Nor, once more, could I regard as a matter of indifference the authoritative bisection of the Sunday into a morning of worship and an afternoon of pleasure. Whatever be the character of the day, it is one, not twofold. It is indeed one of the chief duties—perhaps the chief ostensible duty—of the day, to attend its public services, but we have no warrant for representing its character as changed when the first or even the second of those services is ended: whatever it be—whether a day of devotion, or a day of inaction, or a day of amusement—that it is throughout: and, however little it may be designed, the effect of the proposed distinction would assuredly be, not so much to increase the sanctity of the morning as to destroy that of the evening. Henceforth the claims of _evening_ worship,—and still more the claims of the whole day upon a thoughtful and serious spirit,—would be materially disparaged: so far as the effects of this measure extend, they will cause the day to close at noon: and what will it be thenceforth to those countless thousands of our countrymen who are debarred by absolute necessity from attending the service of the morning? I know it may be urged that such arguments presuppose the existence of a very different state of Sunday observance from the present; that the question really lies not between the Crystal Palace and the Church, but between the Crystal Palace and the street or the gin-shop. I believe, however, that no gallery of painting or of sculpture will have any abiding attractions for the class thus described: tastes so brutish will not be transformed by any such expedient: they will remain what they are, until a mightier engine shall bear upon them: no display of art will allure them to civilization. The class really affected by the change proposed will be that already described; neither the highest of all, nor the very lowest. Those who now travel on the Sunday in a desultory manner will then be found congregated in large numbers upon a single point: and the alteration, so far as it extends, will be for the worse.