Sunday law

“ The first Pennsylvania Sunday law announces a purpose 'That Looseness, irreligion, and Atheism may not Creep in under the pretense of Conscience * * *.' [51] Sometimes reproach of God is made an operative element of the offense. [52] Prohibitions of Sunday labor are frequently coupled with admonitions that all persons shall 'carefully apply themselves to Duties of Religion and Piety, publickly and privately * * *,' [53] and are found in comprehensive ecclesiastical codes which also prohibit blasphemy, [54] lay taxes for the support of the church, [55] or compel attendance at divine services. ”

“ But, again, this is not the case before us because the statute at bar does not make unlawful any religious practices of appellants; the Sunday law simply regulates a secular activity and, as applied to appellants, operates so as to make the practice of their religious beliefs more expensive. Furthermore, the law's effect does not inconvenience all members of the Orthodox Jewish faith but only those who believe it necessary to work on Sunday. ”

“ A still more deplorable evil has come upon the Church itself, through reliance upon the Sunday law, and through the acceptance of Sunday, which has neither Scriptural authority nor standing-room on the law of God. It has ceased to appeal to the law of God—except in a very weak way—as the source of authority in matters relative to the Sabbath, and has thereby become shorn of all real strength. ”

“ SUCH ALSO IS THE ORDINANCE CONCERNING SUNDAY, Easter, Whitsunday, and similar festivals and customs. For those who suppose that the ordinance concerning Sunday instead of Sabbath, is enacted as necessary, are greatly mistaken. For the Holy Scripture has abolished the Sabbath, and teaches that all the ceremonies of the old law may be omitted, since the publication of the gospel. And yet, as it was necessary to appoint a certain day, in order that the people might know when they should assemble, the Christian church, (not the apostles,) has up appointed Sunday (the Lord's day) for this purpose ”

“ Who can [398] read this long list of Sunday laws, not from the “one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy,” but from popes, emperors, and councils, without adopting the sentiment of Neander: “The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance?” ”

“ As the devoting one day in seven to religious purposes is a bounden duty we owe to God our creator, and a most reasonable law of our Commonwealth—to see people riding on the Sunday in pursuit of their worldly affairs, is so disgusting to the man of true principle, that the neglect of our executive authority of so flagrant a crime, is to be lamented. ”

“ There is the eternal bugbear of religion to oppose this scheme, but that is all. The minister, who under free trade on Sunday would be obliged to close up his business, is in favor of a Sabbath law of protection for sermons and prayers, but why should a few clergymen who have six holidays in the week and only one work-day, be favored against millions of toilers, who work six days in the week and are liable to be arrested if they do not go [pg 206] to church on the seventh day? Not a Saturday half-holiday but a Sunday whole-holiday is the first rational step towards justice to the working-man. ”

“ Thus have we shown that, originating with the Catholics and adopted by the Protestants, the Sunday Sabbath is purely and entirely a human institution, and, being such, we must recognize all Sunday laws as grave encroachments upon constitutional liberty ”

“ Among the commonwealths which prosecuted observers of the original Sabbath as Sabbath-breakers were Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and seven other States. Such prosecutions were too much like persecutions; for people who kept neither Saturday nor Sunday were not so much molested. If the Sunday laws were really meant for the public welfare, every citizen would be allowed to choose his own Sabbath, and no one who kept Saturday sacred would be required to rest on Sunday also. ”

“ See Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, on the petition praying the repeal of the laws for the observance of the sabbath, &c., 5 State of New York, Assembly Docs., Doc. No. 262 (1838) . This latter report, denying any intention to enforce the duties of religious conscience, id., at 7, regarded retention of the Sunday law as advisable, 'Viewing the sabbath merely as a civil institution, venerable from its age consecrated as a day of rest by the usage of our fathers, and cherished by the common consent of mankind throughout the nations of christendom * * *.' Id., at 5. ”

“ The provisions more particularly referred to in these Acts are those relating to travelling on the Lord’s day, found in the Statutes as follows:—
"Whoever travels on the Lord’s day, except from necessity or charity, shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten dollars for each offence."—Pub. Stat., Chap. 98, sect. 2. It is an interesting and curious study to follow the changes made in the Sunday law, so called, with the accompanying judicial decisions, as one by one the hindrances to the attainment of simple justice by travellers injured on the Lord’s day have been swept away. ”

“ Granted, for sake of the argument, that Sunday has rightfully taken the place of the Sabbath, and ought to be observed in accordance with a Christian interpretation of the fourth commandment. The fact remains that the civil law, assuming control of religious actions, places itself between the human heart and God. It shuts out the divine authority. It forbids the conscience to rise above the human authority. ”

“ At any rate, he has modified them in so far as he himself is concerned, and while he is very regular in his attendance at church on Sunday morning, he no longer seems to consider it a sin to go out sailing, shooting or hunting on Sunday afternoons, or to attend theatrical performances or other kinds of entertainment in the evening. Inasmuch as the Sunday Observance Laws have not been repealed, one can only take it for granted that he considers himself and his consort as being above the law of the land, and in no wise bound thereby. ”

“ You are altogether too credulous in supposing that all the skeptics of our land, the spiritualists, the German infidels, and the irreligious masses generally, can be so far brought to favor the religious observance of Sunday that a general law can be promulgated in its behalf. ”

