Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

So the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirms that, "Conducting and attending religious worship are among the very purposes for which the law protects the day, and, therefore, all the means which common usage shows to be reasonably necessary for these purposes are not forbidden (Common. v. Nesbit, 34 Penn. St. R. 398).

[ocr errors]

It is true that an inconsiderable minority keep another than the first day of the week as their Sabbath. It is inevitable in organized society that the rights of the few be limited by the competing rights of the many. So far as the interests of the community as a whole will permit, it is just that exceptional provision be made, as is done in many of the States, for those who observe Saturday.

These grounds, upon which Sunday, as a civil institution, has been shown to rest, define also the limitations of civil intervention for its maintenance. In other words, the State may not go beyond such legislation as is necessary to protect, on the one hand, the right to undisturbed worship and a decent respect for the day, and, on the other hand, the right to rest. How far within these limits the right should go, depends largely upon public sentiment. In a country like ours laws are ineffectual unless they express the prevalent public sentiment, and this in one community will demand and sustain more restrictive legislation than in another. It may not always be wise to enforce rigidly even the existing laws. The same State law covers communities diverse in their character, and may be easily enforced in one community while impracticable in another. A law, too, even while partially or temporarily inoperative, may have a reserve power to be brought into action when some emergency arises which stirs the public sentiment to demand its enforcement.

IV. There is yet another consideration which should not be overlooked in vindicating the claim for a legally-protected Sunday rest, and in estimating its relations to our free institutions. It is a consideration which, if not distinctly defined in the statutes and decisions of the Courts, has not been without influence in determining our laws, and has not failed of recognition by thoughtful students of our institutions. It is the influence of the Sunday observance in promoting the intelligence and morality of the people. Said Burke, "To make a government is one of the easiest things. It is only for one to command and for the others to obey. To give freedom is likewise easy. It is only to relax all control and let men do as they will. But to make a free government is

the most difficult achievement of man's reason." To secure the just ends of the State and its stability, there must be control. The less the proportion of control exercised directly by the State over the individual, the greater must be the measure of control exercised by the individual over himself. In the great pyramids, stability is secured by the mere pressure of superincumbent weight. In a building of brick, however plumb its walls and symmetrical its proportions, the pressure from above is insufficient; there needs some means of cohesion, the mortar that shall bind each brick to its fellow and keep it in place. Of this self-control the elements are intelligence and morality. It is, therefore, the duty of the State to foster whatever will promote these.

It is, we think, no exaggeration to say that the Sunday rest, in its opportunities for thought, for reading, for social intercourse, in its churches and Sabbath-schools, is a means of popular intelligence equal to all other agencies combined. To vast numbers engaged in exhausting toil on farms, in factories and mines, it affords almost the sole opportunity and means of intellectual improve

ment.

But there is a more important element of self-government than intelligence. Facts contravene the excessive confidence which has very widely been placed in educational agencies as a means of good citizenship. For instance, of two thousand one hundred and twenty-seven convicts received 'from 1875 to 1884, into the Pennsylvania Eastern Penitentiary, one thousand five hundred and fortyseven had been pupils of the common schools, sixty-five had been educated in private schools, and only four hundred and fifty-two had never attended school. Intellectual cultivation by no means necessarily tends to ethical progress, but frequently rather sharpens and stimulates evil propensities. The moral element is the main factor in self-government. May we be pardoned for quoting the familiar words of Washington: "Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." The relation of religion to liberty, asserted by De Tocqueville in his brilliant essay fifty years ago, has been re-affirmed by the latest and most acute and practical critic of our American institutions: "History *** tells us that hitherto civilized society has rested on religion, and that free government has prospered best among religious peoples. *** The more democratic republics become, the

more the masses grow conscious of their own power, the more do they need to live not only by patriotism, but by reverence and selfcontrol, and the more essential to their well-being are those sources whence reverence and self-control flow." We have italicized the last sentence, as formulating our argument. How close the connection between the religion of the people and the Sunday observånce needs no demonstration. The recognition of a divine law and the obligations under which men are to a Divine Ruler, of which the weekly observance is to so large a part of the community the memorial, constitute the moral underpinning necessary to sustain the superstructure of human rights and duties. It was in a decision sustaining the Sunday laws that the Supreme Court of New York declared that "the public peace and safety are greatly dependent upon the protection of the religion of the country."-New Englander and Yale Review.

He who asks questions properly, and wishes to be convinced, and approaches the way of truth, without contentiousness, has no need to be bashful; because he is sure, by means of the things I have mentioned, to please him to whom his questions are addressed. -Bardesan.

