t that will not
respond to the quickening touch of spring and send out its sweet odours
in the embracing warmth of the summer night? Suppose that you had made
a house for a child, and given him a corner of the garden to keep, and
set him lessons and tasks, and provided him with teachers and masters.
Would you be satisfied with that child, however diligent and obedient,
if you found that he was never happy, never enjoyed a holiday, never
said to himself and to you, 'What a good place this is, and how glad I
am to live here'?"

"Probably not," I answered, "but that is because I should be selfish
enough to find a pleasure of my own in his happiness. I should like to
take a day off with him, now and then, and his gladness would increase
my enjoyment. There is no morality in that. It is simply natural. We
are all made that way."

"Well," said my Uncle Peter, "if we are made that way we must take it
into account in our philosophy of life. The fact that it is natural is
not a sufficient reason for concluding that it is bad. There is an old
and wonderful book which describes the creation of the world in poetic
language; and when I read that description it makes me feel sure that
something like this was purposely woven into the very web of life.
After the six mystical days of making things and putting things in
order, says this beautiful old book, the Person who had been doing it
all took a day to Himself, in which He 'rested from all the things that
He had created and made,' and looked at them, and saw how good they
were. His work was not ended, of course, for it has been going on ever
since, and will go on for ages of ages. But in the midst of it all it
seemed right to Him to take a divine day off. And His example is
commended to us for imitation because we are made in His likeness and
have the same desire to enjoy as well as to create.

"Do you remember what the Wisest of all Masters said to his disciples
when they were outworn by the weight of their work and the pressure of
the crowd upon them? 'Come ye yourselves apart into a lonely place, and
rest awhile.' He would never have bidden them do that, unless it had
been a part of their duty to get away from their task for a little. He
knew what was in man, more deeply than any one else had ever known; and
so he invited his friends out among the green hills and beside the
quiet waters of Galilee to the strengthening repose and the restoring
joy which are only to be found in r