of every man to decide for himself whether or not the Fourth Commandment ought to be observed on Saturday-that although the trains should be run on that day, no Jew would be compelled to travel by them, or to assist in working them -that the Company had asked and received its powers from Parliament on the express condition that certain services, including the conveyance of passengers on Saturdays, should be performed to the public-that the Directors had therefore no right to close the railway on Saturdays-that to refuse fulfilment of a bargain on the ground of religious duty would be preposterous in almost any circumstances, and was supremely so where the pious individuals had deliberately become members of a company by whose previous engagements they knew they would be bound, but whose stock they had nevertheless bought for the express purpose of stopping the performance of those engagements-that if any Jewish shareholder could not conscientiously sanction, or refrain from actively opposing, the traffic on the seventh day, it was the easiest thing in the world for him, by selling his stock, to rid himself of all responsibility and self-reproach for the acts which might be done by the Company in the honest fulfilment of its obligation—and that, in like manner, if any Jewish guard or engine-driver should think it unlawful to perform the work which his employers desired to be done, he might leave freely the service which he had freely entered, and undertake some other employment in which no Saturday labour would be included. These appeals would be found unanswerable even by the most ingenious adherer to the Mosaic law. But if the speaker proceeded to urge upon the Directors, as a reason why the Saturday trains should be restored, that a great majority of the people of this country desire them, and believe them to be lawful, he would at once quit his vantage ground, and be met with the argumentum ad hominem,-That error, even if held by ninety-nine of every hundred persons, is still error notwithstanding--that truth is truth, although but one man in a million should embrace it—and that it was the clear duty of the Board to obey to the utmost what they knew to be a divine commandment. And it would add but little to the satisfaction of the rebellious shareholder with such reasons as these, that they were very much of a piece with the reasoning

which he and his friends had for a series of years pertinaciously employed against the Sunday trains.

Gentlemen-We read that when the prophet Nathan delivered a certain instructive parable to King David, the anger of that impulsive monarch was kindled against the oppressor, and that when the emphatic announcement was made to him, "Thou art the man!" he acknowledged the justice of the charge, and fasted, and repented of his sin. Is it too much to hope, that the parable which has now in all humility been propounded to the opponents of Sunday trains, may be in some small measure successful in producing a similar effect?-and that the proof of repentance may speedily appear among them, in the shape of a real and practical acknowledgment of the rights of their fellow-men,-the right of those to travel on Sunday whose conscience allows them to travel, and the right of those to stay at home whose conscience forbids them to travel.*

Every one of us, I presume, has taken the trouble to consider for himself, with greater calmness and deliberation than it is easy to enjoy in an excited meeting of partisans, whether the running of Sunday trains, and the using of them when they actually ply, be consistent with the duty of a Christian, as discoverable from the Bible. We all, it is likely, think ourselves entitled and able to judge of this for ourselves. Each of us believes that, amidst the conflicting diversities of opinion, his own views are the truth. We all conform, or at least acknowledge that we ought to conform, our individual practice to our individual religious convictions; and we are all alike disposed to resist the pretensions of our neighbour, if he tell us that we ought to act according to his belief of religious duty, and not in pursuance of our own. In all this we but reduce to practice the fundamental and admitted principles of Protestantism; and what I recommend is simply this-that each of us should allow his neighbours to practise according to these invaluable principles as freely as he does himself. In the noble and pregnant words of Locke-" Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the thing we stand in need of;" and it is only by establishing and respecting this *Note O. Letter concerning Toleration, preface.

† Note P.

genuine liberty, instead of that spurious one-sided liberty which is so frequently put in its place, that justice can be done to all, or that men of opposite religious opinions will ever be brought to regard each other with that charity which is the chief of Christian virtues. The question, let me say once more, is not, "Shall the Sabbath be observed in Scotland?" I know of no man who desires the abolition of the weekly day of rest-an institution so plainly adapted to the bodily, intellectual, and emotional wants of human nature, that any attempt to abolish it among us would be a ridiculous failure, even if aided by that round sum of £10,000 which our Sabbath Alliance expected to drain from the people, but which so strangely refused to flow into its treasury. What I oppose is not the observance of the Sabbath, but that kind of observance of it which some call its "better" observance, and others its "bitter," and puritanical, and UNCHRISTIAN observance a mode of observance which, in the opinion of many earnest friends of religion, is much less calculated to promote respect for so admirable an institution, than to excite a general distaste at religion itself, and to drive multitudes into the unmistakeable Sabbath-desecration of vicious indulgence. I cordially respect the zeal and sincerity of every one who demonstrates his sincerity by the accordance of his practice and professions. I admit to the fullest extent the right of all who differ from the advocates of Sunday trains to argue and expostulate with them from the pulpit, the platform, and the press. But no amount of respect for zeal and sincerity can blind me to the fact that you are trampling on their rights, and that the friends of rational liberty ought to exert themselves on every fit occasion for the recovery of what they have been unjustly deprived of, and for their own and their children's security from still more intolerable encroachments.

