upon the imagination for possible cases; the provisions to which I
have referred, stand in so many words upon the bill as printed by
order of the House of Commons; and they can neither be disowned,
nor explained away.

Let us suppose such a bill as this, to have actually passed both
branches of the legislature; to have received the royal assent; and
to have come into operation. Imagine its effect in a great city
like London.

Sunday comes, and brings with it a day of general gloom and
austerity. The man who has been toiling hard all the week, has
been looking towards the Sabbath, not as to a day of rest from
labour, and healthy recreation, but as one of grievous tyranny and
grinding oppression. The day which his Maker intended as a
blessing, man has converted into a curse. Instead of being hailed
by him as his period of relaxation, he finds it remarkable only as
depriving him of every comfort and enjoyment. He has many children
about him, all sent into the world at an early age, to struggle for
a livelihood; one is kept in a warehouse all day, with an interval
of rest too short to enable him to reach home, another walks four
or five miles to his employment at the docks, a third earns a few
shillings weekly, as an errand boy, or office messenger; and the
employment of the man himself, detains him at some distance from
his home from morning till night. Sunday is the only day on which
they could all meet together, and enjoy a homely meal in social
comfort; and now they sit down to a cold and cheerless dinner: the
pious guardians of the man's salvation having, in their regard for
the welfare of his precious soul, shut up the bakers' shops. The
fire blazes high in the kitchen chimney of these well-fed