ii. Look, in the second place, at the _outrage_ which this desecration threatens to _the religious feelings_ of the adjacent neighbourhoods. It may be said that, in all localities, religious people are the minority; and that if a clear case can be made out of social convenience or benefit to the many, the feelings of the few ought to give way. This principle is one which I think it would be very dangerous to admit. A pious parent may have _nine_ lovers of pleasure in his household, for _one_ that is a lover of God; yet he frames his domestic arrangements in harmony with the right choice of the _one_, and not with the mistaken wishes of the nine. And a Government which would vindicate its parental character must do the same. Besides, it is clear, that with this question of numbers, how many good people we have to legislate for, and how many bad, the powers that rule have nothing to do. If they are the sworn conservators of the Protestant faith, and if that faith regards the Lord’s-day as an institution of perpetual sanctity, the very _listening_ to the plea of expediency is the betrayal of a trust; and the _acting_ upon it a practical confession that they look for a social benefit to the community, by a direct infringement of the law of God! To what end, then, I ask, (and it is a question in which we, as a neighbourhood, are deeply interested,) to what end are we to have every road, and walk, and thoroughfare, for many miles round this projected focus of ungodliness, deprived of the peace, the order, the quiet Sabbath respectability they have hitherto enjoyed? Why are we to exchange the holy stillness, under cover of which we now meditate, and read, and pray, for the hoarse harsh din of Sabbath vehicles, of rabble throngs exchanging their loud vulgarities on their way to the fair, and shouting out their intoxicated and blaspheming songs as they are returning home? Already, I am informed on the authority of residents in our own parish, living in the line of road, that paths, hitherto sought and loved for their holy Sabbath quiet, are now closed hopelessly against all who like Isaac would fain go out to “meditate at eventide,” owing to the throngs of impatient Sabbath-breakers going to see their boasted temple rise. Brethren, I trust you will not think,—especially I hope my poorer friends will not think,—that I charge it upon the recreations of our humble classes that they are _always_ thus vociferous and coarse; I charge it upon the recreation of those only who go out to pollute God’s holy day; and in regard to such persons there is no exaggeration in the picture. Two or three times in the year we have these Sabbath Saturnalia now; when the thoroughfare in front of this church presents scenes which we are grieved to have our children witness; but which, so soon as this new Babel of profanation shall be reared,—this Greenwich fair under a glass roof—we must expect to have enacted before their eyes every Sabbath day.