Ah, brethren, this age is an age of care. We live too fast by half, we do too much and accomplish, therefore, too little. Our good sires could afford time for lengthened family devotions of a character which seem impossible to us. They could listen to sermons which would altogether tire us, and snap the bands of our patience, because their minds wore of a more solid order and their lives were vexed with fewer cares. We are all hack and hurry, we ride the whirlwind, we are scarcely satisfied with the speed of lightning. Now, Christian people cannot rush at this pace without serious injury to themselves unless they often refresh themselves with the comforts of God.

The Sabbath day is the great safeguard for the sanity of merchants and business men, and those who break the Sabbath to bring business cares into the one day in seven act a suicidal part. If oftener in the other six days Christian men would get alone with God, pour out their hearts before him, tell him their cares, and unveil to him their souls, they would have more ease of mind, be more strong for the struggle of life, and less likely to fail through an over-wrought brain. “In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.”

The Londoners in the olden times went into the fields on May Day morning to bathe their faces in the dew, for they thought it made them fair; I would that every morning we bathed our faces in the dew of heaven, so should we be comelier to look upon when mingling with men in the business of the day. If every night before we went to sleep we dipped our foot in the ocean of divine love our sleep would be more sweet to us, and care would not corrode and eat into the heart and even into the bodily constitution, as I fear it does in a great number of cases in this weary age. Get away to your God, O Christian!

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Medicine For The Distracted," delivered June 8, 1873. Image by Steve-h on Flickr under Creative Commons License.
Posted by Nick at 7:20 AM Labels: Christians, God, labor, religion, sabbath, Spurgeon Oh, if he could see us now.

August 6, 2011 at 1:42 AM August 9, 2011 at 1:57 AM Mark 2

28Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
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