Reasons for Sunday Laws
By Adelaide D. Wellman
ONE reason advanced for the enactment of Sunday laws is that Sunday work disturbs those who regard the day as holy. If the noise incident to such work is the disturbing feature, reply may justly be made that laws already exist for protection against an undue amount of noise on any day of the week. No law can be framed that would provide entire freedom from such annoyance; else in many instances music students must entirely abandon their practice, and even skilled musicians must forego the rendition of selections not in accord with the taste of all the neighbors and passers-by, children must smother their laughter, no one must speak in hearing of a misanthrope but in hushed tones, and the unfortunate victim of a cold in the head must beware lest he lay himself liable to the law by a chance sneeze. If the annoyance suffered because of another's Sunday labor be wholly mental, it is doubtless in the same category as that of the individual who observes others going to a church whose teachings he disapproves. Yet certainly one who would assay to prescribe, by law, the nature of the church services others may attend, is some centuries behind the world in the principles of jurisprudence. Most of the Old World nations had their experiments, long ago, in governmental paternalism; and no person who has a knowledge of the history of those experiments, wishes to see them repeated. If any one were qualified to frame civil laws for the regulation or protection of a Christian usage, certainly the Author of Christianity would be; but instead of exercising that prerogative, or accepting the civil power which His admirers sought to thrust upon Him, He confined His efforts to appeal to individual conscience.