The English Puritans of the time of James I., were the first to impose the name and character of the Jewish Sabbath upon the first day of the week, and those who came to America brought the name and the idea with them. To that seventeenth-century influence, and not to any scriptural or ecclesiastical teaching of any earlier time, are we indebted for sermons on Sunday observance. The doctrine held on that subject by most evangelical Christians is not yet three hundred years old. In 1625 was passed a law (1 Car. I., Cap. 1,) that “There should be no meeting, assemblies, or concourse of people out of their own parishes on the Lord’s day, for any sports or pastimes whatsoever; nor any bear-baiting, bull-baiting, interludes, common plays, or other unlawful exercises or pastimes used by any persons within their own parishes.” “_This statute_,” says Blackstone, “_does not prohibit, but rather impliedly allows any innocent recreation or amusement within their respective parishes, even on the Lord’s day, after Divine service is over;_” _and, in point of fact, both Charles I. and his father before him issued proclamations encouraging such amusements after Divine service._ In 1676 was enacted the well known “Lord’s Day act,” of 29 Car. II., Cap. 7, which prohibits generally all work, labor, and business on Sunday, except works of necessity and charity, and which, with more or less modification, forms the basis of all Sunday laws now extant in the United States. Exceptions to this law in favor of hackney coachmen, fishwomen, and chairmen, were enacted in 1694, 1699, and 1710, and a clause prohibiting bird hunting was subsequently added, but it remained in substance until alterations and repeals of English laws ceased to have any force in this country.” As an historical matter the question is not very abstruse and the truth is well enough known to scholars everywhere; should there not then be charity for honest convictions? In many cases the practice for years has been tolerably liberal while all the time the old and stringent puritanical Sunday laws of 1702 were retained on the statute books liable to be enforced whenever a minority should choose to demand their revival. [Illustration: Belmont Avenue Brewery, NEWARK, N. J., GOTTFRIED KRUEGER, PROPRIETOR. _For historical sketch, see Appendix C, page 183._]