To Rowland Hill 28 February 1850

My dear Sir,

I have just stumbled on the above. I know nothing of the work, or whether you care to look at it - but thinking you possibly may I send you the extract. I have been favoured with a Pamphlet (I presume from Mr W.W.) detailing the views of the Sabbath Restoration Society (or some such name) - but I see nothing in their argument to induce me to suppose that their view is correct. I am quite satisfied with the far more logical deductions of Paley - if I needed arguments of this sort on which to ground my belief, that the Church possesses authority (in the Church I include the State) sufficient to determine the manner in which the Lords day may be duly kept, without our supposing that we are infringing any of the stricter requirements issued for the guidance & instruction of God's people under the old dispensation and adapted to the casual understandings of [illeg.] man. If it be advisable that all postings should cease on a Sunday, I shall cheerfully abide by the determination of the Legislature - but I must confess that I had rather continue to receive my Athenaeum & Gardeners Chronicle on a Sunday for after a hard days work it is a relaxation to me to run my eye over them in the evening - & most certainly my conscience never accuses me of committing sin for so doing. I admire all arrangements that may facilitate & lighten Sunday postages - but their entire abolishment is in my mind a "Sabbath's days work" uncalled for by any necessity of the case.

Very truly Yrs

J. S. Henslow

[Extract attached from Kerslake's Catalogue, 3 Park Street, Bristol "896 WHITE's (Fras., Bishop of Ely) Treatise of the SABBATH DAY, a Defense of the Orthodoxall Doctrine of the Church of England against Sabbatarian Novelty, 1635, 4to, SCARCE, old vellum wrapper, 12s

This book is against the sadder and stricter observance as maintained by the Puritans, and animadverts on their making it sinful to deliver a letter on a Sunday morning which had been too late on Saturday night, &c"]