DEDICATION
To The Right Reverend
THE BISHOP OF LONDON
You were among the first, some years ago, to expatiate on the vicious addiction of the
lower classes of society to Sunday excursions; and were thus instrumental in calling forth
occasional demonstrations of those extreme opinions on the subject, which are very
generally received with derision, if not with contempt.
Your elevated station, my Lord, affords you countless opportunities of increasing the
comforts and pleasures of the humbler classes of society - not by the expenditure of the
smallest portion of your princely income, but by merely sanctioning with the influence of
your example, their harmless pastimes, and innocent recreations.
That your Lordship would ever have contemplated Sunday recreations with so much
horror, if you had been at all acquainted with the wants and necessities of the people who
indulged in them, I cannot imagine possible. That a Prelate of your elevated rank has the
faintest conception of the extent of those wants, and the nature of those necessities, I do
not believe.
For these reasons, I venture to address this little Pamphlet to your Lordship's
consideration. I am quite conscious that the outlines I have drawn, afford but a very
imperfect description of the feelings they are intended to illustrate; but I claim for them
one merit - their truth and freedom from exaggeration. I may have fallen short of the
mark, but I have never overshot it: and while I have pointed out what appears to me, to be
injustice on the part of others, I hope I have carefully abstained from committing it
myself.
I am,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient,
Humble Servant,
TIMOTHY SPARKS.
JUNE, 1836.
