THE RIGHT WAY OF RESTING.

WHATEVER it may import, there is no "sign of the times" more conspicuous than the honour put upon labour and the high rank sustained by working-men. Despite the dark theories and hoarse murmurs of Preston agitators, who would set up "Labour" as the Nemesis of "Capital," we think that never in the history of this world was labour so honoured, or so honourable, as in the reign of Queen Victoria. What is capital but the pyramid which the brain and hand of toil erect, brick by brick? And who will deny that some of the most symmetrical, if not the loftiest, of these pyramids, have been raised from the very base by workingmen? Could the serf of the olden time stand up again to witness the wages and the privileges of the workers of today, he might be pardoned for thinking that he had risen on the "new earth" for which inspired prophets prepared garlands of richest imagery. He would find princes and peers, philosophers and poets, now wearing alike as decorations. the insignia of industry. He would find idlers regarded as wasters in society, and producers alone deemed worthy of laurels. Nor have the achievements of labour ever been so marvellous. We need not go far for examples. We have only to think of the brief period which elapsed between the first princely projection of a Great Exhibition of the industry of all nations and the day on which it stood as a glorious realisation. We have only to reflect on the almost matchless process by which 50,000 sheets of more than Sibylline potency are sent from Printing-House Square before nine every morning. We have only to look at that barge-load of dirty rags floating up the river, and remember that in a few days it will be metamorphosed by labour into the “Times”

THE RESTLESS NATION.

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newspaper, and will convey intelligence, all but ubiquitous, to the palaces of royalty and the cottages of peasantry throughout the world.

This contemplation often makes us feel glad and grateful that we are living Englishmen; for in England's catalogue of honours there is not one which stands pre-eminent over those attained by its industry. Englishmen know how to work. So much do they love work, and so much has a bountiful Providence given them to do, that but for the millions of pounds annually wasted in the nurseries of disease, improvidence, and crime, there need not be an ablebodied pauper in the country.

But if we can boast that Englishmen know how to labour, we fear that we cannot say that they know how to rest. This is a great defect in their national character. An Englishman's is, perhaps, the most jaded and weary life in the world, while, from the superlative greatness of his privileges, it might be the most elastic and happy. His rest is often turned into weariness, and his recreations are usually labour in disguise.

Observe a group of Neapolitans round their dish of macaroni, or a company of Frenchmen fraternising over eau sucré, and you will see contentment, repose, tranquillity. Follow an Englishman let loose from his day's labour, and see how he walks through the dry places, seeking rest and finding none; finding nothing but fatigue, for it is rest that he requires, and it is excitement that he seeks. Stand by the evening throng on a Spanish alameda, and learn from the artisanos of Spain how to enjoy a walk. To an Englishman a walk is no enjoyment, unless there be a terminus at the farther end, a game, a ploy, a spectacle: it is not enough that his friends are at his side, and that every step is a progress health-wards.

Here is a Turk, who has earned his scanty piastres, and

on his mat, with his mocha and his "pipe of repose," he is soon immersed in all the delights of an undisturbed serenity. But in trying to attain the Turkish kef, we have heard of a rather fast Young-Englander, who got through twenty-five cigars in a single evening. And many of our readers must have seen a German family enjoying an excursion on the Rhine. They did enjoy it. Young and old seemed happy,cheerful, social, amusable, living in the surrounding scenery and letting in all the gladness with which earth and air were teeming. But, alas for John Bull, with his subjects and satellites! Grudging the bill he paid at the last hotel -grumbling at the steam-boat dinner regretting that they did not take another route-hoping that they will soon come to something better-lecturing his wife for bringing so much luggage-and scolding his servant for forgetting the guns and fishing-tackle-he "vexes himself in vain," and till he adopt a new system, it is evident that he may travel to the ends of the earth and reach the last of his days, without overtaking rest and enjoyment.

Everywhere is a bustle. Englishmen make most things toilsome. Princes in wealth, our merchants go always topspeed; and, goaded by ambitious lusts, they rush past every breathing station. Even "voices of warning that announce to us only the inevitable," fail to arrest them at a goal of repose. And only think of the day and night routine of a West-End season being considered enjoyment, whilst many of the devotees have to spend succeeding months of ennui in recovering the wasted energies of the system!

With the feverish element which has got into our AngloSaxon temperament, what we exceedingly need is calm, repose-the art of resting. But without entering farther at present into a subject which deserves the best consideration of those workers, who, withal, are thinkers, we cannot forbear to add our persuasion that, above all races of our

human family, the Englishman requires "the Sabbath of the Lord;" and in order to get the good of it, he would need to make it a religious resting. He would need to discard all worldly anxieties from his mind, and surrender, unreservedly, to the holy and soothing influences of which the day is full, and in virtue of which it becomes to its observers so fraught with healthful renovation and reviving elasticity.

But as soon as the religiousness of the Sabbath is destroyed, we believe, that to a nation like ours, there will be an end of its restfulness. Not to speak of the numbers who must toil, if others are to play, the thousands and myriads to whom the Sabbath will become a day of drudgery if it is to be made to the million a day of amusement, -we hold that all such projects as the opening on Sunday of Museums, the Crystal Palace, &c., are only an aggravation of our national distemper. It is prescribing a dram where the disease is a fever. It is providing a rest-ruining excitement to those who are dying for want of repose.

The devil is the great task-master; and whether in the form of slavish toil or riotous excitement, his great object is to keep up the bondage. It was to destroy the works of the devil that the Son of God was manifested, and it is He who says, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you REST." And not the least part of that "rest," into which believers even now enter," is the physical repose and spiritual renovation of a sanctified Sabbath.

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T. H. T.

THE EARNEST STUDENT.*

JOHN MACKINTOSH, the youngest son of William Mackintosh, Esq., of Geddes, was born in Edinburgh, January 9, 1822. Besides all the advantages of a refined and improving society, in his early home he enjoyed the instructions of a pious and affectionate mother; and it would seem that he exhibited from the outset that gentle, truthful, and loving nature which distinguished him to the close of his career.

In the Edinburgh Academy he gained the first medal of his class in each of the seven successive years; and when he afterwards went to Glasgow College, he obtained the highest honours in the Latin, Greek, and Logic classes. Here, too, besides the classical enthusiasm which teachers like Ramsay and Sandford urged to its fullest fervour, the mind of the young student was destined to receive a still better inspiration. His tutor, James Halley, gave him Baxter's "Saints' Rest," and the reading of it solemnised his spirit and turned his thoughts towards the unseen realities; and, chiefly through conversations with older students, he was ere long conducted into the enlargement and peace of the Gospel.

*The Earnest Student; being Memorials of John Mackintosh. By the Rev. Norman Macleod, Minister of the Barony Parish, Glasgow." A book of no ordinary interest. Full of the most instructive materials and admirably compiled, we are sure that a career of unusual popularity awaits it; nor can any student peruse it without being quickened by its example of candour, assiduity, and happy self-consecration. As a fine trait of catholicity on the part of the editor, it ought to be mentioned, that he has devoted the proceeds of his publication to the missions of the Free Church of Scotland, of which Mr. Mackintosh was a member. Mr. Macleod himself is a distinguished minister of the Established Church of Scotland.