5 Sermon Illustrations on Divine Rest

An association of twenty physicians voted yea unanimously on the question: "Is the position taken by Dr. Farre, in his testimony before the Committee of the British House of Commons, in your view, correct?" — that men who labor six days in a week will be more healthy and live longer, other things being equal, than those who labor seven; and that they will do more work, and do it in a better manner."

In the year 1839 a committee was appointed in the legislature of Pennsylvania, who made a report with regard to the employment of laborers on their canals. In that report, they say, in reference to those who had petitioned against the employment of the workmen on the Sabbath, "They assert, as the result of their experience, that both man and beast can do more work by

74. resting one day in seven, than by working on the whole seven." They then add, "Your committee feel free to confess, that their own experience as business men, farmers, or legislators, corresponds with the assertion."

In the year 1832, the British House of Commons appointed a committee to investigate the effects of laboring seven days in a week, compared with those of laboring only six, and resting one. That committee consisted of Sir Andrew Agnew, Sir Robert Peel, Sir Robert Inglis, Sir Thomas Baring, Sir George Murray, Fowell Buxton, Lord Morpeth, Lord Ashley, Lord Viscount Sandon, and twenty other members of Parliament. They examined a great number of witnesses, of various professions and employments. Among them was John Richard Farre, M. D., of London; of whom they speak as "an acute and experienced physician." The following is the testimony:

"I have practised as a physician between thirty and forty years; and during the early part of my life, as the physician of a public medical institution. I had charge of the poor in one of the most populous districts of London. I have had occasion to observe the effect of the observance and non-observance of the seventh day of rest during this time. I have been in the habit, during a great many years, of considering the uses of the Sabbath, and of observing its abuses. The abuses are chiefly manifested in labor and dissipation. Its use, medically speaking, is that of a day of rest.

"As a day of rest, I view it as a day of compensation for the inadequate restorative power of the body under continued labor and excitement. A physician always has respect to the preservation of the restorative power; because, if once this be lost, his healing office is at an end. A physician is anxious to preserve the balance of circulation, as necessary to the restorative power of the body. The ordinary exertions of man run down the circulation every day of his life; and the first general law of nature, by which God prevents man from destroying himself, is the alternating of day and night, that repose may succeed action. But, although the night apparently equalizes the circulation, yet it does not sufficiently restore its balance for the attainment of a long life. Hence, one day in seven, by the bounty of Providence, is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect by its repose the animal system.

"I consider, therefore, that, in the bountiful provision of Providence for the preservation of human life, the sabbatical appointment is not, as it has been sometimes theologically viewed, simply a precept partaking of the nature of a political institution, but that it is to be numbered amongst the natural duties, if the preservation of life be admitted to be a duty, and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act."