According to the twentieth chapter of Exodus, the fourth commandment reads as follows: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
Those to whom this Mosaic law was first given interpreted it very literally, as do many religious people to-day. The pioneers from across the sea who first settled in New England were particularly rigid in their strict observance of the Sabbath day, or Sunday, as their so-called blue laws clearly indicate. This technical obedience to the exact letter of the law was handed down through many generations of pious, God-fearing men and women, whose memory and example we, in coming after, respect and revere; yet, in course of time, it came to press too arduously upon the growing pulse of the nation. There are doubtless some among us to-day who can recall the last of those abnormal conditions, when their childhood was haunted by the anticipation of the coming each week of the inevitable Sunday, wherein all ordinary occupations were put aside, all books but the Bible tabooed, all secular and cheerful conversation hushed, all laughter suppressed, and a usually happy household plunged into a period of silent gloom, which was, in some mysterious way, supposed to be befitting so solemn an occasion as the coming of the Lord's Day.
This was, of course, a condition too strained and unnatural to remain indefinitely; and the pendulum finally swung to the opposite extreme. Instead of a too strict observance of Sunday, many of those still rankling under the memory of a tormented and suppressed childhood determined, as soon as they were in a position to decide for themselves, that there should be no Sunday at all, except as an occasion for extra merrymaking and amusement. Strange and perverse, indeed, is the carnal mind; and how impossible it seems to be for it to maintain an even balance about anything! First one way and then the other it swings, like some weather vane veering in the wind, never at rest, but always readily responsive to the latest whim of some passing breeze. There still appears in many sections an effort to make of Sunday a day of diversion only, during which pent-up restlessness finds an outlet in whatever amusement happens to appeal most to each individual.
