It may further be urged, that Government have no right to refuse, on religious grounds, a privilege which it happens to be at their discretion to confer. To upholders of the principle of a State religion this argument will, of course, not avail. They will maintain that the Queen is the Head of the Church, which, by a legal fiction, includes the nation; and that, therefore, the exercise of her influence in this matter is perfectly legitimate. But where is the educated man who, in the present day, advocates the _theory_ of a church establishment in all its entirety—that is, who would insist upon the duty of the State to maintain “the truth,” or, in other words, to exclude all Dissenters and Catholics from Parliament, and repeal the Toleration Act? The present system of toleration is confessedly a half-way house to full religious freedom. So long as Dissent in any shape is recognised by the Government, that Government—which, for civil purposes, represents the whole community, and is, moreover, virtually chosen and controlled by a power composed of diverse religious elements—has no right to make itself the partisan of any religious opinions. It has long given up the principle in practical legislation, and the nation has ratified the decision. It is really surprising that any Dissenters, the fundamental principle of whose nonconformity is the repudiation of State interference in religious matters, can, by any sophistry, reconcile their minds to such a violation of it as is involved in the demand made upon Government to become the organ of particular religious views on the Sabbath. “Oh! but,” these Sabbatarians will, doubtless, reply, “we only call upon the Crown to preserve the Sabbath as a civil institution—a day of rest from toil—a barrier to the encroachments of ‘money-getting’ companies and capitalists.” This style of argument is very much like begging the question. It is simply a claim that the State should accept _their_ definition of what constitutes “a day of rest.” Is it not an enormous fallacy for religious men to seek to impose upon Government their interpretation of the Sabbath,—which, moreover, it cannot be denied, is at variance with that of the bulk of the population,—and require that on “civil” grounds it shall have the force of law upon the nation? Cessation from labour, and the observance of certain religious duties, are by no means one and the same thing. The former may be perfectly consistent with an excursion into the country, or recreation amid the woodland scenery of Sydenham—which is the precise thing the religious agitators, repudiate, and are trying to prevent. The argument has force only when applied to the case of the servants of the new company, who will be required to perform certain work on the Sabbath; but even to it is exceptional; for there _are_ cases in which even the most rigid Sabbatarians would admit of deviations from its conclusions.