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appear as early as the Heptarchy. Ins reigned

king of Wessex from 688 to his abdication in 725.

He began as a warrior, then became a

4. Early statesman and law-giver, and died a

English religious recluse. When he had added

Legislation. much to his kingdom by war upon his

neighbors he gave a code of laws,

known as the " West Saxon code," in which was a

law for observance of Sunday which prohibited all

work on that day. In the east of England, the king

dom of Kent, the home of Augustine and the field

of his success, it is strange that there is no earlier

record of Sunday laws. Perhaps ecclesiastical canons

were deemed enough. But in the time of Withred,

king of Kent, in 696, a statute was enacted forbid

ding labor from Saturday at sunset to Sunday at

sunset. This recalls an early New England custom

as to the beginning and ending of Sunday observ

ance. The same law made free the slave who worked

on Sunday by his lord's command, and enslaved

the free man who worked without his lord's com

mand. Other severe penalties are mentioned. In

747 Eidelbald, king of the Mercians, enacted the

observance of the Lord's day by all, and forbade

all business, journeys, and meetings. Before 900,

Alfred, king of Wessex, and " over-lord " of the

Saxon kingdom of England, had enacted a law for

Sunday observance. Earlier than 930, the kingdom

of the West Saxons and Mercia having been united,

Athelstan the king, also " over-lord " of the other

kingdoms, by his statute forbade all merchandizing

on the Lord's day. Edgar, king of the same realm

959-975, enacted a further Sunday law forbidding

Sunday trading, folkmotes (meetings of the people),

heathen songs, and devils games on that day, and

he is said to have enacted that Sunday began at

three on Saturday afternoon and continued until

daybreak of Monday. Ethelred, king of the

same kingdom 978-1016, enacted that all " hunting

bouts," trafficking, courts, and worldly works were

forbidden on Sunday; yet allowed courts to sit on

occasions of necessity. Canute, the first Danish

king of England, came to that throne in 1017, and

reenacted Sunday laws forbidding hunting and

worldly work on Sunday, and also marketing, ex

cept for necessity, and forbade capital punishment

on that day. The Saxon dynasty was restored in

1040, and Edward the Confessor about 1056 en

larged the Sunday law of Canute. Lord Mansfield,

in a decision of a lawsuit (Swann vs. Browne, 3

Burrow, 1599) which involved the question whether

a court could make a valid judgment on a Sunday,

is authority for the statement that both William

the Conqueror and Henry II. ratified and confirmed

the canons of the councils of Tribury and Saint

Medoro and the ordinances of Edward the Con

fessor as,to Sunday observance, and decreed that

the codes of Justinian on Sunday observance were

the law of England. Successive acts of parliament

on Sunday observance became the law of England

(e.g.: 1354 A.D., the 28th of Edward II., chapter

14; 1388 A.D., the 12th of Richard II., chapter 6;

1410 A.D., the 11th of Henry IV., chapter 7; 1428

A.D., the 6th of Henry VI., chapter 3; 1449 A.D.,

the 27th of Henry VI., chapter 5; 1464 A.D., the

4th of Edward IV., chapter 7; 1552 A.D., the 6th of

Edward VI., chapter 3; 1603 A.D., the 1st of James

I., chapter 25; 1625 A.D., the 1st of Charles I.,

chapter 7; 1627 A.D., the 3d of Charles I., chapter 1).

The Puritan ideas obtained ascendency in Eng

land and in 1676 A.D., 29 Charles II., chapter 7,

was enacted. This statute was the most compre

hensive and severe and the most detailed of any

English Sunday law. Its purpose as expressed in

its title was for " the better observa

S. Legisla- tion and keeping holy of the Lord's

tive Results Day, commonly called Sunday." It

of Puritan- enacts the careful execution of all

ism. existing laws relating to the Lord's

day; commands exercises public and

private of piety and of religion on that day; for

bids all labor, work, or business of ordinary calling,

works of charity or necessity alone excepted, but

exempts children; forbids the crying or exposing

for sale of wares, merchandise, fruit, herbs, goods,

or chattels on pain of forfeiture; forbids travel by

horse or boat, except as allowed by a magistrate;

relieves the parish of responsibility for robbery of a

Sunday traveler; makes void all service of legal

writs or proceedings, except in case of treason, mur

der, and breach of the peace; but its provisions are

not to apply to dressing of meats in private fam

ilies, or in inns, cook or victualing houses, for such

as can not be otherwise provided; also the crying

and selling of milk before 9 A.m. and after 3 p.m.

This statute has been practically the law of Eng

land ever since. It has been modified in particulars

and exceptions, and other regulations have been

made by subsequent statutes, but the law remains

substantially the same to-day. At the time of the

American Revolution the statute of Charles II. had

been for more than 100 years the law of England

and of its colonies. With this history of Sunday

legislation in England for more than 900 years

(from 747), the Puritans came to America. They

came with the traditions, civil and religious, of the

mother country, particularly those which developed

with the Reformation in England; their colonial

regulations as to Sunday-keeping therefore could

not fail of such influence. To their account has

been laid the fabulous " blue-laws," the reports

concerning which were an exaggeration of the facts

and ridiculous in some things as applying to dumb

beasts and inanimate objects. It is, however, true

that there were colonial laws on the subject of Sun

day-keeping which partook strongly of the religious

spirit of the English laws on the same subject and

that of the English Puritans who settled the colonies.

They were enacted in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Dutch authorities of the West India Colony

enacted Sunday laws for the New Netherlands in

1641, 1647, 1656, 1657, and 1663. In 1665 the

" duke's laws " (duke of York's laws) took effect in

the English colony of New York, and they con

tained a provision against profaning Sunday; colo

nial statutes for preventing desecration of Sunday

were enacted also by the general assembly of that

colony in 1685, and again in 1695, which were in

effect at the time of the American Revolution.

When the independence of the American colonies

was proclaimed, the continental congress called

upon the colonies (then called states), each for itself