This is a premium most of us would be willing to work for, did we but see it. And we may see it if we will. If we ask of life that we get into harmony with its purposes; if we seek diligently even into our own hearts for those purposes; if we knock at the door of man’s full life, we shall find our asking answered, our search rewarded, and the door wide open. What a man desireth most, that, somehow, somewhere, shall be gain. Desire creates function.
And, when the soul has gained what it sought, we shall find beauties and virtues hitherto unsuspected in every human being; we shall learn that, above the turmoil and noise of our rushing, jarring, modern civilization, we can hear the morning stars sing together for joy, the music of the spheres, that which shall yet soothe man’s fear and teach him to find restful sleep.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE NEED OF REST
The bliss of an unbroken sleep.
Thos. W. Parsons.
To go in the wrong direction delays our journey and brings fatigue, but that fatigue may teach us needed lessons.
Man seeks happiness through outer things, hoping to find it in wealth, excitement, travel, self-gratification, and in countless other ways that the age-long experience of men have proved to be ineffectual; but he usually forgets that the wellspring of happiness is within. Long before Solomon had announced that “this also is vanity and vexation of spirit,” men had observed that riches do not bring happiness; that excitement wearies us, that travel is unsatisfying, and that gratification of the senses ends in exhaustion.
At last, in despair of satisfaction in the world, we have accepted the teaching that there is no rest on this side of the grave. We have even learned to glorify strain and the strenuous life as natural and desirable. At best, men have thought of rest as something that concerned the body, and have confounded it with sleep and inaction.
If we think we have important work to do, we say, “We have no time to rest,” as if any work would be laid upon us that ought to prevent us having rest. Draught horses have been bred for centuries for the sole purpose of work, yet a wise driver never overloads nor overworks his horse. He sees that it is comfortably housed, well fed, and has its needed rest. Shall we think that the Spirit of Life has less consideration for man than man has for the horse? That were in effect to say that man were greater and wiser than that which caused man, and which man has spent the ages trying to understand.