"
Lists of arrests and fines for walking and travelling unnecessarily on the
Sabbath might be given in great numbers, and it was specially ordered
that none should "ride violently to and from meeting." Many a pious New
Englander, in olden days, was fined for his ungodly pride, and his desire
to "show off" his "new colt" as he "rode violently" up to the meeting-house
green on Sabbath morn. One offender explained in excuse of his unnecessary
driving on the Sabbath that he had been to visit a sick relative, but
his excuse was not accepted. A Maine man who was rebuked and fined for
"unseemly walking" on the Lord's Day protested that he ran to save a man
from drowning. The Court made him pay his fine, but ordered that the money
should be returned to him when he could prove by witnesses that he had
been on that errand of mercy and duty. As late as the year 1831, in
Lebanon, Connecticut, a lady journeying to her father's home was arrested
within sight of her father's house for unnecessary travelling on the
Sabbath; and a long and fiercely contested lawsuit was the result, and
damages were finally given for false imprisonment. In 1720 Samuel Sabin
complained of himself before a justice in Norwich that he visited on
Sabbath night some relatives at a neighbor's house. His morbidly tender
conscience smote him and made him "fear he had transgressed the law,"
though he felt sure no harm had been done thereby.
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