which asked the present writer
to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address.

Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon,
owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and
customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not
Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the
Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons;
first, that religion is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that
I cannot conceive any religion worth calling a religion without a fixed
and material observance; and third, that the particular observance of
sitting still and doing no work is one that suits my temperament down to
the ground.

But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not
let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced
him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man
in Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his
getting there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with
joys, with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can
understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot
imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good
Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, according to his
feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything
particularly dignified in his servant being misled by the time-table,
finding that the old Mecca express is not running, missing his
connection at Bagdad, or having to wait three hours in a small side
station outside Damascus.

So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph
service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread
of train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English
religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that
the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that
moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams
unimportant in comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when
relieved from their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of
worship, I should say that all lectures and everything else ought to
give way to such a consideration. I should not complain if the national
faith forbade me to make any appointments of labour or self-expression
on the Sabbath. But, as it is