Restlessness has a cause: must
not REST have a cause? Necessarily. If it were a chance world we
would not expect this; but, being a methodical world, it cannot be
otherwise. Rest, physical rest, moral rest, spiritual rest, every
kind of rest has a cause, as certainly as restlessness. Now causes
are discriminating. There is one kind of cause for every particular
effect and no other, and if one particular effect is desired, the
corresponding cause must be set in motion. It is no use proposing
finely devised schemes, or going through general pious exercises
in the hope that somehow Rest will come. The Christian life is
not casual, but causal. All nature is a standing protest against
the absurdity of expecting to secure spiritual effects, or any
effects, without the employment of appropriate causes. The Great
Teacher dealt what ought to have been the final blow to this infinite
irrelevancy by a single question, "Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles?"
Why, then, did the Great Teacher not educate His followers fully?
Why did He not tell us, for example, how such a thing as Rest might
be obtained? The answer is that HE DID. But plainly, explicitly,
in so many words? Yes, plainly, explicitly, in so many words.
He assigned Rest to its cause, in words with which each of us has
been familiar from his earliest childhood.
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