A Cab Ride Across Country

Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there
lies a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue,
but of eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, 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,
it only tells me that I may very probably keep the Sabbath
by not keeping the