“ There is great activity among those interested in different theories as to the proper use of Sundays. On the one side, Lord's day observance societies and the organizations concerned in the promotion of “temperance” (i.e. of abstinence from alcoholic drinks) have been extremely anxious to enforce the existing law against Sunday trading and against the sale of intoxicants to persons other than bona fide travellers, and to obtain legislation against the sale of any alcohol on Sundays. ”

“ It is not lest they violate the law of the Sabbath, but it is that they may not be kept from church. Another authority states the case thus:—
“Labor in the country [on Sunday] was not prohibited till the council of Orleans, A. D. 538. It was thus an institution of the church, as Dr. Paley has remarked. The earlier Christians met in the morning of that day for prayer and singing hymns in commemoration of Christ’s resurrection, and then went about their usual duties.” ”

“ The catholic reason of this observance being thus explained, the unreasonable error, on the other hand, of those who, without any necessity, presume either to anticipate, or to go beyond the term appointed in the Law, is manifest. For they that think Easter Sunday is to be observed from the fourteenth day of the first month till the twentieth moon, anticipate the time prescribed in the law, without any necessary reason ”

“ The religious nature of this state regulation is emphasized by the fact that it exempts 'members of a religious society' who actually observe the Sabbath on a day other than Sunday. The law is thus plainly an aid to all organized religions, bringing to heel anyone who violates the religious scruples of the majority by seeking his salvation not through organized religion but on his own. ”

“ It is also required by law that you attend the church every Sunday, and as if that is not enough, you are not allowed to be out of your house on Sunday, not even on your own porch, except to go to and from church services. It is frankly claimed by the powers that be, that without such stern compulsion the natives would desecrate the Sabbath by congregating at stores or elsewhere, and then, if the devil should happen to come to claim his own, he might scoop up the whole island population as a consequence. ”

“ Their legality in the eye of the law is a demonstration that the prohibitory enactments relating to Sunday are simply police regulations, and it should be the effort of every good American citizen to liberalize our Sunday legislation still more, so that it shall cease to be the cloak of hypocrisy. As a final resort, we are told by our opponents that this is a Christian government because the majority of our citizens are adherents of the Christian faith ”

“ In England's American settlements, too, civil Sunday regulation early became an institution of importance in shaping the colonial pattern of life. Every Colony had a law prohibiting Sunday labor. These had been enacted in many instances prior to the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and they were continued in force throughout the period that preceded the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the Bill of Rights. ”

“ He describes (Apol. i. 67) how “on the day called Sunday” town and country Christians alike gathered together in one place for instruction and prayer and charitable offerings and the distribution of bread and wine; they thus meet together on that day, he says, because it is the first day in which God made the world, and because Jesus Christ on the same day rose from the dead.
As long as the Jewish Christian element continued to have any influence in the Church, a tendency to observe Sabbath as well as Sunday naturally persisted. ”

“ Since the Sunday sabbath originated with the Roman power (the beast) , to whom will men yield homage when, knowing the facts, they choose to observe Sunday, instead of the Bible Sabbath, in deference to compulsory Sunday laws?
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?” Rom. 6:16.
Notes.—“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] church.”—“Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today,” page 213. ”

“ That if any person or persons shall employ his servants or hire and employ any other man's servant or servants, and set them to labor as aforesaid (he shall be penalized) .' [58]
In the latter half of the eighteenth century, the Sunday laws, while still giving evidence of concern for the 'immorality' of the practices they prohibit, tend no longer to be prefixed by preambles in the form of theological treatises. [59] Now it appears to be the community, rather than the Deity, which is offended by Sunday labor. ”

“ Another result has developed in connection with our Sunday laws whereby the vilest and most nefarious business known to our civilization has intrenched itself behind them, and at the same time defies them. The enforced leisure which the Sunday laws and the customs concerning Sunday have brought about make Sunday the great harvest-day for the saloons and their associate evils. ”

“ Certain importation and selling of fish 'before or after Divine Service on Sundays' is not to be deemed prohibited.
19 Such a spirit may be seen in various royal proclamations enjoining strict enforcement of the Sunday laws, see Whitaker, The Eighteenth-Century English Sunday (1940) , 56, 172-173, and in the language of charges to the grand juries encouraging their performance of their duties under the laws, see id., at 53, 57-58. Private societies formed as self-appointed agents of administration of the Sunday laws were religious in orientation. ”

“ As the habits and preoccupations of the people themselves changed, it was but a short step from this reasoning to the recognition that Sunday laws serve the purpose of providing leisure and peace favorable to the pursuit of whatever aspirations, religious, or secular, various individuals may choose. ”

“ That Christians should keep the Sunday, and that if they persisted in resting on the Sabbath, “they shall be shut out from Christ.” See Hefele's “History of the Councils of the Church,” Vol. II, page 316.
16. What imperial law was issued in a.d. 386?
“By a law of the year 386, those older changes effected by Constantine were more vigorously enforced; and, in general, civil transactions of every kind on Sunday were strictly forbidden.”—Neander's “Church History,” Vol. II, page 300.
17. What petition was made to the emperor by a church convention of bishops in a.d. 401? ”

“ Paul’s day, in autumn a full week before the festival of St. Brice (Nov. 13) , one day before All Saints, and the four Wednesdays in the four fasting (Ember) weeks. The law does not free theowes from work on these days, but suggests to their masters to give them, in God’s name, such relaxation from work on such of these days as they shall deserve. The laws of Edgar define that Sunday is to be kept from noontide of Saturday till dawn of Monday. At the Council of Eynsham (1009) , it was further enjoined that there be no markets or folk motes (the laws of Canute also forbid hunting) on Sundays ”