Very touching is the appeal of Ashmanezer to be left in peace, which was engraved on his Sarcophagus at Sidon,—now in Paris.
"In the month of Bul, the fourteenth year of my reign, I, King Ashmanezer, King of the Sidonians, son of King Tabuith, King of the Sidonians, spake, saying: 'I have been stolen away before my time—a son of the flood of days. The whilom great is dumb; the son of gods is dead. And I rest in this grave, even in this tomb, in the place which I have built. My adjuration to all the Ruling Powers and all men: Let no one open this resting-place, nor search for treasure, for there is no treasure with us; and let him not bear away the couch of my rest, and not trouble us in this resting-place by disturbing the couch of my slumbers…. For all men who should open the tomb of my rest, or any man who should carry away the couch of my rest, or any one who trouble me on this couch: unto them there shall be no rest with the departed: they shall not be buried in a grave, and there shall be to them neither son nor seed…. There shall be to them neither root below nor fruit above, nor honor among the living under the sun.'" [10]
The idle man does not know what it is to rest. Hard work, moreover, tends not only to give us rest for the body, but, what is even more important, peace to the mind. If we have done our best to do, and to be, we can rest in peace.
"En la sua voluntade é nostra pace." [11] In His will is our peace; and in such peace the mind will find its truest delight, for
"When care sleeps, the soul wakes."
In youth, as is right enough, the idea of exertion, and of struggles, is inspiriting and delightful; but as years advance the hope and prospect of peace and of rest gain ground gradually, and
"When the last dawns are fallen on gray,
And all life's toils and ease complete,
They know who work, not they who play,
If rest is sweet." [12]
[1] Gray.
[2] Jefferies.
[3] Tennyson.