believe as they did; when they reached Plymouth Rock they were all of one mind, and they proposed to keep it unanimous, if possible. I do not recall any statement, however, to the effect that they ever put any severe penalties upon members of the Church of England who were dwelling among them; their religious valor was even then tempered with a wholesome religious discretion.

There has never been in America such a close union of church and state as existed in these olden times in Massachusetts and her sister Puritanical colonies of New England.

There is little wonder, then, that their laws with respect to Sabbath observance should reflect this close union.

The other colonies (with the exception of South Carolina, which was founded by the Huguenots; Maryland by the Roman Catholics, and Pennsylvania by the Quakers) were not organized as religious communities to the same extent as in Massachusetts and her sister New England colonies. It is true that Virginia adhered largely to the Church of England, that Georgia was founded by a most devout member of the same church, that he early established a church of this denomination and divided the colony into parishes, and that he brought with him, as chaplain, one Charles Wesley, a name that at this day quite overshadows that of his benevolent patron.

It is true that in all these colonies there were churches established and supported in most cases by the State, but in none of them did the clergy have so powerful a voice in the direction of secular affairs and in the administration of government as in New England.

Still, in the matter of Sunday laws, most of the other colonies were not far behind New England, if we except from consideration the so-called Connecticut blue-laws, the most extreme of which in these latter days have been pronounced apocryphal. Our own colony of Georgia in 1762 passed a Sunday law which

would have been as balm to the souls of Elder Brewster, Winslow and Cotton Mather.

But the spirit of freedom was abroad in the land of America long before the Revolution and with it came a freedom in belief as to matters of religion. A certain pride of tolerance as to all creeds or to a lack of any creed, brought about from reading the free-thinking works of Rousseau and others of his school, and when the Revolution came and the Federal Constitution was framed, the name of the Deity was left out, an omission that has caused much discussion and even movements looking to an amendment of the Constitution; but one of the most learned jurists of our Supreme Court, Joseph H. Lumpkin, in 12 Ga. p. 98, took the position with much force that the Constitution inferentially recognizes the Christian religion in Article 1, Sec. 7 and Par. 2 thereof, which reads: "If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him it shall become a law," etc.

A remarkable example of the strong anti-clerical spirit prevailing even in Georgia at this time is shown in the 62d section of the first Constitution of the State, adopted the 5th day of February, 1777, which section declares: "No clergyman of any denomination shall be allowed a seat in the legislature."

As our country became settled to the westward, as adventurous pioneers went forth farther and farther into the wilderness, new States came into existence.

Many countries of Continental Europe contributed largely to the population of these new States.

These Continental Europeans brought with them the Continental ideas as to Sunday observances.

Then the native Americans in these new States, cut off from the old associations under which they grew up, became more

liberal in their views, as was natural from their close association with the Americanized Europeans.

The ideas and sentiments of these new States, growing, prosperous, aggressive and steadily becoming more powerful in the affairs of the nation, have reacted upon the older States and have in turn affected the ideas and sentiments of the latter, unconsciously, impalpably, perhaps, but none the less percep tibly.

Every man, it is said, exerts some influence on every other man with whom he comes in contact, and in turn is influenced more or less by all of them, and so it may be with States drawn together under one government.

An examination of the Sunday laws of the different States will reveal but little real difference in the intent and meaning of these Sunday statutes.

An exception may be noted in the case of Illinois, where the Statute only prohibits such labor or amusement on Sunday as disturbs the peace and good order of society. 161 Ill., p. 296. They are all patterned closely after the Statute of 29 Charles

II.

The difference is noticeable chiefly in the different construc tions and views of the courts of last resort in the different States.

Any attempt at an elaborate discussion or citation of the cases in which these different views are set forth would be out of place here, as the reported cases are already as "thick as leaves in Vallombrosa" and the end is not yet.

As before stated the New England appellate courts, and especially that of Massachusetts, have adhered to the closest, most literal and most stringent construction of Sunday laws, although there is a noticeable tendency to more liberal construction even there.

The Middle Western States are more liberal, possibly, owing to the influence I have attempted to describe.

In the digests, we find the majority of the cases reported from the New England States, a considerable proportion from the Middle, Middle Western, and Northwestern States, not so many from the Southern States, and from the far Western and Pacific States hardly any. Whether we of the Southern States are more law-abiding as to Sabbath observance than our Northern neighbors, or whether we let every man go about his own business and observe his own Sunday in his own way so long as he doesn't bother us, I can not undertake to say. There are two sides to the question; we may take the former position, our friends across the line might contend for the latter.

The phases of the Sunday law which have most frequently come before the courts have been generally classified as follows:

1. As to when Sunday begins and ends. When not regulated by statute, it may be stated, as a general rule, that Sunday begins at 12 o'clock Saturday night and ends at 12 o'clock Sunday night, and our Supreme Court has said that sun time, the time of our fathers, and not the new-fangled arbitrary standard time, must control. In some States, as in Connecticut and Maine, and formerly in Massachusetts, Sunday ends at sunset of that day.

2. As to the validity of a contract made on Sunday. This question divides itself into the two questions, whether made in the pursuit of the ordinary business calling or occupation of one of the contracting parties or not.

All the courts agree that a contract made on Sunday in the course of the ordinary secular business calling or occupation of the parties is invalid and can not be enforced.

The courts will leave the parties where it finds them. But this rule is subject to certain qualifications. For instance, it

has been decided in Massachusetts (107 Mass. p. 251), in Michigan (86 Mich. p. 348), and in Iowa (92 Iowa, p. 348), that where one party hires a horse from another on Sunday for the purpose of driving and returning him, while the party hiring can not be compelled to pay for his hire, he is responsible for the horse and for his safety, and an action will lie in favor of the owner for his restitution, but the contrary to this proposition is held in 11 R. I. p. 464, and in 60 Me. p. 528.

While a contract made on Sunday in the course of one party's ordinary calling or occupation and not in a work of necessity or charity, is invalid, the generally accepted rule is that it may be ratified by something done on a subsequent week day, but the contrary to this proposition is held in 127th Mich. p. 341.

As to the validity of a contract made on Sunday not in the ordinary business calling or occupation of one of the parties. and not in a work of necessity on charity, there is considerable lack of harmony.

The decisions upholding their validity start out with the assumption that they were valid at Common Law, and that the English Courts have so decided, and while the numerical majority of English decisions uphold their validity, the cases are not all one way.

The first line of English decisions upheld their validity. Then followed other decisions taking the contrary position, and latterly, English Courts have gone back to their first love, upholding the validity of such contracts.

It is held in the following cases that a contract made on Sunday and not within the ordinary business calling or occupation of the parties is void and no recovery can be had thereon: In 101 Mass. p. 366, 66 Me. p. 90, where money was loaned on Sunday, 73 Ind. p. 597, and in 62 Ind. p. 365, where a church subscription made on Sunday for the purpose of raising