The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1867-09-27
Regarding Work and Rest.

Now and then, when / am tired,
when / have worked long and YEARLY,
and have had some experience
of the attritions of man with man, aud
have gained some new light respecting
the moral condition of imperfect ard
unsanctifed men, say to myself
"Well, you have worked more than
the ordinary allotted period Of man.
life, and would it not be better for
you now to withdraw and give place
to younger men, and spend, in an ele-
CANT leisure the declining period of
your life?' 1t is n temptation of the
devil. And when | get rested, when
get one sound nights sleep, and my
nervous energy is restored again, and
my system is renvigorated ] am
amazed at myself; and in the morning
| fagellate the man that | knew last
night
Retire from life? ] observe that
trees keep all their beauty to the
closing periods How beautiful is
the tree when it comes out of winter,
and puts on all its delicate tints and
shades of green We then look upon
the tree as though it was n new crea-
ton, and we say Surely, God never
made anything SO beautiful as these
trees and yet when summer deep
ems their hues, and they become more
robust. and we see what vigor and
freshness and succulencv there is in
/ them, we say. after all, give me the
summer tints. They are far better
than the spring delicacies" And yet,
when the October days have come,
and the last part of the tree life for
the year is enacted, and we see the
gorgeous yellows, The rich browns, and
the magnificent scarlets, we say
"rhere, the last is the best" And
might we not take pattern from the
trees Might we not follow up our
youth and manhood with fair colors
and delicate tints to the end of life +?
/ do not think that man ought to
want to rest in this world. He may
desire to achieve the means of setting
himself free from physical taxation. -
He may say; Il will relinquish, in a
measure, this, that l may transfer my
activity to other spheres" That, it is
proper for a man to do. But for a
man to retire from life and society af-
ter he has been an active force there
in, and filed his sphere with useful
ness, and seen the fruits of his labor
multiplied at his hand, and know the
satisfaction of well-spent years ma
ture itself rebukes it. But many a
man, at the age of forty-five years,
says to himself: Il am worth $500,
600, and what a fool | am to work
any longer. | am going to buy me
an estate in the country, and be a
gentleman" He buys him an estate,
and undertakes to be a gentleman
but man who has nothing to do is
no gentleman. He goes into the coun-
try, and learns how to cape, and
learns how to wish be knew what to
do He goes into the country in or
der in order to take the ears every
morning, and come to the city every
day to see what is going on. And be
soon discovers that he has made a
mistake, and says: "What fool
was l thought I was unhappy, but
| see | was not" And he becomes
Disconnected, and before two years
have gone he sells his country place
for fifty per cent less than he gave
and goes back to the city and enters
into new partnership, and says: 81
have learned that man had better
not give up business so long as he is
able to attend to it. He could,
think, have learned it without going
through the practice. A man ought
not to be obliged to stumble upon up
on every evil of life in order to find il
out. Something ought to be learned
from other peoples blunders- There
are enough of them. Henry Ward
Beecher,