It will be no more harmful than free access to the Parks. It will not rob the poor of their “day of rest,” because it is quite optional with them to go there; and, while they act as free agents, it may be presumed, that they spend the day as best suits their inclinations. * * * * * The Crystal Palace Company are well able to take care of themselves, nor does it form part of the plan of these pages to defend their cause. But the wholesale abuse which is heaped upon them is positively nauseating to the impartial observer, considering how far they have gone in attempting to meet religious scruples and prejudices. {15} The mingled rant and cant issuing from these professedly religious newspapers is extremely injurious to that Christianity in whose name they profess to speak. Sad would it be for religion if its holy claims were really associated with the untruthfulness these organs have uttered—and the more reason why those, who are jealous for the honour of their faith, should protest against its name being mixed up with the effusions of intemperate alarmists. From their spirit it might be thought that the Company had set the religious world at defiance, instead of shutting up for half the Sunday, closing the manufacturing and commercial portions of the building, and forbidding the sale of intoxicating drinks. If they _are_ to blame, it is for conceding too much to prejudice. Nothing is gained by closing the grounds up to one o’clock—not even the good will of opponents. The principle which would allow them to be thrown open for half, would be equally valid to keep them open all, the day. At present, the arrangement is a mischievous compromise between devotion and recreation, and stamps the Sabbath on high authority with a continental character. It gives a wrong notion of godliness, bringing it into apparent antagonism to secular enjoyment—making one portion of the day a counterpoise to the other—fostering the delusion that religion is simply the observances of certain duties and attendance in a place of worship.