We rest on Sunday, because the commandment requires it; the Germans rest on Sunday because the commandment requires it.

But in the definition of the word "rest" lies all the difference.

With us, its Sunday meaning is, stay in the house and keep still; with the Germans its Sunday and week-day meanings seem to be the same--rest the TIRED PART, and never mind the other parts of the frame; rest the tired part, and use the means best calculated to rest that particular part.

Thus: If one's duties have kept him in the house all the week, it will rest him to be out on Sunday; if his duties have required him to read weighty and serious matter all the week, it will rest him to read light matter on Sunday; if his occupation has busied him with death and funerals all the week, it will rest him to go to the theater Sunday night and put in two or three hours laughing at a comedy; if he is tired with digging ditches or felling trees all the week, it will rest him to lie quiet in the house on Sunday; if the hand, the arm, the brain, the tongue, or any other member, is fatigued with inanition, it is not to be rested by addeding a day's inanition; but if a member is fatigued with exertion, inanition is the right rest for it.

Such is the way in which the Germans seem to define the word "rest"; that is to say, they rest a member by recreating, recuperating, restoring its forces.