Sunday Legislation

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 42, 15 October 1903, Page 1

Sunday Legislation

In our Issue of last week we pointed out how the law of Sunday rest arose in the early Church as a protection for the law of Sunday worship. We may here briefly stupplement the remarks made regarding the Sunday legislation of Constantine, Theodosius, and Charlemagne by some brief references to British laws on the subject. Legislation against unnecessary Sunday labor was in force in England from an early date. Laws were promulgated by King Ina of the West Saxons about the year 693 ; by Alfred in 876 ; by lEdgar In 958 ; by Canute in 1028-1035 ; and with greater strictness after the Conquest, as, for instance, by Edmund 111. in 1345 ; by Richard 11. in 1388 ; by Edward IV. in 1464 ; by Henry VI. All these laws allowed necessary servile work to be dome. The holding of markets, fairs, wool-shows, etc.,

was forbidden. But no prohibition was issued by Act of Parliament against innocent amusements— it being always, of course, understood that the great object of the enforced rest— the sanotification of the Sunday— had been duly and faithfully attended to. The object of all such Sunday legislation is, or ought to be, not so much coercion as protection. After the Reformation the 5 and 6 Edward VI. prohibited ' lawful bodily labor ' on Sunddays, but allowed farmers, fishermen, and others to do work in harvest or at any other time when necessity demanded it. This Act was repealed under Queen Maiy, but was revived under James I. According to Strype's ♦ Annals ' (iii., 585) all sorts of Sunday amusements weare prevalent during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. On her reception at Kenilworth, In 1575, says Strype, 4 the lords and ladies danced in the evening with lively agility.' Sports, plays, interludes, and presentations, according to the same authority (v., 211, 495), were also carried out on the Lord's day under the favoring eye of 4 the virgin queen.'

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the Sabbatarian controversy began to wag its voluble tongue. It was a long and bitter war of words tihat volleyed and hit like grapeshot. The Puritan party, who originated it, departed from all Christian antiquity and desired to turn the Sunday into a day of gloom and woe, which would make the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) by comparison a day of joy. They triumphed in the Lang Parliament, and proceeded by legislative measures of extraordinary severity to force their views upon the nation. One of tine strangest vagaries of the .Puritan zealots, of the day was that of applying the name ' Sabbath ' to Sunday. The use continues, strange to say, to this day among Presbyterians and various minor sects. It is a trieksome, unsoriptural, and unscholarly misuse of plain terras. The word ' Sabbath ' is, in this sense, unknown either to Jews or Christians. In Jewish usage ' Sabbath ' means, and has always meant, the seventh day of the week (Saturday). In the liturgical books of the Catholic Church Sunday is called the Lord's day ,(Dominica). Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, are known (as in the old Jewish way) by numbers instead of names (second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days respectively) Saturday is always called the Sabbath. In many of the languages of Christian peoples Saturday is still called the Sabbath Thais., in Italian, it is ' Sabbato,' in Spanish ' Sabado,' in French ' Samedi,' in German ' Samstag '—all meaning ' Sabbath ' or • Sabbath-day.' It is passing strange that the ignorant, unsoriptural, and tricky abuse of the word ' Sabbath ' should endure to the present day among people who profess to thumb their Bible and make it their rule of faith and conduct

James 1., m 1614, and his son Charles I , in 1633, Issued proclamations allowing all their subjects except ' Papists and Pun tans ' to indulge moderate!) in ceitain games and recreations after dnme sen ice on Sundays Isaac Disraeli says that their obiect was ' to presene the national character from the gloom of Puntanisin.' Charles ll. 's statute of 1(776 is, however, according to SchaQ, the most important bit of English legislation on the subject of Sunday labor and Sunday rest With various unimportant modifications, it is in force in the Bntish Isles at the present time. It moulded "the Sunday legislation of the United States, that is, in sub-stance, the law which prevails in the Australian Commonwealth and New Zealand.