The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Rest

ow does the world, in general, define rest? Is it not as a state of perfect quietude and absence from all occupation? as a folding of the hands and reposing of the limbs? as a waking slumber? Certes, this rest, when it succeeds great and prostrating physical or intellectual labor, is refreshing and delicious; but is it the only, is it the most restoring, the most invigorating rest? We think not.

Change of employment, that turns the current of thought and action into new channels, often ensures more effectual delassement. Rest to earnest spirits, to well-developed minds, comes not in the shape of indolence; to them idleness would only generate a new form of weariness. Pleasurable activity, the summoning of unworn faculties into play, impart to energetic temperaments the rest they could never find in a dormant suspense of their powers. When their attention is engrossed by eager pursuit of some desirable object, they experience no sense of toil; when they are engaged in congenial occupation, especially when it has ​been preceded by that which was distasteful, they are resting; and though they work, their exertion fatigues them no more than it wearies a flower to expand its leaves, drink in the dew, absorb the sunshine; or a swan to float upon the crystal stream; or a fish to glide beneath the shining waters; or a bird to skim through the perfumed air; or a lamb to sport in flowery meads.

That disease of sluggish and imperfect organizations, that pleasant do nothing (save when it is the sequence of doing much, and thus needful to repair physical waste and exhaustion,) is the severest and most difficult of all labor; is positive torment to spirits whose healthful impulse bids them be

This unnatural stagnation withers their intellects as a mental simoom; it produces a conscious paralysis, and makes the struggling mind fight in impotent agony to use its sense-blunted instrument, the body. A giant chained, warring with fetters that gnaw into his flesh, is as much at rest as these rich, exuberant natures under compulsory quiescence. Their very gift of strength, their very capability for action, when unused, become burdens and entail misery.

When it is said of the "blessed" who enter that spirit world,

that they shall "rest from their labors," it could never be meant that they should endure perpetual repose, and endless lethargic inactivity. They shall rest from their warfare against the evil inclinations over which they have gained a victory, as the conqueror rests with laurelled brows after he has triumphed over his foes. They labor and are weary no more, but the rest they enjoy is congenial employment, a happy ministry, an untiring use of faculties quickened, heightened, perfected in that atmosphere where no work will be in vain; where our hearts will not ache, as now, over brave attempts defeated by circumstance; where no good purpose will be allied to infirm execution; where deeds will keep pace with aims; where noble labor will be followed by glorious fruition! The poet's soul spoke with the voice of inspiration when it said:

but work which knows no distaste, no coercion, no waste of power, no exhaustion! Work which carries in its bosom the truest, most delightful rest!