I have no doubt there are many of these too-hard workers amongst you, my dear girl friends, who grudge the time spent in rest, who hurry over your meals, who regard innocent recreation as almost sinful, because it interrupts your labours and defers the completion of some task you have set yourselves.
Believe me, time is never more truly wasted than it is by those who work too long, without pausing to refresh the weary mind and body. Time is saved if, when nature cries aloud for rest, we put aside the work we love and do absolutely nothing until we can return to it with a sense of fitness and freshness.
"Do nothing!" you exclaim. "Why, that would be the hardest task of all. We may compel our hands to be idle or our tired limbs to rest, but thought will still be busy. The mind cannot be coerced."
Perhaps not in a sense, but if we wish it, we can turn our thoughts into a restful channel. What can be more restful and delightful than to sit with closed eyes and folded hands whilst we think over God's gracious dealings with us and make a mental catalogue of a single day's blessings? What can so renew our strength to work, as a little season spent in thanking God for the power to labour? What will be more helpful to us than a quiet time with Him whilst the world, its cares and its business are shut out, and we, alone with our Father, ask for wisdom to use without abusing our time and all the powers He has entrusted to us?
Cultivate the habit of leaving off work when nature craves for rest, and you will find it, both for soul and body, by fixing your minds on God.
You need not utter either prayer or thanksgiving, but your thoughts may overflow with both, and He who can read them will accept your heartfelt thanks and answer your unuttered prayers by giving you a sweet sense of peace and renewed power to work for Him.
Oh, it is lovely just to get away from the world and its bustle and toil for a little while and spend it in thinking of the goodness and love of God in Christ Jesus! Our work may well wait in the meantime.
I was with some dear friends who were sight-seeing in town, and who, accustomed to the quiet of a country place, were almost bewildered with the din of the great city. We were near St. Paul's, and how glad we all were to enter the great church and to rest there in a quiet corner, unconscious of all the noise and traffic which still went on around it.
My friends' stay in town was to be a short one, and they were all eager to see as many of its sights as possible. Did they grudge the little time spent in peaceful communion with God, or deem it wasted when there was so much to attract them in the great city? Ah, no!