Transcribed from the 1850 John Murray edition by DavidPrice
A
SECOND LETTER
ON THE LATE
POST OFFICE AGITATION.
BY
CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN, D.D.
HEAD MASTEROF HARROW SCHOOL, AND LATE FELLOW OF
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET:
CROSSLEY, HARROW.
MDCCCL.
p. iiLONDON:PRINTED BY W. NICOL, SHAKSPEARE PRESS, PALL MALL.
p. 1A SECONDLETTER, &c.
My dear Sir, [1]
It has been satisfactory to me to receive, from many excellentand well-informed persons, assurances of their entire concurrencein the sentiments of my former Letter. I am neithersurprised nor alarmed to find myself assailed, in other quarters,by loud and severe animadversions. You, Sir, have occupiedan intermediate ground. You are too well aware of theparticular circumstances which occasioned my letter, p. 2to accuse me ofa gratuitous interference in a wearisome and unthankfulcontroversy. Your strictures, therefore, are confined tosome particular points in my argument, which you regard asrequiring further elucidation. And you urge me, not so muchfor your own satisfaction as for that of others, to take the sameopportunity of clearing away some misapprehensions to which, inthe judgment of persons unacquainted with my opinions, my formerLetter may have been exposed.
Half, and more than half, the arguments of my Reviewers wouldhave been felt by themselves to be irrelevant, if they had takenthe trouble to observe the circumstances under which my Letterwas written. It was not to the general question of theobservance of the Sunday, nor even of the extent to which it maybe right that the Post Office should observe it, that my remarkswere directed. The question before me was this. I amurged, as an act of religious duty, to protest against aparticular Order of the Government. I am told, in the mostsacred place, that a particular p. 3Regulation of the London Post Officeis to be regarded no less as an affront to religion, and aviolation of the rights of conscience, than as an infraction ofthe liberties of England. An examination of the questionleads me to an opposite conclusion. I believe that themeasure thus stigmatized will, so far as it extends, promoterather than impede the interests of religion, will, on the whole,facilitate rather than interfere with the attendance of thatclass which it concerns upon the ordinances of worship, while itleaves untouched those wider and more general considerationswhich would involve, if seriously and consistently entertained, arevolution in the management of the whole department. Irefuse, therefore, to protest. I refuse to assert, what Isee no reason to believe, that the national observance of theLord’s Day will suffer from this particular modification ofan existing system. I refuse to assert, what I think it amost unchristian malignancy to suspect, that the object of thisnew Regulation was that which is disavowed and repudiated by itsauthors. I cannot discover in it an insidious p. 4but resolut