Now what was it that was troubling him? In the first place he was tired. That was not to be wondered at, seeing that he had conducted three services in the course of the day. Most persons from the navvy to the king feel tired when their day’s work is finished, but this does not worry them. There is no more delightful sensation than that of real fatigue.
What chiefly troubled him was the fact that although the book he was trying to read was one dealing with spiritual matters, he was not only unable to give his mind to it, but could not even arouse any interest in the subject. He did not see that it was the most natural thing in the world that this should be so. If a surgeon were to perform three operations in one day, I am quite sure that he would wish to talk or think about anything except surgery. And if a pianist gave three recitals in the day, I believe that the last subject which would interest him would be music. His faculty for it, like the surgeon’s for his own art, would be exhausted for the time being. Why then should the parson who had thrown all his spiritual energies into his Sunday’s work be surprised to find that his active interest in such matters was in abeyance? His faculties had been confined to a certain groove all day, and refused to work any longer on those lines.
That parson was only a type, if a pronounced one, of many other people, business men, lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers and any other you can mention, who cannot make out how it is that if they think of their work in the evenings they only worry over it. Yet it forces itself upon their notice, and they cannot shake it off. They seek rest and find none because they seek it in the wrong way. They try to sit still and think of nothing, and that is the most difficult thing on earth for any intelligent human being to attempt.
We can arrest the movements of the body, but it is infinitely more difficult to stop the workings of the mind. The engine is going at full speed, and we are unable to pull it up. But we can do something equally efficacious, we can switch it on to a different line.
Change is rest.
We can give it change. And change is rest. There is nothing more wearying to a mind that is tired and yet strung up than for any man or woman to sit gazing moodily at the fire, fretting their nervous systems with the worries that should have been left behind. Recreation is as indispensable to health as food itself.
A fascinating novel, a pleasant game or an absorbing hobby will afford the wearied brain its much-needed relaxation.
And when, in one or other of these ways, the mind has been enabled to settle down into a quieter groove, it will be in a vastly better condition to secure the ideal form of rest, nature’s sweet restorer, sleep.
So important are these considerations, sleep, recreation and a kindred one, holidays, that they deserve more than a passing reference. In the next few chapters, therefore, we shall describe them more fully.