these men knew, that by taking the trouble to walk two or three
miles he would be enabled to share in a good game of cricket, or
some athletic sport, I very much question whether any of them would
remain at home.

But you hold out no inducement, you offer no relief from
listlessness, you provide nothing to amuse his mind, you afford him
no means of exercising his body. Unwashed and unshaven, he
saunters moodily about, weary and dejected. In lieu of the
wholesome stimulus he might derive from nature, you drive him to
the pernicious excitement to be gained from art. He flies to the
gin-shop as his only resource; and when, reduced to a worse level
than the lowest brute in the scale of creation, he lies wallowing
in the kennel, your saintly lawgivers lift up their hands to
heaven, and exclaim for a law which shall convert the day intended
for rest and cheerfulness, into one of universal gloom, bigotry,
and persecution.



CHAPTER II--AS SABBATH BILLS WOULD MAKE IT



The provisions of the bill introduced into the House of Commons by
Sir Andrew Agnew, and thrown out by that House on the motion for
the second reading, on the 18th of May in the present year, by a
majority of 32, may very fairly be taken as a test of the length to
which the fanatics, of which the honourable Baronet is the
distinguished leader, are prepared to go. No test can be fairer;