The fact itself of the bringing in of this bill ought to be regarded by the friends of the Sabbath as a favourable indication of the state of the question in the country. Parliament is not troubled with bills about trifles. The Sabbath controversy was long regarded by the country, and of course by Parliament, with indifference or contempt; and had its advocates limited their efforts to the abstract question and to Exeter Hall, and mere tractism and preaching, this would have remained the prevalent mind of the country for a generation. But so soon as the spiritual principle came to embody itself in a practical measure—so soon as the world met the Sabbath as an active agent in what is regarded as its own department, its railway coaching—indifference became abhorrence, and contempt fright; and feeling itself to be worsted from half-year to half-year in argument, and seeing its proxy-power to be sliding from under its feet, the evangelical monster came so to bulk, that it became conquerable only through the brute force of parliamentary law. What better sign can there be than this of the stringent force of the internal railway controversy? what higher premium on its prolongation! And if the House of Commons, on the first appearance of the hateful thing within its walls, has been a bear-garden rather than a deliberative assembly, reducing the Cowans and M‘Gregors, the Scottish representatives of the Scottish religion, pretty much to dumb-show in their moving and seconding—what is this but the Queen Street chambers of the old Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway over again, where, amidst the din of strife, was to be seen stout Macgill Crichton stretched to tiptoe height, that he might elude the circle of infuriated anti-Sabbatarian fists which compassed him about like bees, and straining his trumpet-like tones to the very crack of eardrums that he might drown their variegated vociferations?—futile attempt to ordinary-voiced mortals! But let honourable members take courage. This was in the railway affair, the mere surf of the near shore on the first launching of the Sabbath boat, which, once battled through, conducted to the deep-founded calm beyond. Such, no doubt, will be the comfortable experience of the good men in Parliament, _if they will but hold on and persevere_. The railway lions after a time became lambs when they were confronted in a lion-lamb like spirit; and now as _they_ have become sober and well-behaved, so will also the worldlings of Parliament, whether titled or trading, when they shall once have made their little bully-like play. They will soon condescend to be silent, if not to listen. Speeches, besides, made in Parliament, should they discontent the honourable House, have the quality of telling on the country at large through the pleasant echoes of the reporters’ gallery, and the cause stuck to, will, like every other based on the rock of Bible truth, in the wisely appointed time prevail.