Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1875 — "Give Us a Rest.” [ARTICLE]

"Give Us a Rest.”

“ All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Many a youth has rung this old proverb into the cars of an exacting sire, and many an apologist for the youth has defended him on the generally-accept-ed truth of the statement. - Carry Jack up to manhood, and the proverb applies with equal, if not with greater, force. There are no people on the earth who should heed the indirect advice therein given more faithfully than the American. We are notoriously an active, restless, greedy race. Each minute must turn out coin of less or greater denomination, Or must add to the laurels of our brows, else the poor-house is brought into the imagination, or the specter of a Tameless name haunts our sleeping and our waking hours. We begrudge ourselves the respite of the legal holidays, and. if it were wholly a matter of choice and were considered to be the proper thing to do. we would even rob God of the Sabbath, if we could thereby increase our stock of gain or fame. Apart from the ethical considerations, there are other obligations which should be observed in this connection, and which can be ignored only at our peril. It will be unnecessary for us to present facts to prove that no' man can devote himself assiduously to work for each of the 365 days of the year without violating the conditions of his well-being and the tenets of his better judgment. In our inordinate thirst for gold we disregard every requirement of nature and of physical laws; we contemn the counsels of friends, and despise the advice of physicians. The almighty dollar is omr ignis fatuw. which, unlike that delusion, we may obtain, but how often it is with the loss of everything which can guarantee its enjoyment. “ Oh, curst desire of Slid,” said a Roman poet, “what ills ou bring’st upon the human race!” And of all the evils that spring from the love of money none are more pregnant •with disaster to the race than that inordinate desire for wealth which is gratified at the expense of health. The same is true of the man who indulges in lucubrations and unremitted mental exertion for literary and professional honors. We must rest. Take life easier. Carry our •vacations along with us—not postpone them until too late. Nature demands daily rest She will have it or ruin impends. The increase of paralysis and apoplexy is not due to extraneous and accidental causes, by no means. We bring them upon ourselves by our habitual “digging.” We exhaust ourselves in a few years and then death gathers us in the twinkling of an eye. As a people we need education in the science of “ taking a rest” It is a science, absurd as it may seem, and it has its laws, which must be heeded. It is not an infrequent thing to hear people who inherit a wonderful amount of energy, so-called, sneer at those who leave their business or their pulpit or their office eveiy/ summer season for a brief release from care, but such persons, so wise and so strong, are rather to be pitied than blamed. They are ignorant of physical laws. They sagely pronounce a man a weakling who pursues such a course, but we submit it to a rational public if they themselves are not the short-sighted ones and wretchedly in the wrong. We should, perhaps, give our people credit for increasing wisdom on this matter. Since the close of the war two days have been added to our list of holidays, and the great increase of our watering places and the larger per cent of those •who frequent them augurs well for the fhtore. Not only are the evils of a too close application to business immediately effective, but they give rise to new pluses of organic disease which descend to posterity, working ruin upon all future genera-

tipns. Take out the fire, Qr open the safety valve; otherwise, lie ready at anv moment for the explosion. — Roc/mUr (N. Y.) Democrat.