Los Angeles daily herald., 1875-02-07
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R E S T..

perhaps, than that of having no time
to rest. In the busy, busy lives of
those who are, in any sense of the
word, workers-especially in our own
land, where everything conspires to
quicken our nervous energies to the
utmost-there seems little room for re-
pose. From years end to years end,
with the exception of an occasional
day, or a fortnight in the Summer,
hand and brain keep on, doing their
utmost, till by and by health wanes,
nie itai prostf alton eIsues, ami in
some way nature makes it's reprisals.
The brilliant student who carries off
the prize at the school examinations
not unfrequently misses them in the
sterDer competitions of life. The
oVerworked professional man dies of
exhaustion midway to the summit of
success. The merchant who pours his
life into profit and loss, and balances
his accounts in his dreams, falls VIC
tim to paralysis or apoplexy. ~ can
not take time to sleep,p. says the am
bilious toiler, pressing on to the goal
and the crown of the future, needless
of the day when he shall seek sleep and
find it flying from his pillow. Over
tasked fathers and mothers set TO their
children--inheritors of their own ex-
cited brains and uncertain nerves-ex-
amples of fretfulness and impatienee.
In early-lined brows and ly-fading
bloom we see the effects of too much
hurry, too little rest.
Z God sometimes sends an "enforced
pause.p 1t comes in the shape of
trouble, and fever, an unforeseen
journey, perhaps-w we call an ac-
cident--and we are taken out of our
ordinary lives and obliged to stop.
From the confines of the sick-room the
world recedes. The cares that loomed
SO large to our sight yesterday seem to
have gone away indefinitely. The
things that we thought nobody else
could do must be done by somebody,
and it seems to us strange that we felt
ourselves so important. Our vacation
has come-not the one we wanted, or
planned for, or intended, but the best
for US, bcause God has put it into our
llves-and he makes no mistakes.
There are fathers who would, strange
as 1T may seem, and wrong as it is,
never get acquainted with much but
their children's faces, if they We're not
now and then kept at home for few
days by illness. There are mothers
who, in their anxiety for their chill
dren's dress and department and cul-
ture, lose sight of the souls that they
possess, till some sharp wind of
sorrow blows the mists from their
eyes, and they feel that "the life is
raiment.n In the hour of GONZALES
cence, the book is read that has been
awaiting an interval Of leisure; the
song is listened to that the little
daughter has learned at SCHOOL,. the
buds on the rose bush in the window
are counted and exulted over; some-
thing kind and sweetis planned to be
done for the neighbor. Not
in vain has the Lord sent his pause
into the whirlsan the hurry and the
tumult in which the hours and days
were passing. aHE 5s
If we could, for ourselves, recognize
the fact that, to work we'll, we should
save ourselves the necessity of many
an hour of pain. One of the meretri-
cious phrases that has wrought the
mischief with many of us is that fa-
milar one, Better wear out than
rust out" If there were any real an
tithesis involved here If one, not
wearing out, must needs rust and be-
come useless-there might be sense in
words ike these. But the fact is, that
half of us wear out before we have
done any real earnest work, and some
of us rust even while we are trying to
do our best We shall most truly
serve our Master when we are physi-
cally and mentally at our best. And,
therefore, we ought to secure every
day, even the most intensely active
days, some golden space for solitude
and leisure.
Ofone, whose gifted sons and daugh-
ters have stamped their impress upon
their generation, it is said that, even
when most occupied with the crowd
ing cares of minister's wife in a.
country parish, with the superintend-
ence of school for young ladies. and
the duties that fill mothers heart
and. hands, she found time every
morning for her. hour in the little
chamber upstairs, whence she would
come with brow shining with the
peace of God. How often do we, who
have less to do, abbreviate our mo-
ments of. devotion, and SO wear our
days with ragged edges and miss the
glory of Gods sunlight from our
hearts! Keeping the vineyard of 9TH
ers, the refrain beats sadly on the ear,
"Mine own vineyard | have not kept;
not because was too idle, but because
[ tried to be too busy Let us re-
member that God himself has put Dig
nifty upon rest-that he has made it
the Joy of the heaven we hope for; and
Ic+ 49,, ~ ohafa or Iva i'm natiapt Uhan