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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1857

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 10, No. 2.

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From the "Sabbath Recorder."

THE SUNDAY CAR-QUESTION.

THE question whether cars shall run on Sunday in Brooklyn has been decided in the affirmative. The vote of the Common Council was twenty-two in favor of their running, and twelve against it. While the question was pending, numerous articles on the subject appeared in the New York papers. One of the papers published a memorial presented by the Quakers to the Legislature of Pennsylvania in 1855, in reply to a statement of the governor, in his message that "a stringent and comprehensive law is required, vindicating the great law of the Sabbath, to save it from desecration through the demoralizing effects of strong drink." The following extract from that memorial contains matter for serious reflection, though mixed with some errors:—
The first decree for the observance of Sunday, was made by Constantine, the second Christian Emperor, in the year 321, and was in these words:
"Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest the critical moment be let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by the providence of Heaven."
The domestic life of Constantine was marked by singular atrocities; and this first union of the Church and State, in the Christian era, so injurious to the Christian world, was suited to the character of the man.
It is upon this decree, corrupt as it is believed in all its sources, and not upon the law of God, that all the Sunday legislation of the Christian world has its foundation.
It is matter of authentic history, that even after the recognition of Christianity by law, the courts were open on the first day of the week, and that the early Christians worked on that day, as suited their convenience.
Sylvester, Bishop of Rome under Constantine, in order, (as is stated,) to give more solemnity to his decree, changed the name of Sunday to the more imposing one of the Lord's day.
Under the decree of Constantine, sanctioned by the church, Sunday was held as a festival for a period of sixteen hundred years after the Christian era, retaining during all that time the names of Sunday and Lord's day.
The Parliament of England met on Sunday, until the reign of Richard the third, in the year 1483. Many of the kings were crowned on that day. Among whom were Rufus, Stephen, Henry the second, Richard the first, John, &c.
The first law of England made for the keeping of Sunday was in the reign of Henry the sixth, about the year 1470. By that act, Sunday, the Feast of All Saints, of Holy Innocents, and many other days, were established as festivals by the English Law. There were also many Councils of the church at Constantinople, Laodicea, &c., in which the festival of Sunday was recognized; and in several of them sabbatizing, or keeping of the Jewish Sabbath, was forbidden.
Such was the state of the Sabbath question, until the latter part of the sixteenth, and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. In the year 1595, Dr. Bound (a non-conformist) put forth a book in which for the first time, the name Sabbath was given to the first day of the week; the Sunday of Constantine, and the Lord's day of Sylvester.
He was sustained by the intolerant sectarians of that period in their bitter hostility to the Romish and Episcopal churches. It was believed that if these churches had made it a day of fasting, then the non-conformists would have made it a day of feasting and recreation. The king and the English churches resisted this innovation; the king published what was called, his "Book of Sports," which was ordered to be read in the churches, decreeing that the people should not be cut off from their usual recreations on Sunday. "The king declared that it was done out of pious care for the service of God, and for suppressing of those humors that oppose truth, and for the ease, comfort and recreation of his Majesty's well-deserving people." The Bishops recommended these Sunday recreations as bringing the people more willingly to church, as tending to civilize them, and to compose differences among them, and as serving to increase love and unity."
Chief Justice Popham issued an order of the Court, that all the Sabbath books of the sectarians, should be called in. This only increased the desire of the people to read them. The sectarians, (as is well known,) gained the ascendancy, and the king's "Book of Sports" was directed to be burned by the hang man.
The nature of this sectarian movement may be estimated from the fact that the "Lords, Knights and Gentry," were allowed to make feasts and wedding dinners at their pleasure, which were forbidden to the common people.
As the non-conformists gained the ascendancy in the State, they ordained that not only labor and amusements of all kinds should be interdicted, but that all traveling should be stopped; no tailor was allowed to carry home a suit of clothes; no barber was allowed to shave a man on Sunday; no man was permitted to sit at his own door, to walk the streets, or enjoy the fresh air in the green fields."
The ingenuity of man was exercised first to make the Sunday laws sufficiently comprehensive, and then rigidly to enforce them. To compensate the people for the deprivation of their usual Sunday amusements, other days were appointed, and no effort was left untried to accomplish the end proposed. The effect of this severity, was an increase of moral depravity and of crime.