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Read Ebook: The People's Palace and the Religious World or thoughts on public agitation against the promised charter to the new Crystal Palace Company and on Sabbath desecration by Layman
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THE PEOPLE'S PALACE AND THE RELIGIOUS WORLD;
OR,
THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC AGITATION AGAINST THE PROMISED CHARTER TO THE NEW CRYSTAL PALACE COMPANY, AND ON "SABBATH DESECRATION."
A LAYMAN.
"THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN, NOT MAN FOR THE SABBATH."
INTRODUCTION.
DISAGREEMENT with the object and dislike of the tone of the incipient agitation for preventing the concession of a Royal Charter to the Crystal Palace Company, except upon the condition of its gates being closed on Sunday--a desire to vindicate the consistency of many religious people, whose silence might be construed into sympathy with the movement--and the wish to offer a few thoughts on the impolicy, in a religious point of view, of such attacks on the pleasures of the poor:--are, in brief, the motives which have determined the printing of the following pages. The Writer believes the ground traversed is firm and solid, though he is unable to beguile the journey with those flowers of rhetoric and gleams of warm fancy with which more gifted writers can brighten their course. Though inexperience in book-making and pamphleteering is no excuse for unsound conclusions, he hopes it may avail to disarm the severity of criticism. Convinced that for the advantage of true religion, as well as its professors, the ideas he has broached require to be freely, closely, and sincerely discussed, he ventures to claim for them candid and unprejudiced consideration. He hopes it is superfluous to state that he has no pecuniary interest in, nor connexion with, the project in question.
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.
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.
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.
But it does so happen that many who are in bondage to this intolerant principle, do, nevertheless, somehow or other, acknowledge the transforming influence of Christian truth upon the individual heart, and are at one, in their religious convictions, with the open adherents of the voluntary principle. To this united body of what are usually designated "Evangelical Christians," the question may fairly be put--whether they are pursuing that line of policy towards the world which is best adapted to bring the world over to their views?
A State religion is, no doubt, the greatest obstacle to a proper appreciation of Christianity by the working classes--for through that medium it is reflected as simply an elaborate machinery to provide comfortable incomes for an army of priests--a gigantic establishment based upon selfishness. But even this dead weight upon the progress of religion would be greatly lightened if Evangelical Christians rightly commended it to the affections of the people--if, instead of bowing down to the great imposture, and drinking into its spirit, they unceasingly displayed the benign and disinterested character of the Gospel. Whatever the religious organizations of the present day accomplish--and it is not denied that they do something--they do not seem to be capable of evangelizing the masses. To this objection it is no reply to urge that they never have, except to a small extent, effected that purpose. If true religion be what the religious world say it is, there must be, irrespective of all former experience, some lamentable deficiency in the mode of presenting its great and omnipotent truths to the people. For it is a notorious fact that the bulk of our working population do not care for religion, scarcely come within range of its teachings, and, for the most part, dislike its professional representatives. Is there not here something more than the natural aversion to superior goodness, and the preference for self-gratification?
Every one will have fresh in recollection a touching episode in that eminently religious book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which are detailed the successive steps in the training of a little outcast negro. Miss Ophelia undertook the benevolent task, and performed it only too conscientiously. No pains, no sacrifices, were spared in educating the benighted Topsy. The system of the Northern lady was perfect in its mechanism. Instruction, exhortation, reproof, punishment, followed in due order. The young mind exhibited unusual quickness and aptitude in the acquisition of knowledge. One element alone was wanting--the moral influence of the teacher. That being absent, all the rest seemed comparatively valueless. Between the upright New Englander, with her unflinching sense of duty and her prejudice against colour, and the hardened negro girl, there was no connecting link--an entire absence of affection and sympathy. Yet that moral waste on which the lady of strong sense and set rules could make no impression, was reclaimed by the kindness of a child. Topsy's heart, steeled to Miss Ophelia's exhortations, melted at Eva's sympathy.
"One touch of Nature Makes the whole world kin,"
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.
FOOTNOTES.
One journal calls them "the devil's caterers."
This statement may be set down as an exaggeration of the facts. It was, however suggested to the mind of the writer, by the perusal of a striking speech of the Rev. Dr. Campbell's, at a recent meeting in Manchester, in aid of a Jubilee Fund for the Sunday School Union. In the course of his address, he adverted to "the terrible fact" that if the clergy of all denominations, and the city missionaries, with all their converts and adherents, were removed from the great metropolis, "the blank thereby created would not be very great." He went on to say that "adult conversions" in London and England were "a rare thing," and to describe the class as "sealed, unapproachable, unimpressible." He proceeded in the following strain:--"Were you to multiply your ministers, both Church and Dissent, with real evangelical men, and to build edifices so that each thousand of our adult population should command for its service--if it choose to avail itself of it--such clergymen, or minister, it would very slightly alter the case . . . I have no hesitation in saying, that, unless some other agency than the public ministration of the Word is brought actively into operation, even if we had such an assemblage of gifts and talents concentred in our preachers as the world never saw, we could not do much." His hope lay only in the influence of Sunday Schools upon the minds of the young.
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