I have the honour to be,

*Note Q.

GENTLEMEN,

Your most obedient servant,
ROBERT COX.

† Note R.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A, page 1.

The Victories of the Sabbatarians.

When, in conformity with the regulations of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway Company, I gave previous notice that the motion for Sunday trains would be submitted to the meetings referred to in the text, I had good reason to believe that arrangements would be made by certain influential Shareholders who approved of it, for procuring an adequate supply of proxies in its favour; but on both occasions the intention of those gentlemen to do so was accidentally frustrated. Had the case been otherwise, the motion would probably have been carried; and there is little room for doubt that were it again brought forward with such a backing of proxies as, it is believed, could easily be mustered if the necessary funds and a little personal trouble were applied to this object, the result of the division would be decidedly in its favour. At the conclusion of the meeting in August 1850, having no positive assurance of this needful support, and finding that such of my friends among the Shareholders as there was an opportunity of consulting at the time agreed with me in thinking that, in the circumstances, it was expedient to comply with a suggestion thrown out by the Directors in their Report, "That whatever should be the result of this meeting, no motion should be made, or notice given, on the question of Sunday trains, at least for a year," I forbore to renew the notice on that occasion, in the hope that ere long the Directors would, of their own accord, adopt the only effectual means of putting an end to an agitation as troublesome to the Shareholders at large, as it is uncongenial with the tastes and habits of the writer of these pages. This hope, however, seems doomed to disappointment; for as yet there is no perceptible symptom of a coming change of policy at the Board.

That the motion would probably be carried if the wishes of the whole body of Shareholders were fairly collected and given effect to, will appear pretty evident from a retrospect of what took place when something like a fair opportunity (for a perfectly fair one it cannot be held to have been) was last afforded them of expressing their inclinations in the matter. The circumstances were briefly these :

On 31st July 1849, the following requisition, signed by 426 Shareholders, was presented to the Chairman and Directors of the Company:

"GENTLEMEN,-Since the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was closed, in November 1846, to the Public on Sundays, three leading Lines, all connected with and running into it, have been opened for

B

Public Traffic, viz.-the Edinburgh and Northern, the Caledonian, and the Scottish Central. On these Lines (as well as on the North British, previously opened) it has been resolved, by large and repeated majorities, to carry Passengers on Sunday. The subject has thus acquired a new aspect. On this ground, as well as for other important reasons to be hereafter stated, we are of opinion that the question of affording to the Public the means of communication on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Line, upon that day, should again be brought under the consideration of the Proprietors.

"We, the undersigned Shareholders, therefore hereby request you to convene, on an early day, a Special General Meeting of the Company, to reconsider the question of running Sunday Trains; and that, prior to such Meeting, for the purpose of ascertaining and giving effect to the sentiments of the Proprietary on the subject, you issue a blank Proxy to every Shareholder, coupled with distinct instructions for filling up the same.

66

To prevent misapprehension, we may take this opportunity to state that it is not our wish that Trains should run to the same extent on Sundays as on other days of the week, but simply that a Morning and Evening Train should run as formerly-which practically would be merely attaching a few Carriages to the present Mail Train."

On 2d August there appeared in the newspapers an advertisement by the Directors, calling a special general meeting of the Proprietors, "to reconsider the question of running Sunday Trains, and to come to such resolution thereon as the Meeting may determine. Blank Proxies," it was added, "will be forwarded to all the Proprietors who are registered in the Books of the Company on the 10th instant, and, in order to be available, they must be filled up and returned to the Secretary, at least two days previous to the day of the Meeting."

On 3d August, I, as honorary Secretary of certain Scotch and English Shareholders who had formed themselves into a Committee for the purpose of trying to get the Sunday trains re-established, and by whom the requisition had been prepared and circulated, wrote to Mr Latham, the Secretary of the Company, expressing the Committee's thanks to the Directors for the prompt manner in which the requisition had been complied with, and for the resolution to issue a blank proxy to each Proprietor, so that the general wish might be fairly and satisfactorily made known. I farther said :-" The Committee infer that the Directors will not use their influence on either side with the Proprietors; so that, whatever the result of the meeting may be, there may be no doubt in any quarter that the opinions of all have been freely and independently expressed." It was of course expected that the option of voting for either of two motions only,-for or against the trains, would be given, this being the only way of ascertaining unequivocally the opinions of the Shareholders.

On 10th August, however, the Directors, to the surprise of the Committee, forwarded to each Proprietor, along with the advertisement calling the meeting, a blank proxy which might be filled up in favour of any one of three votes, viz. :-1, for the trains; 2, against the trains; and, 3, "for leaving this matter in the hands of the Directors." Contrary also to the expectation of the Committee, the Directors issued