great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that
field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should
do this.

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot
hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world
will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure
of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have
died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.

Blue Laws in Old New England.

How the Puritans, Seeking and Finding Toleration for Themselves, Become
Themselves Intolerant--Sunday Observance With a Vengeance--Death
Penalty for Disobedient Children.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

People who object to modern laws for the regulation of conduct may, after
all, consider themselves fortunate. Sometimes anti-cigarette laws are
resented as infringements on personal liberty. But what shall we say of a
law under which, in a certain colony, the mere possession of dice or
playing-cards was punishable by a fine?

The old "Blue Laws" of Connecticut, or, strictly, of New Haven Colony, are
not, in their frequently quoted form, true Blue Laws. Attention was first
attracted to the collection by the publication of a "General History of
Connecticut" in England in 1781. The author was a Tory minister, the Rev.
S.A. Peters, who had been forced to flee from the colony. In the
circumstances, it is not remarkable that his volume should bear many signs
of spiteful exaggeration.

The Rev. Mr. Peters, however, did not invent the Blue Laws, though he has
often been charged with so doing. All but two or three of the forty-five
are to be found in the works of earlier writers, or, slightly modified, in
the statute books of the various New England colonies.