If there be any truth in this plain statement of facts and arguments, it follows that the agitation, being got up professedly to prevent the Crown from sanctioning the opening of the Crystal Palace on Sunday, is really directed against all places of recreation accessible to the public on that day. This, indeed, is the main drift of the declamatory appeals of its promoters. They are either agitating on false pretences, or covertly aiming at an object injurious to the liberties and welfare of the country. If that object were openly avowed, many timid friends of religious freedom who indulge certain vague fears of the increase of “Sabbath desecration,” would shrink from supporting it. In either case, the leaders prove their unfitness to be the guides of opinion. Want of candour, fairness, and truthfulness, are doubly worthy of exposure and condemnation when exhibited in connexion with the name of Christianity. Religion suffers enough from open foes, without the need for injuries from professed friends. Hence, _because_ they are jealous of its true character, _because_ anxious to vindicate its purity and self-sustaining efficiency, it becomes the followers of Christ to protest against this movement. The very fact that they agree to a great extent in the religious views of the agitators in question, and sincerely desire to see the Sabbath valued by all men as an opportunity for spiritual culture and enjoyment, is an additional reason why they should repudiate the sentiments uttered, and the course pursued, under the banner of their faith. The alarmists may rely upon it, that there are many more followers of Christian truth than the writer of these pages, who have no sympathy with that intolerance which would coerce others into their convictions and their method of “keeping” the Sabbath, and who observe, with pain and indignation, the attempt of misguided, though perhaps conscientious, men, to originate a crusade against the Sunday recreations of the people. * * * * * It is scarcely possible to discuss this particular topic without the mind being directed to the general question—of which it is only an offshoot—_the position assumed by religious men in relation to the world at large_, _especially to the masses_. A few considerations on this momentous subject may appropriately and usefully be thrown out in connexion with the foregoing arguments. It may be at once stated, that there is no intention of entering into any argument with the believers in the efficacy of a State-appointed religion and priesthood. Those who encourage this practical infidelity to the truths of Christianity—whose principles would have obliged Christ to exclaim, “My kingdom _is_ of this world”—are, doubtless, doing no violence to their views in calling upon Government to insist upon “the bitter observance of the Sabbath,” and to enforce upon Jews, Infidels, and Mahomedans, outward conformity to the State religion.