But will not the project under consideration be a gain to public morals, in regard of the lower vices of sensuality and intoxication? I answer unhesitatingly, No. Unhappily, we are not without our precedent of these Sunday gardens now—gardens which, in their disposition and decorations, appeal, and in their degree successfully, to the very tastes which it is among the purposes of the new speculation to cultivate. And these pleasure-grounds are found to be the heart and centre of the most debasing vices. Returns have been put into my hands from one of these haunts of Sabbath festivity in a country town,—described as being, in themselves, most attractive and beautiful. Into these gardens 3,000 people have gone on a Sunday evening, consuming among them nearly 600 gallons of malt liquor alone;—a quantity which, if a reasonable deduction be made for the number of children, would suppose _one quart_ to have been consumed by _every grown-up person_, _whether male or female_, upon the ground. Let us, for the honour of the female sex, make a still further deduction, and what a humiliating reflection is forced upon us as to the state of a large majority of the men! Brethren, these are painful details to have to bring into a pulpit. But when we have beaten the adversary from every other ground—the ground of right, of truth, of religious decency, of national piety and honour—it may be well to see if he has any standing-place on the ground which he thinks unassailably his own. And this argument, that he will draw men off from the brutal indulgences of their own locality, is one which the champions of desecration make much of. Whereas I know, on the authority of those through whose hands the negotiations pass, that premiums of almost incredible amount are being offered for the liberty of erecting places in the neighbourhood, where the same low appetites may be ministered to, which the Sabbath-breaker finds gratified now in his own low tavern at home. {25} And then judge for yourselves whether he will be much less disposed to gratify them. Think of the excitement of the journey, the sensuous fascinations of the scene, the stimulating influence of a large living mass, all bent on unrestrained enjoyment, and then consider whether any other change will be wrought, in the habits of those whom it is sought to reclaim, than that they will do under some decorated and emblazoned booth, what they now do in an alehouse, and waste far more than they do already of those precious earnings which should go to buy their children bread. And where the carcase is, there will the eagles be. The cunning pickpocket will be there. The man of dissolute pleasures will be there. The shame of womanhood will be there;—all coming from far to keep each the Sabbath of their vocation—to worship at this great metropolis of immorality and sin.