The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-07-24
The Sunday Question.

The Sunday Question.
The question of the Sunday laws has become
the great question of the day. 1t is agitating
the public mind in the chief cities Of the Union,
York, Philadelphia and Chicago is now add
ed Baltimore, as a battle ground of civil and
religious liberty. The question has broken out in
this last named city in consequence of the arrest
and fining of a man who had been found engaged
in some worldly employment on Sunday. The
law under which he was fined is an "Act to Pun
isb Blasphemers and Sabbath Breakers aud
among other things is penalty of boring
through the tongue and branding the fore
head for denying the Holy Trinity, aud for
a repetition Of the offence the penalty of death.
For violating the Sabbath the fine is two hun
dred pounds of tobacco. This absurd law has
been so long disregarded, in consequence of
change of public opinion, that it was considered
obsolete. 1t is now galvanized by some fanatics
who viii robably attempt to enforce the other
law against Unitarians, involving the penalty of
death. And such is the sad spectacle witnessed
in the chief city of that State from which the day
star of civil and religious liberty first shone upon
this continent-the State Cor, rather, colony,
then) in which religious federation was first
proclaimed to all; and that at time when
the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers in New
England were burning witches and prosecuting
to the death every other Protestant sect who
would not conform to their narrow creed. Alas
how changed for the worse has Maryland since
become! 1t has moved backward and down.
ward, while the rest Of the world is moving on
ward and upward
In Philadelphia, too, the chief city Of the State
founded by William Penn, who 80 well under
stood religious liberty, we have the miserable
exhibition of the Courts being occupied for four
or five days listening to legal arguments on the
question whether man quietly driving railroad
car through the city on Sunday last was guilty of
breach of the peace And by telegraphic des-
patch we learn that the very sapient Supreme
Court of Pennsylvania has decided the question
in the affirmative. We have at the same time an
account of citizens at the instigation of the
clergy, holding public meeting and passing
resolutions against Sunday travelling in the
Quaker City.
The effect Of that meeting is completely coun-
teracted by little tract which was handed about,
and afterwards published in the Philadelphia pa
pers. We insert itin another column, and from
it the reader will see by what bright names is
sustained the position we long since assumed 10
this journal, that Sunday was not Of divine obi.
hut n In h,v %,o
the mode Of observing it by the vast majority of
the Professionals AID Catholics of Christendom
as day of recreation and innocent pastime
as well as of religion. 1t is only in Scotland and
by few of the descendants of the Puritans in
this country that Sunday is kept like Jewish
Sabbath The posterity Of the Puritans in
England have long since ceased to follow the ir-
rational and gloomy observance Of their ances-
tors Nowhere in the Christian world is
there SO much crime as in the chief cities Of
Scotland and in the cities Of the United States
where the Puritanical custom is enforced, in VIC
lation of the laws Of nature, Of reasoD of the con-
stitution, and Of God. Such names as those of
Luther, Calvin, Milton, Bunyan, Palcy, Mac
knight Jeremy Taylor and Whately will have
due weight with the majority Of Protestants. This
tract, therefore, circulated at the PHILADELPHIA
meeting will serve to enlighten the darkness of
that benighted city.
Another benefit has arisen from the agitation
in Philadelphia, and that u.s. the lawyers engaged
in the case have produced some very able argu
ments against this new exercise of religious des-
potism on the part of the Mayor Of the city and
notwithstanding the decision of the Court, we
feel confident that the Sunday tyranny is doomed
both there and throughout the whole country at
no distant day.
As for New York, it has been gradually throw
ing off the religious letters placed On its limbs
by its Dutch founders, and afterwards strength
ened by the Puritanical element added to the
population. The city had cast off its chains in
1884, and, according to the Sabbath Committee,
the great fire followed in the next year The
old obsolete act, to be found in the Revised
Statutes, which we publish in another
column, was dead letter, when 10, the
black republicans, with the assistance of
Oakley Hall, their District Attorney, rake up the
blue moulded tyranny and try to give it life. To
assist its operation city ordinance is added, and
section is inserted in the Metropolitan Police
act, all of which the reader will find in this day
HERALD. It appears, however, according to the
Sabbath Committee that the Metropolitan Inqui-
sition had little room to boast Of the success Of
their first Superintendent and their mentor,
Oakley Hall. Nor has their pious Pillsbury as
yes accomplished much by his opera
uons' 1t ia as clear as day that
Tue puonc sentiment is against them, and that
they cannot carry out thex blue laws here.