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Untitled Article
Sunday Travelling ( carried on to such an extent that , in the parish which he once held , on the Newmarket Road , " more than forty pair of horses have sometimes been changed on Easter day" ) and Sunday dinner parties , Sunday evening card parties , Sunday conversazioni , &c ., &c . Some of these alleged evils wear rather a questionable shape . What , for instance , would be the probable consequence , were Sunday news-rooms
and Sunday newspapers put down by the strong hand of the law ? Would the persons who now read those papers be better employed , or worse ? People cannot be made righteous and devout by Act of Parliament * Their books cannot be selected , nor their reading regulated , by statutary enactment . There is probably more gained in decorum than there is lost in devotion by the class of persons thus occupied . Then as to the park-walkers , the short-stagers , and the steam-boaters , much is to be wished as to their
improvement ; but is not much also to be feared as to their deterioration , were the law to interpose ? A little fresh air , if it can be reached , is not at all amiss for those who are closely , during the intervening six days , in this most «* populous city pent . " It is certainly better for the health of the body than three services in a crowded chapel in the heart of the city . And if all the three services be not relinquished to obtain it , perhaps the soul may derive advantage too . The people who spend their lives within sight of
green fields should have a little charity in this matter . The Bishop is shocked that five hundred boats should pass under Putney bridge on a Sunday ; but the Bishop should remember that but for Sunday most of these people would never see Putney bridge at all ; while he can look towards it from his window every Sunday and week-day , every working-day and idleday of his episcopal existence . Reading a newspaper on a Sunday is an
improvement upon never reading at all ; and getting a mouthful of fresh air on a Sunday is better than never breathing any thing but city smoke . Both are advances upon utter ignorance , indolence , listlessness , and intoxication . And we verily believe it to be the fact , that the facilities which his Lordship would prohibit , operate rather to raise a class which would be less innocently employed , than to corrupt one which would be more becomingly engaged .
Indeed , disgusting and grievous as is the appearance of a London Sunday , we question much whether there be any foundation for the outcry in which his Lordship has joined about its unprecedented and increasing desecration . There never were so many places of worship , nor so well filled , in London , as at present . They have been multiplied , and are crowded , in every direction . And surely it is not a topic of unmitigated lamentation that there are stimali and facilities for bodily and mental exercise which hold a
rnidway place between the grossness of debauchery and the blessings of social piety ; which draw off from the one if they do not conduct to the other ; and which , if they do not lead the wandering sheep to where they may be safely folded , yet prevent their falling into the ditch which yawns for their reception and destruction . The means on which the Bishop appears chiefly to rely for an
amendment ol the present state of things are , the raising his own •* voice of authority ; " the increased activity of the clergy and parish officers ; the *• confederation' * of respectable inhabitants for lc protecting the honour of God ' s holy name , and of repressing the profanation of his day ; " attd the setting a better example to the poor by the fashionable world . The last recipe reminds us of the old story of belling the cat ; undoubtedly , token the
Untitled Article
Sunday in London * 391
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 391, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/31/
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