The Bishop of Peterborough never speaks on the temperance question
without a manliness and distinctness all his own. At Loughborough last week he referred to the Sunday-closing question, and deprecated the use of the ad captandum assump- tion that because intemperance is a sin, intemperance on Sunday is a particularly heinous sin. Intemperance on Sunday is not at all more sinful, said the Bishop, than intemperance on a week- day, and, moreover, it is not the duty of the State to prevent sin as sin,—that is the duty of the Church,—nor even to prevent people from being tempted away from church,—but only to protect the civil interests of citizens, and to prevent or punish crime. The only legitimate argument that occurred to him for closing public-houses on a Sunday, is that other traders are compelled to suspend their business in the public interest, and that the owners of public-houses have no right of pre- ference over other traders. Certainly not for their own sakes. But is it not for the advantage of the people at large that respectable houses of entertainment should be accessible on Sunday within reasonable limits as regards hours ? We hold very strongly that it is.
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