Genesis 2:2-3 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.… Man needs the Sabbath — i.e., one day of rest after six days of toil — for his secular nature, alike bodily and mental. The testimony of physicians, physiologists, political economists, managers of industrial establishments, etc., is emphatic on this point. Let me cite some instances. Dr. John William Draper, the eminent physicist and author, writes as follows: "Out of the numberless blessings conferred on our race by the Church, the physiologist may be permitted to select one for remark, which, in an eminent manner, has conduced to our physical and moral well-being. It is the institution of the Sabbath. No man can for any length of time pursue one avocation or one train of thought without mental, and therefore bodily, injury — nay, without insanity. The constitution of the brain is such that it must have its time of repose. Periodicity is stamped upon it. Nor is it enough that it is awake and in action by day, and in the silence of night obtains rest and repair; that same periodicity, which belongs to it as a whole, belongs to all its constituent parts. One portion of it cannot be called into incessant activity without the risk of injury. Its different regions, devoted to different functions, must have their separate times of rest. The excitement of one part must be coincident with a pause in the action of another. It is not possible for mental equilibrium to be maintained with one idea, or one monotonous mode of life...Thus a kind providence so overrules events that it matters not in what station we may be, wealthy or poor, intellectual or lowly, a refuge is always at hand; and the mind, worn out with one thing, turns to another, and its physical excitement is followed by physical repose. Lord Macaulay, in his speech before the House of Commons on the Ten Hours' Bill, spoke thus: "The natural difference between Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling when compared with the difference between a country inhabited by men full of mental and bodily vigour, and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude. Therefore it is we are not poorer, but richer, because we have, through many ages, rested from our labours one day in seven. That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machines the machine compared with which all the contrivances of the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless — is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporeal vigour." (G. D. Boardman.) Parallel Verses KJV: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. |
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