suggested a few trifling variations, and promised to grant the required Charter.” An article in the _Times_, four days later, Aug. 6th, gives a full account of the ceremony of erecting the first column of the New Crystal Palace. * * * * * With every desire that the best interests of my Countrymen should be promoted, and with sincere respect for those who entertain a similar wish, I have felt it my duty as an Englishman, and still more as a Clergyman, to submit the following considerations to my Queen and my Country. * * * * * The Crystal Palace now erecting at Sydenham is designed to be the most splendid display of national greatness in the earth. No objection can exist to its grandeur, its beauty, the marvellous exotics to be exhibited in it, or to the display of ingenious manufactures. Some things it is intended to expose, which may prove decidedly objectionable: I refer to the sculpture-department. But I will not enter into details. The one great evil characterising the plan, is this—That it is designed to open the building to visitors during one half of the Lord’s Day. * * * * * Observe—the people of London and its suburbs, that is, four millions, are invited to mutilate the Sabbath, by a plan which allows the first half to be given to God’s worship, but allures them to spend the second half in worldly amusement. The favourers of the scheme virtually say—“Resort to the House of God in the morning, and to the Temple of Pleasure the rest of the day.” This is a scheme far more artful, than if the enemy of mankind had said, “Give _the whole day_ to me:” that would have shocked us at once: but—“Let half be given to God, and the second half to Pleasure”—this is plausible: and it is therefore so much the more dangerous. I have said, four millions are thus invited. But consider the Counties involved in this invitation—the many watering-places in those counties, which have Excursion-trains in connection with London the whole of Sunday—the near neighbourhood of France and other Continental countries—the habits of those countries in making Sunday an open day for every kind of diversion. Taking all these points into consideration, there is something more to be contemplated, than the mere erection of a Crystal Palace. * * * * *