practices on the Sabbath as at present observed, no better remedy
for the evil can be imagined, than giving them the opportunity of
doing something which will amuse them, and hurt nobody else.

The propriety of opening the British Museum to respectable people
on Sunday, has lately been the subject of some discussion. I think
it would puzzle the most austere of the Sunday legislators to
assign any valid reason for opposing so sensible a proposition.
The Museum contains rich specimens from all the vast museums and
repositories of Nature, and rare and curious fragments of the
mighty works of art, in bygone ages: all calculated to awaken
contemplation and inquiry, and to tend to the enlightenment and
improvement of the people. But attendants would be necessary, and
a few men would be employed upon the Sabbath. They certainly
would; but how many? Why, if the British Museum, and the National
Gallery, and the Gallery of Practical Science, and every other
exhibition in London, from which knowledge is to be derived and
information gained, were to be thrown open on a Sunday afternoon,
not fifty people would be required to preside over the whole: and
it would take treble the number to enforce a Sabbath bill in any
three populous parishes.

I should like to see some large field, or open piece of ground, in
every outskirt of London, exhibiting each Sunday evening on a
larger scale, the scene of the little country meadow. I should
like to see the time arrive, when a man's attendance to his
religious duties might be left to that religious feeling which most
men possess in a greater or less degree, but which was never forced
into the breast of any man by menace or restraint. I should like
to see the time when Sunday might be looked forward to, as a