T H E   L A D I E S '   R E P O S I T O R Y .

CINCINNATI, OCTOBER, 1844.

      REST is one of the sweetest words that has ever saluted the ears of mortals--one that is calculated to infuse tranquility into the breast, when sorely tried by the sorrows of life, and which renews our hopes in our most joyless moments. It is also suited, in the most admirable manner, to the wants of our nature amid the toils and trials of a world like this--so much so, indeed, that all persons, in every state and situation in life, are prepared to admit, and eager to enjoy the pleasure which it is so well calculated to impart.

      In order to bring before our readers some illustrations of this fact, we shall not be compelled to adopt remote inferences, or far-fetched examples. The proofs are spread around us in endless profusion; and we may at will adduce them from the conduct and experience of joyous infancy, and from the matured reason of hoary age. Look for a moment at the calm and peaceful rest of the child wearied with its play in the pleasant fields, where, the live-long day, it has culled the bright flowers, or has been seduced into a long and weary chase by the glowing wings of the gilded butterfly; or turn to the aged and way-worn man, who, after spending many wearisome years in the eager pursuit, it may be, of fame or gold, at last, worn out by his exertions, and the weight of increasing years, leaves all his former pursuits, and eagerly desires to pass the few remaining years of his life in the pleasant valley which gave him births--the scene of his youthful sports and recollections. Look at such a one when, faint and weary, he is drawing nigh to the scenes of his childhood: see him at the close of day, when the last rays of the fading sunlight are shedding their bright hues over hill and plain--the last summit is nearly gained, whose top hides from his view the scenes so well cherished in the halls of memory--his limbs, already faint, can scarcely bear him forward; yet a thousand mingled feelings conspire to urge onward his faltering steps. The summit is gained--the village spire meets his view, and embowered amid honeysuckle and vine, he sees once again the home of his youth. His toils and dangers are all forgotten--the thought of rest steals over his soul as softly as the mother's lullaby to her slumbering child, and years of calm and uninterrupted repose, like sweet visions, spring up to fancy's gaze; and when his home is gained he finds the rest he has so long and so ardently desired.

      How ardently does the captive, too, chained to the oar, or the slave of the mine, desire a cessation from his labors? His dreams are of all things beautiful, and of all things free--his cottage, so far away, his wife and little ones, whose gentle smile and lisping tones seemed to be harbingers of the rest which awaited him when the toils of the day were past. He wakes--the scenes portrayed before him were but a mockery, and he sadly sighs for the rest of the grave, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." We might also ask, why does the merchant toil and labor so many long and tedious years? Why does the soldier, in the pursuit of what men call glory, endure every species of hardship and misfortune? Why does the mariner launch boldly out on the pathless and untried deep, and risk all the chances of wind and wave? The answer is, to lay up for themselves a sufficiency of this world's goods, and thus be able to rest in the calm downhill of life. No matter how great the dangers to be encountered, or the difficulties to be overcome, they are all met with cheerfulness, and conquered by fortitude; provided only that rest is to be the reward of their toil.

      After what we have said, it is very easy to perceive that the prospect of rest is a powerful incentive to action; and if we feel disposed to trace out the conduct of the great Creator of all, we shall find that all his dispensations to our race have been conducted on this principle. And here we cannot fail to be struck with the wisdom of that Being who, in his approaches to man in his fallen and degenerate condition, struggling with the products of a cursed earth, and earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, presented rest before him as the greatest motive to strict obedience to his divine commands. In the Scriptures we have four rests spoken of, which we shall briefly consider, as proofs of the fact we have previously stated, namely, that God has uniformly presented rewards to his servants under the idea of rest. To begin with the Old Testament, we learn, nearly at its commencement, that the Creator, when he had, by his almighty fiat, called this stupendous frame of nature into being--when he had called light and order from darkness and confusion--when he had spread the arch of heaven, spangled with its ten thousand times ten thousand luminaries, over the new-made earth; and when man, "his last, best, noblest work," rose from the molding hand of his Creator--when he surveyed with delight the new earth, formed like a regal palace, in which he might dwell and rule as lord of animated nature; and when the elder sons of God, joining in the sweet chorus of the morning stars as they rejoiced over the finished work, the Creator himself, recognizing by his own example the importance to be attached to sacred rest in all future time, rested on the seventh day from all the works he had made. But we are not to suppose from this that any degree of weariness [306] was experienced by the Creator, but that he knew perfectly the nature of the being for whom all this work was done, and, as a dim foreshadowing of his final destiny, left this example, which being imitated by man, might be a faint type of that rest to which he would finally attain. But to advance farther, when the land of Canaan was promised to Abraham and his descendants, was not that land, from that hour, looked forward to as the bright land of promise--the land of rest?

