SUNDAY LAW EXEMPTION CLAUSES.
By G.
In several of the states the Sunday laws have exemption clauses which provide that the penalties do not apply to persons who religiously observe any other day as a day of rest. Such conditional exemption is unjust, because it is unequal in its requirement. No Sunday law requires men to religiously or conscientiously observe Sunday. A formal observance is all that is required; but one who observes another day must make it a matter of religious conscience. Thus the state makes it necessary for the courts to judge concerning the consciences of those who choose to rest upon any other day than Sunday. Another point in these exemptions is equally unjust, because unequal: It is always required of those who rest upon other days than Sunday, that their Sunday labor must not in any way disturb those who rest upon that day. Now it is not required of Sunday observers that their labor on the rest-day of others shall not disturb any one who rests on such7day. Those who observe another day for rest and worship must take their own chances on being disturbed—according to Sunday-law logic—while the Sunday-keepers must needs be protected by special law. It would appear, however, that those who keep Sunday are more easily disturbed than other people. Somehow Sunday-keeping, in its more conscientious phase, has a tendency to make people nervously intolerant, abnormally susceptible to being disturbed. A few years ago four of our brethren were arrested on charges of Sunday labor at Olney, Ill. At the trial, one of the witnesses, an old lady, testified that she lived about a quarter of a mile from where one of the accused was plowing, and that she was very much disturbed by the noise. She was also much disturbed to see a "good boy" working on the day she was taught to keep as a sabbath. She was so troubled over the Sunday work that she could not sleep at night. Another witness who lived some distance away was so disturbed that neither he nor his family could rest at night. And still another, who had himself hived bees on the previous Sunday, was so disturbed by the Sunday labor of others that he could not rest. Moreover the two chief prosecutors had been themselves convicted of disturbing a singing-school. On such testimony as this the accused persons were convicted, altho the Illinois Sunday law has an exemption clause for those who observe the seventh-day Sabbath. Thus the exemption clauses of Sunday laws may be entirely nullified through the requirement that those who labor on that day must not disturb people whose religion consists in being disturbed by their own prejudices.