“We are apt to think,” said Henry S. Baker, “that a rest of twelve hours, with a sleep of about eight fully recuperates us after a day of hard work at physical or mental labor or both. The microscope shows such a view to be wrong. Even twenty-four hours is not quite enough time, strange as it may seem. The microscope shows that more than thirty hours, possibly thirty-three or thirty-six, are needed to restore a cell to its proper size and condition after severe fatigue. In other words, man is so made that he needs a Sabbath from Saturday evening to Monday morning of complete rest to be as good as new. Without this he is never at his best, physically, mentally, morally or spiritually. So we find the fourth commandment is in the nineteenth century echoed from the biological laboratory with tremendous emphasis, and again we are compelled to admit that He who spoke at Sinai must have made the brain cell and understood its secret workings. Again is our faith made firmer that the Old Book is not wholly manmade.”
The Sabbath was made for man, body and soul, as the two railway tracks are made for the two wheels, and only on the smooth track of God’s law can your life run smoothly or safely.
CHAPTER XXIV
Be a Sabbath Observer
A gentleman who had great respect for the Sabbath was going to church. He was a peculiar man, and would sometimes do and say singular things. On his way he met a stranger driving a heavily laden wagon through the town. When opposite the wagoner, he suddenly stopped, turned around, and, lifting up both hands as if in horror, exclaimed, “There, there, you are going over it! There, you have gone right over it!” The driver was frightened, and drew up the horses in an instant, crying: “Whoa! Whoa!” He looked under the wheels, expecting to see the mangled remains of some innocent child, or at least a dog, that had been crushed to death. But, seeing nothing, he gazed at the gentleman who had so strangely arrested his attention, and anxiously asked: “Pray, sir, what have I gone over?” “The fourth commandment,” was the reply. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” (Exod. 20:8).
This commandment God wrote on “tables of stone” (Ex. 24:12) thousands of years ago, and not only on stone but also in man’s nature. Sir Robert Peel once said he never knew a man to escape failure either in mind or in body who worked seven days in the week. To observe it is a duty we owe to ourselves and to our God. To neglect or disuse it is to incur God’s displeasure and with it the ills incident thereto.
About a century ago, the National Assembly of France, consisting mostly of infidels, abolished the Sabbath. It was not long, however, before a wail of distress went up all over the land, demanding the recognition of this “Day of Rest,” and obedience to the will of God. It is to the credit of our legislators that they have never suggested such a thing, yet hundreds and even thousands of men and boys desecrate it. But—
“A Sabbath profaned
Whatever be gained
Is a certain forerunner of sorrow.”