Georgia Sunday Law

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 29.

Georgia Sunday Law.

CODE OF GEORGIA, 1882.

Sec. 4,579. Violating Sabbath. Any tradesman, workman, or laborer, or other person whatever, who shall pursue their business or work of their ordinary callings upon the Lord’s day (works of necessity or charity only excepted), shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished as prescribed in section 4,310 of this code.

Sec. 4,310. Punishment of accessories after the fact. Accessories after the fact, except where it is otherwise ordered in this code, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, imprisonment not to exceed six months, to work in the chain-gang not to exceed twelve months, and any one or more of these punishments may be ordered, in the discretion of the judge.

Sec. 4,582. Fines for violation of the Sabbath. All moneys arising from fines imposed for offenses, the gist of which consists in their being committed on the Sabbath-day, shall be paid to the Ordinary of the county, to be by him distributed for the purpose of establishing and promoting Sabbath-schools in the county.

Georgia ought to be a paradise for National Reformers, and Sunday-law advocates. It should be remembered in this connection that it is urged in behalf of a National Sunday law, that all that is wanted is simply to make State laws effective. But in the case of Georgia that would be but little short of the torments of the Inquisition. Such a law is a disgrace to any State. And to seek to make it effective stamps any association, we care not how high its professions may be, as antichristian. Men who would seek to make such a law “effective” would do more if they had the power.