Threaded together on Time’s string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife[2]
Of the eternal, glorious King.
On Sunday Heaven’s gate stands ope’.
Blessings are plentiful and ripe,
More plentiful than hope.”
Our poet-pastor was no gloomy ascetic. He revelled, so to speak, in this good gift of God, and sang His praises with a joyful heart. Whilst picturing all the varied aspects of the country parson’s life, and noting its sad experiences, he gives us a picture of him “In mirth.” “As knowing that nature will not bear everlasting droppings, and that pleasantness of disposition is a great key to do good;” and “Instructions seasoned with pleasantness both enter sooner and root deeper. Wherefore he condescends to human frailties, both in himself and others, and intermingles some mirth in his discourses occasionally, according to the pulse of the hearer.” Other duties ended, “At night he thinks it a very fit time, suitable to the joy of the day, either to entertain some of his neighbours or be entertained by them, and to discourse of things profitable and pleasant. As he opened the day with prayer, so he closeth it, humbly beseeching the Almighty to pardon and accept our poor services and to improve them, that we may grow therein, and that our feet may be like hinds’ feet, ever climbing up higher and higher unto Him.”
I feel sure, my dear girls, that in giving you these beautiful pictures of Sabbath joy, I have done you a real service. I have never forgotten either the words of my village friend or the effect produced on me by the first reading of the country parson’s “Sunday.” Both reflected the mind of the Master they served, and to-day their example and words are well worthy of our imitation.
Thus far I have said little about “Rest,” except in connection with the “Day of Rest.” It is delightful to note that from the very beginning there was a Divine recognition of the need for rest, and that the Creator’s plan for bestowing the blessing was so wide in its application. It was ordained for man in the first instance, then extended to the animals that had been subdued to service under him, and, later still, to the land. Long before the children of Israel had ended their wanderings in the desert, the command was given to them by Moses, “When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord.” “In the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest unto the land.”
The Israelites, who had been for so many generations the bondsmen of Egypt, and then for forty years wanderers in the desert, had to be divinely taught what pertained to a settled mode of life. As landowners, they had to learn that each crop yielded takes something out of the ground, and that it must have a period of rest, or its power of production will be exhausted. Hence the Sabbath for the land. In our time the chemist has taught the farmer that by putting certain substances into the ground, he can restore what the crop has taken from it; but in times within my own memory the remedy was to let the land lie fallow—that is, at rest for a year before it was sown again.