Worldly Employment

In a statute which prohibits performing worldly employment on the Lord's day, has been held to include driving a public conveyance (a street car) for hire. Commonwealth v. Jeandell, 2 Grant Cos. 506. Also, driving an omnibus. Johnston v. Commonwealth, 22 Pa. St. 102. The term worldly employment, in such a statute, does not include such household or family work as pertains directly to llie proper duties, necessities, and comforts of the day; and this work may be done by any member of the family, including domestics. The statute does not forbid a domestic servant to drive his employer's family to church on the Lord's day, in the employer's private conveyance. AH the various worldly employments are allowed which in their nature consist of acts of necessity or charity, or if they become so for the time being. In such cases, necessity and charity demand the work, and with it all th# ordinary means of doing it. Conducting and attending religious worship are among the very purposes for which all the means which common usage shows to be reasonably necessary for these purposes are not forbidden. Moreover, the law does not condemn those employments which society regards as necessary, even when theyencroach on the Lord's day, if, according to the ordinary skill of the business, it is necessary to do so. And then, the business being recognized as necessary, it may be performed by means of the services of others, and by all the ordinary means of the business, so far as it is necessary. Commonwealth v. Nesbit, 34 Pa. St. 398.