"The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill."
Is it that we may become "tolerably harmless dolls?" How shall we
answer for having used our endurance only so much as may make us wait
with common patience for next month's number of _Belgravia_; our
foresight in choosing a pattern for a mantle which shall be fashionable
enough to be worn next autumn; our skill in crochet-work, and our
strength in skating on the outside edge.
No wonder we do not value the Sunday rest. We know that heavenly
mansions are being prepared for us to enjoy the heavenly rest in, and
that we must prepare ourselves for these mansions, or we shall not be
permitted to enter them. Then let us take pains to prepare our earthly
houses for the right use of the day of rest, and be able to go up to
the house of the Lord with the multitude that keep holy-day.
We should so put our houses in order on Saturday that we may really be
able to rest on Sunday. Some works of necessity must be done, such as
the dinner prepared; but by dining early, and doing as much as possible
on the previous day towards its preparation, the labour may be reduced
to a minimum.
There will be no needlework, no cleaning or dusting, no marketing to be
done on Sunday. Pies and tarts should have been made on Saturday, a
double quantity of potatoes and other vegetables prepared, and a
general foresight used.
Sunday is a good day for sending out a large joint to be baked, and a
pudding also; indeed, this seems the opportunity for the national roast
beef and plumpudding dinner. So that, in fact, beyond laying the cloth
and removing the things used at meals, there is absolutely no work to
be done beyond the five minutes' daily occupation of each person in
making his or her own bed, as the re-arrangement of the used dinner
things may be left till the following morning. The table is cleared as
if by magic, if every child is told to put in its place two things, or
three things, according to the number of things used and the number of
children to put them back. Each person replaces his or her own chair,
and the Sunday work is over. Life is not so hard to us as it was to the
country squire's wife half a century ago, who always gave her servants
physic on a Sunday because it was no loss of time. To us the Sunday is
very helpful in another way: it keeps us from living too fast; without
this wholesome stop we might drive ourselves on to frenzy.
Many if not most of us feel lazy and desultory on Monday morning (which
therefore had better be employed on some kind of desultory and
irregular work), and we only get ourselves warm in the harness by the
middle of the week. We go on working with gradually increasing
excitement until Saturday night, when some sensible friend hints that
it is too late to make a bad week's work good; precious Sunday comes to
ease the strain, and the human machine is oiled and cooled.
Let us be diligent during the week, and lengthen our days by beginning
them earlier, so as to do most of our work in the morning; then with a
clear conscience we may leave off our play as early as we please and go
to rest: we shall enjoy the Sunday repose which we have earned, and
find ourselves refreshed instead of wearied by it.
I will conclude this essay in the words of Macaulay--words which he
considers among the very best he ever wrote. "Man, man is the great
instrument that produces wealth. The natural difference between
Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling when compared with the difference
between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and mental vigour,
and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude.
Therefore it is that we are not poorer but richer, because we have,
through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is
not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the
furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the
factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of
nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the
machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the
contrivances of the Watts and Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing
and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with
clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour.
Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger and
healthier and wiser and better can ultimately make it poorer.
"If ever we are forced to yield the foremost place among commercial
nations, we shall yield it not to a race of degenerate dwarfs, but to
some people pre-eminently vigorous in body and in mind."