account has been questioned, and will be publicly enquired into. But, whatever may be thought or said of its contents, it is an admission, after trial, that direct prohibition as an instrument towards the promotion of moral and religious habits, is one which requires, to say the least, very cautious application. An able newspaper, the St. James's Gazette, of March 19, 1889, has called the circumstances "The complete breakdown of the Act enacted to make Welshmen sober one day in the week." The expression is, perhaps, rather a sarcastic one, but it contains a real reason for the alleged failure. The object desired by the Act was the promotion of the better observance of Sunday by removing opportunities to pass it badly. This was very well in its way. But the effort was one which could scarcely succeed alone. Its promoters forgot that, as are the six week-days so will be the Sundays. And that, unless patient education of the people towards temperance and care of their souls and bodies has been going on throughout the week, an isolated and occasional interference with their freedom, instead of conciliating obedience and compliance rather provokes resentment, and sets persons upon devising means whereby its constraint may be defied or evaded.

The practical inferences would seem to be (1) That efforts to render persons moral and well-behaved in this way, should hardly be made wholesale, that is, for a Province or even a large Town, unless they have been preceded and indeed are accompanied by vigorous and united endeavours to humanise the tastes and raise the tone of those who are the objects of such efforts. (2) That these endeavours must be going on throughout the week, as well as on Sunday. When a want is felt, no matter whether it is an artificial or a natural one, and when

that want has been indulged even on working days, a sudden and arbitrary stoppage of its supply, at the very time when there is leisure to indulge it, is likely to irritate rather than to soothe. Instead of temperance being produced by it, there is generated what is certainly a bad thing, a habit of breaking or evading a law. And so the practical result should surely be, that all who wish well to Sunday should throw themselves more vigorously than at present into the several gentle and persuasive agencies towards social and religious improvement of which a good deal was said in the Preface to the Fourth Edition. These, if no other good is realised at once, will make persons conscious that kind hearts are always feeling for them, active hands are always working for them, money and time are being always spent for them, instead of mere barriers being set up on one day in the week which are nonexistent for six days. When improvement has been thus brought about, it will be time enough to have repressive Acts, if indeed they are found to be still required. It will be recollected, by the way, that doubts have long been entertained as to the working of the Forbes-Mackenzie Act in Scotland.

Not indeed that all prohibitions are unnecessary or injudicious. The writer does not see his way towards opening the doors of Public Exhibitions, or Public Libraries, or Theatres on Sunday, for reasons given at length in that Preface, and in the Eighth Lecture. After reading whatever has been said, he is still profoundly doubtful as to the success of such a measure. He is convinced that it would cause a vast increase of enforced labour, and that it would prove a snare to many who are at present inclined to cultivate the Religion of

the Day, and are content with the quiet recreation which the Parks and fresh air and family gatherings supply them, in the way of Rest. It is quite a different thing whether coffee taverns and reading rooms belonging to working men may not be opened in the evening of Sunday, after Divine Service. This is a question which must be considered, not simply with reference to the time consumed in the Coffee Taverns, or to the literature contained in the Libraries, but frequently, especially in large towns, regard being had to the condition and temptations of young, unmarried men, in that class of society. But on this point, the writer would again refer to the conclusion of the Eighth Lecture.

Besides, however, the methods there alluded to, which are comparatively easy for the rich to enter upon, (as involving little beyond money expenditure,) in order to induce the poor to spend Sunday harmlessly and profitably, there is another which has not received all the attention which it deserves; and that is, Example. This is acknowledged to be of great influence in reference to Temperance by many zealous persons who, in order to encourage others in their moral struggles, abstain even from things lawful, that their weaker brethren may not be caused to offend. It says "Come and do it" and not merely "Go and do it," the utterance of which latter precept is sometimes accompanied by no personal effort, and is sometimes actually nullified by practice quite in the opposite direction. Has this point been sufficiently thought of in reference to Sunday by some among the rich and other leisurely classes? They have not the excuse, such as it is, which the working classes are apt to bring forward, that Sunday is almost their only time for anything which approaches to

relaxation. And yet has there not been, of late years especially, some forgetfulness of this? Has there not been, occasionally an almost ostentatious declaration that, certain religious offices ended, they may engage in well nigh any amusement, though their own servants, and the numerous attendants at the places which they frequent are thereby deprived of opportunities of Religious worship and reasonable Rest? It is to be feared that this is the case, not universally, indeed, or even generally, but in more instances than could be desired. At a recent session of an important organisation, the London Diocesan Conference, it was alleged that large dinner parties, cardplaying, tennis parties, smoking concerts, excursions to Hurlingham and Richmond by the Four-in-hand Club and others, steam-launches and boating parties up the river, dancings, and such like, in fact, reproductions on Sunday, of the doings of Fifty or Sixty years ago, are not unusual, on the part of some who form what is called "the fashionable world." Might they not, if such is the case, be asked to consider that these things are not a necessity, and, certainly, are not a necessity to them? And, granting that all these things are allowable in themselves, might not they, who can have them any other day, exercise on that Day, some care for those who are likely to be influenced by them, even at the cost of a little self-denial ?

"O, but this is a return to Puritanism!" Is it indeed? One has been accustomed to think that the well-known historic Puritan was a man who refused to allow others to do this or that, because this or that did not accord with his own views on enjoyment generally, or on Sunday enjoyment in particular. The man who acts in the spirit of the above suggestions

refuses to allow himself certain enjoyments on a certain day, because his liberty may be mistaken by those about him, and because he wishes to prevent them from being mulcted of their Religion and of their Rest. "We that are strong" said St. Paul, "ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good, to edifying. For even Christ," (he goes on to say,) "Christ" (the Lord of the Day) "pleased not Himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon Me." (Rom. 15, 1-3). And St. Paul pleased not himself, for he wrote to the Corinthians, Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." (1 Cor. 8, 12).

It is to be acknowledged, indeed, with devout thankfulness, that there are so many brilliant exceptions to what has been asserted as to thoughtless selfishness among the leisurely classes, that it should rather be said that those who are thus selfish are themselves exceptions to the general rule. There never was a time when, in the opulent parts of London the Churches were better attended on Sunday, or when the affluent have done more both in London and throughout England to advance the religious and social benefit of the people. So that we would fain believe that, either what is complained of is confined to a few, or that, at the worst, it is but a temporary forgetfulness of self-denial on the part of those few which will sooner or later pass away. We would remember that the Sunday display of equipages and riders in Hyde Park, which excited so much turbulent demonstration, in the summer of 1857 or 1858, is now an affair of ancient history. Never