THE SABBATH. 321 



interfered with ? To justify this position the demonstration of the 

 success of Sabbatarianism must be complete. Is it so ? Are we so 

 much better than other nations who have neglected to adopt our rules, 

 that we can point to the working of these rules in the past as a con- 

 clusive reason for maintaining them immovable in the future ? The 

 answer must be, No. My Sabbatarian friends, you have no ground to 

 stand upon. I say friends, for I would far rather have you as friends 

 than as enemies far rather see you converted than annihilated. You 

 possess a strength and earnestness with which the world can not dis- 

 pense ; but, to be productive of anything permanently good, that 

 strength and earnestness must build upon the sure foundation of hu- 

 man nature. This is that law of the universe spoken of so frequently 

 by your illustrious countryman, Mr. Carlyle, to quarrel with which is 

 to provoke and precipitate ruin. Join with us, then, in our endeavors 

 to turn our Sundays to better account. Back with your support the 

 moderate and considerate demands of the Sunday Society, which scru- 

 pulously avoids interfering with the hours devoted by common consent 

 to public worship. Offer the museum, the picture-gallery, and the 

 public garden as competitors to the public-house. By so doing you 

 will fall in with the spirit of your time, and row with, instead of 

 against, the resistless current along which man is borne to his destiny. 

 Most of you here are Liberals ; perhaps Radicals, perhaps even 

 Democrats or Republicans. T am a Conservative. The first requisite 

 of true conservatism is foresight. Humanity grows, and foresight 

 secures room for future expansion. In your walks in the country you 

 sometimes see a wall built round a growing tree. So much the worse 

 for the wall, which is sure to be rent and ruined by the energy which' 

 it opposes. We have here represented not a true, but a false and 

 ignorant conservatism. The real conservative looks ahead and pre- 

 pares for the inevitable. He forestalls revolution by securing, in due- 

 time, sufficient amplitude for the national vibrations. He is a wrong- 

 headed statesman who imposes his notions, however right in the ab- 

 stract, on a nation unprepared for them. He is no statesman at all 

 who, without seeking to interpret and guide it in advance, merely 

 waits for the more or less coarse expression of the popular will, and 

 then constitutes himself its vehicle. Untimeliness is sure to be the 

 characteristic of the work of such a statesman. In virtue of the posi- 

 tion which he occupies, his knowledge and insight ought to be in ad- 

 vance of the public knowledge and insight ; and his action, in like 

 degree, ought to precede and inform public action. This is what I 

 want my Sabbatarian friends to bear in mind. If they look abroad 

 from the vantage-ground which they occupy, they can hardly fail to 

 discern that the intellect of this country is gradually ranging itself 

 upon our side. Statesmen, clergymen, philosophers, and moralists are 

 joining our standard. Whether, therefore, those to whom I appeal 

 hear, or whether they forbear, we are sure to unlock, for the public 



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