t; the Germans rest on
Sunday because the commandment requires it. But in the definition of
the word "rest" lies all the difference. With us, its Sunday meaning
is, stay in the house and keep still; with the Germans its Sunday and
week-day meanings seem to be the same--rest the TIRED PART, and never
mind the other parts of the frame; rest the tired part, and use the
means best calculated to rest that particular part. Thus: If one's
duties have kept him in the house all the week, it will rest him to
be out on Sunday; if his duties have required him to read weighty and
serious matter all the week, it will rest him to read light matter on
Sunday; if his occupation has busied him with death and funerals all the
week, it will rest him to go to the theater Sunday night and put in two
or three hours laughing at a comedy; if he is tired with digging ditches
or felling trees all the week, it will rest him to lie quiet in the
house on Sunday; if the hand, the arm, the brain, the tongue, or any
other member, is fatigued with inanition, it is not to be rested by
addeding a day's inanition; but if a member is fatigued with exertion,
inanition is the right rest for it. Such is the way in which the Germans
seem to define the word "rest"; that is to say, they rest a member by
recreating, recuperating, restoring its forces. But our definition is
less broad. We all rest alike on Sunday--by secluding ourselves and
keeping still, whether that is the surest way to rest the most of us or
not. The Germans make the actors, the preachers, etc., work on Sunday.
We encourage the preachers, the editors, the printers, etc., to work on
Sunday, and imagine that none of the sin of it falls upon us; but I do
not know how we are going to get around the fact that if it is wrong for
the printer to work at his trade on Sunday it must be equally wrong for
the preacher to work at his, since the commandment has made no exception
in his favor. We buy Monday morning's paper and read it, and thus
encourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do it again.

The Germans remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, by abstaining
from work, as commanded; we keep it holy by abstaining from work, as
commanded, and by also abstaining from play, which is not commanded.
Perhaps we constructively BREAK the command to rest, because the resting
we do is in most cases only a name, and not a fact.

These reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend the rent in my
conscience