p. 11 | Life, Labor, Rest by S. O. JAMES

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 22, 1909

Life, Labor, Rest

By S. O. JAMES

S. O. JAMES

“TRULY the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” Thus wrote the wise man many centuries ago. It has always been so. Once gifted with life, once upon the stage of action permitted to witness God’s harmonies, the endless variety in his workmanship, to love and be loved, how we prize his gift! Tenaciously we cling to it, and only when sin has dethroned reason, do we dare to put forth the hand for its destruction, to launch into the ocean of eternity and meet its Giver unprepared.

Even the poor criminal tramp, homeless, wifeless, childless,—that one who apparently has the least to live for,—will work, if it be only to walk the road and beg, that he may live. Then at close of day, weary in the exercise of his graceless trade, if haply he shall find a bed, he must rest. To live is to labor. To labor is to become weary, but what heart so calloused, so hard and inhuman, that it may not feel at least one throb of gratitude when a kindly voice and loving hand invite and beckon to a resting place?

There was labor in that sweet life whose influence still prompts and quickens the toiling worker. The walk to the mountain in the gloomy night, that he might commune with a loving Father,—a soul-refreshing privilege,—the journey over the burning sand by day and the sail over the lashing waves of Galilee, were made that he might rescue one wandering away from his love, and prove to him the sweetness of that rest eternal.

Hear him, dear reader, brother, friend. He sends out the invitation, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Physical weariness is a light thing. It may even be sweet as the price of a day’s work well done; but my Saviour was weary of sin and its heart-rending effects. Are not you also?

Spencer, Iowa.