      But in order to enjoy rest, it is highly necessary that we should have some acquaintance with its opposite. The man brought up in ease and indolence, whose every desire is gratified, and whose every wish is anticipated, is not at all prepared to experience the sweet influence of rest with any thing like the same degree of delight as the tired laborer returning from the field when his toil is done.

      Thus we find that the Israelites spent many and long years of toil and suffering in the land of Egypt, before they were permitted to inherit the pleasures and the joys of the goodly land which God had promised to give to their fathers. With what joy must that people, after their wearisome journey through the desert, have beheld the land of Canaan spreading out before their vision in all its richness, and in all its beauty! The toils of the journey were all forgotten, or, if remembered at all, only served to make their happiness more complete by the recollection of the dangers through which they had passed. They stood on its borders--they gazed with new delight on its beauties--the sterility of the desert, and its parching sands, were among the things of the past, and the hope-illumined future beckoned them on. They crossed the waters of the Jordan--they entered into rest.

      But that rest, and all the advantages to be derived from it, were of an earthly and transitory nature. Its possessors proved themselves unworthy of the favors which had been conferred upon them. They seemed to have mistaken the rest which they enjoyed for that of which it was but the type, and thought of none other than that which they possessed. The result was, they were rejected of God; and the land in which they dwelt, partaking of the curse, from one of the most delightful spots on earth, became a parched and barren desert.

      But the New Testament presents the true rest before us in the most pleasing manner--that perfect rest which the Savior himself came to impart. The children of Israel had been ground down by excessive toil, and the rest which they obtained was the very opposite of this. But instead of the body being wearied, in the New Testament we find that it is the soul of man which suffers. A continued struggle is going on in the mind; and the words of the prophet, when he says there is no peace to the wicked, are verified in the experience of every unregenerated son and daughter of Adam. To the burdened soul, laboring under such unrest as this, how sweet and full of comfort are the words of the Savior, when he says, "Come unto me all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" Yes, here the troubled soul finds the rest it has long sought with so much anxiety and solicitude. The heart's wild tumult in a moment ceases at the voice of the Savior--all its angry passions subside, like the waves of Tiberias when he spake and there was a great calm.

      But we must not think that the Christian's life is one of inaction and dull repose. The very reverse of this is true. The mind is now released from its fearful forebodings--the terrors which formerly agitated the soul have departed--the mind has found a peaceful quietude to which it was previously a stranger; but if we stop here, and are content with this, we shall fail of attaining that eternal rest which is held out as the reward to those who persevere to the end.

