themselves in
public : men do not degrade themselves where the eyes of all classes arc turned on them . They get d runk privately in tap-rooms , not . publicly inCrystal PalaeeB . JIow many eases of intoxication , wero there in the streets , or in the building , when tho Great Exhibition was filled by its hundreds of thousands a day ? J ) octor Croly nuisL havo been . thinking of that period when he stated the results of his experience in the observation of London drunkenness .
Other arguments were brought forward by tho Doctor and his reverend brethren—such , for instance , as comparing the abuse of Sunday as it is in Paris , with the use of Sunday as it might bo in London—to which we have not , spnee to advert in full . And we tho less regret ; this , because wo find , on referring to tho archdeacon ' s proposed address to Lord . Derby , at the end of tbe report , of 1 , 1 k ? meeting , that ; tlie strongest argument against the opinions of the reverend Sabbatarian agitators , is supplied by themselves . In ( . lie . third paragraph of tlio address to which we Imve referred , occur these words : — of
" It is not ; , howover , the , ^ i ^ an . tho prepnrutions which nni making to chiuv inj < iiai < In of people to one upot , on the Lord ' s diiy , which fills uh with apprelmiiHions of tho demoi-alining offt-cts of such un UHHoinhln ^ o , hut ratlior f . ho iiiti-lfrcfual elnmicler of tho pursuits which wivfear (\) will there ho olleivd to tho public , and which , however ( hey may rofliiti tho niiixl ( M ) touch nothing which relates to ( 'hriilmn religion" ( ! ! !) Ac . Ac . Ac .
v "" i » * 'Jiy . ' | e «( lers of Ihis journal do not require to bo 'old what om- opinion is on this last , cruellest , ttWHt bohhoIcbs development of tJic " Sabbatji Ob-
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November 6 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1063
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 6, 1852, page 1063, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1959/page/11/
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