p. 150 | The Sabbath Rest

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 7, 1862

The Sabbath Rest.

No one muscle of the body, no one set of muscles can be continuously used, without an eventual paralysis, or total loss of power, until restored by rest. But if one class of muscles be employed for a time, then another while the former is at rest, the two thus alternating may be kept in motion, without the slightest fatigue, for hours together. A child may even cry with the weariness from walking; but present him suddenly with a beautiful little wagon, and allow him to take hold of it and draw a companion over a smooth road, the offer will be accepted with alacrity, and the amusement will continue for a time, equal to the walk, without any complaint of being tired; on the contrary, there will be a freshness of action, new and delightful. Many a traveler has rested himself from

riding on horseback or in a carriage, by alighting and walking a mile or more; simply because a different combination of muscular action is brought into play; either a new set of muscles, or an action of old ones in a different direction; all going to show that the muscular system, the whole body, will have rest, or must prematurely perish. Precisely alike is the law of the mind, whose faculties are various. A man who thinks intently upon a single subject becomes incapable at length of concentrating his thoughts upon that subject to advantage, and instinctively lays down his book, his model, or his pen to take a walk. The attention of the French government has lately been drawn to the alarming fact, that "one in every ten of the scientific branches of the army finishes his course in a lunatic asylum, in consequence of the severe attention to mathematical training." The rector of the training college of Glasgow says, from long and extensive observation, that he "will undertake to teach a hundred children in three hours a day as much as they can possibly receive; that is, when a child has been kept at study three hour, its brain becomes incapable of pursuing it further advantageously, until rested. These things show that unless mind and body both have rest, both will be destroyed; and to save both Divine wisdom issued the precept "in the beginning," "On the seventh day thou shalt rest." It was no arbitrary command; it was an injunction fraught with wisdom and benevolence.—Hall's Journal of Health.