      We have already remarked that the joy of the Israelites was greatly heightened by the contrast which the promised land doubtless presented to the toils and afflictions which they had escaped. So the glories of the eternal rest will, doubtless, be prized in proportion to the difficulties and dangers we shall encounter in attaining to those blissful mansions. That it was the intention of the Author of our religion that Christians should be active and untiring in their efforts, will be easily made plain by a reference to some few of the allusions which are made to the Christian life on the pages of the sacred Oracles. Those engaged in the Christian cause are often represented as performing a journey--as running a race--as enlisted in a glorious cause; and in all these various pursuits, we cannot but be struck with the propriety of proposing rest as the reward of all their exertions. Is the Christian life a pilgrimage, how aptly does the figure agree with the end proposed! He sets forth, staff in hand--his long and wearisome journey must be accomplished step by step. The steep ascent of the mountain must be surmounted--the thick forest and the howling wilderness must all be encountered--he must be exposed to every variety of hardship--the heat of a vertical sun must pour its fiercest beams on his unprotected head--he must meet alike the dread simoon and the piercing blasts of the north; yet he has the consolation of knowing that each day brings him nearer to the place of his destination. He reaches it at last, and then how sweet is that rest! He looks back over the long years of his pilgrimage: the scenes through which he has passed--the toils which he has endured--the privations he has undergone--all spring up with life-like vividness before him; [307] but he feels they are for ever past--he is in the possession of a rest that never faileth, and he feels that for every pain he has endured he has received a rich and bountiful over-payment of delight.

      But do we view the Christian contending in the race as a candidate, not for a crown of laurel, but for one whose lustre never fades, and the flashing of its jewels far excel in beauty all the diadems of earth! He starts with the greatest alacrity; and though the race be long, his eye is fixed firmly on the bright reward which he sees glittering before him. Every impediment is laid aside--every nerve is stretched to its utmost tension, and his whole conduct declares that he so runs that he may obtain. He loiters not by the way to view the scenes which tempt him to desert the straight path--gems at his feet, and flowers on every side, cannot induce him to slacken his pace--they are all mere baubles in comparison with the prize for which he is contending. His course is still onward--he feels faint from his exertions, and the goal is not yet gained; yet he stops not. The crown which is before him, the rest which awaits him when his toil is done, arouses every latent energy of his nature to new exertions--he presses on with new vigor, and the task is accomplished; and, though weary with toil, he enters into rest.

      Behold the Christian warrior panoplied in the whole armor of God, pledged to fight his battles, and to follow wherever his Captain may lead! The warfare is to be conducted in the enemy's country. He must watch by night and fight by day--the wiles and stratagems of his adversary are to be guarded against--his armor must ever be girded on, his sword ever unsheathed; yet, amid all his privations, he goes forward with courage. The Commander under whose banners he marches never lost a battle, but ever leads his armies on to certain and glorious victory. Fired with a noble ambition, he contemns all danger--presses valiantly forward, cheered with the pleasing hope that when the war is over he will be released from all his toils, and enjoy the rest destined for those who fight manfully the good fight of faith, that they may lay hold on eternal life. How sweet must be the rest, how delightful the repose which they now enjoy! The pilgrimage is ended, the race is over, and the victory won. The crown--the reward of their exertions--is placed upon their heads, and they enter upon a rest that shall know no end.

      But what shall we say with reference to the nature of this rest? It is far, very far above the language or even the conception of mortals. Paul felt himself unable to unfold, to its full extent, that exceeding and eternal weight of glory. John, in his sublime visions, could by no means equal its beauty and glory. It were worthy of the tongues of angels to describe all the untold grandeur of that rest which remaineth for the people of God. There the white-robed elders stand, ever pouring forth their ceaseless songs. Seraph, and cherub, and all the lofty intelligences of the skies, up to the tall archangel, are assembled there. The tree of life presents its fruit to the longing taste, and they behold the bright flashings of that river, the streams of which make glad the city of our God. But higher than all these, above seraphim and cherubim, and all the bright hosts which throng the skies, we shall see the King in his beauty, even the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. And while eternity rolls on, no jarring note shall ever disturb our joys--no fear of being deprived of these pleasures shall ever ruffle the tranquility of our bosoms; for to those who attain to this blissful rest, the promise is, "They shall go out no more for ever."

[The Ladies' Repository 4 (October 1844): 306-308.]

      William Baxter's "The Christian's Rest" was first published in The Ladies' Repository, and Gatherings of the West: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to Literature and Religion, Vol. 4, No. 10, October 1844, pp. 306-308. This volume, edited by E. Thomson, was published in Cincinnati by L. Swormstedt and J. T. Mitchell for the Methodist Episcopal Church.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 6 April 2000.
Updated 28 June 2003.