SUMMER BOOM.-A few days since a famous lawyer sat in his shirt sleeves in his inner office, with his feet on a window-sill and a cigar in the corner of his mouth, at half-past ten in the morning. People came to see him at short intervals and they were all told that he was engaged at an important conference up-town, but that he would be at the office between twelve and one. At twelve o'clock the lawyer had finished his cigars, got through with the papers, and narrowly escaped falling asleep half a dozen times.

At the stroke of the clock a remarkable change came over him. He pulled on an alpaca coat, brushed his hair back from the bulging forehead, buttoned the coat up severely to the neck, and sat down in his consulting room, surrounded by ponderous tomes and legal documents. All the people who had been to see him that day crowded into the office at twelve o'clock and patiently waited for a chance to speak to the great man. All were impressed by the tremendous rush of business in hand. The outer room was crowded to suffocation. At one o'clock the last of the callers had been disposed of and the statement went forth that the lawyer could see no one else until twelve o'clock the next day.-Blakely Hall's New York Letter.

MR. EDITOR-I find myself in a quandary in the matter of Digests, and have to ask you if you cannot help me out of it. I am, of course, not alone in the scrape, for every other lawyer and law library is equally so, though not all to the same extent. We have been quietly making ourselves, from year to year, the recipients of the successive volumes of the United States Digest, but all at once find ourselves abandoned by our old friend, and an avalance of the article is showered upon us. The Complete, The General, and The American all come down upon us with a rush, each with proof positive that it is the best and only reliable one, and each containing proof, most conclusive that both of the others are imperfect, incomplete, and frauds on the profession. Now what are we do? We can't afford to buy and lumber up our shelves with all three, so which shall we buy? The answer very naturally must be, to buy that which will hold out the longest, for most surely two of them must fail, and that right soon. So which has the best or rather the strongest background to rest against? Any information that you can give your subscribers and the public will be gratefully received.

But the difficulty already alluded to is not the only one nor indeed the worst. The references or citations in all of the works mentioned are mainly to the quantity or periodical pamphlets and not to the published volumes, as has been the case in times past with the United States Digests. What are we to do in the future? The periodicals are not at hand and even if they were, we cannot spare the time to go through them in any work of investigation. Now what is to be done with this difficulty? The only way out of it, as it seems to me, is to go back to the old system, take the United States up at Vol. 20, and let the three new starts go to the wall. The present status must be abandoned, and the sooner the better. It is very clear that neither of the three present published Digests is what is wanted. Even if perfect in their kind, they do not answer the call of the profession, and as by the evidence they are all very imperfect, let us as quickly as possible come to the right. ALBERT W. PAINE. Bangor, Me.

[No doubt there is likely to be a suspension of one digest, but it is difficult to predict which, as the American seems to have the strongest financial position, and as a key to the Reporters, might be profitably given away. The publishers of the General Digest might be able to be equally generous for the benefit of their Lawyers' Reports. In this respect the Complete appears to be at a dis

advantage, and is made the target for the squibs of the West Publishing Co., as mentioned in our last. That rivalry indicates, of itself, that there is not room enough for more than one digest. This is lamentable, as embodying the causes of a monopoly, and I hope all three digests may survive, to prevent such an evil, if for no other reason. Doubtless, if the publishers of the Complete Digest have to meet the competition of cutting prices, they will find some chromo to go with their work; and the profession will find out that the demand for quantity and the latest half-made law, has resulted in a thorough demoralization of their libraries. There is but one feasible remedy, and that is to buy only those books which are worthy of being read, and for the balance, clubbing together and sustaining law libraries in every town. For the profession cannot now avoid the Reporters; the judges have grown so accustomed to having the latest authority to follow, and it is so convenient to be brutally knocked down by the last guess of the Court of Appeals, that a lawyer cannot argue to the literally lower Court judges. And if there is need for the latest decision, no selection of cases will answer.

The great difficulty with the profession arises from the absurd idea that every lawyer must have a library. That is a luxury not to be had under five thousand dollars, unless the owner is willing to keep up a sham of old text-books and antiquated digests. The reports and leading cases do not cease to be of value as long as a lawyer practices, but, for his estate, they are next to valueless. The problem, then, relates not only to digests, but extends to the whole range of law books, necessary, ornamental, and useless. And yet, I believe too many lawyers are ignorant of even the names of books which they ought to have read, to be filled with a legal method of thinking.

The great difficulty, after all, arises from the system of forty odd Courts of last resort. If the system of courts could be graded in progressive, rising steps toward the Supreme Court at Washington, there would first have to be found a method for hastening their decisions. That is the root of the whole trouble.-ED.]

BUILDERS do not make cities out of cities; nor, similarily, temples out of temples. For it is not the substance which makes the city or the temple, but the art which is employed about the substance. Neither, again, does the art proceed from any art inherent in the substances, but it arises independently of any such art in them.-Maximus [A. D. 185.]

« PředchozíPokračovat »