Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/240

 nal Godhead, It is this, above all, which is the reason and motive of Sunday rest; a rest sanctioned by God's great law of the ancient covenant—Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day, and taught to the world by His own mysterious "rest" after the creation of man: He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

If we turn now to things external and corporeal, the first concern of all is to save the poor workers from the cruelty of greedy speculators, who use human beings as mere instnmients of money-making. It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies, Man's powers, like his general nature, are limited, and beyond these limits he cannot go. His strength is developed and increased by use and exercise, but only on condition of due intermission and proper rest. Daily labor, therefore, should be so regulated as not to be protracted over longer hours than strength admits. How many and how long the intervals of rest should be must depend on the nature of the work, on circumstances of time and place, and on the health and strength of the workmen. Those who work in mines and quarries, and extract coal, stone, and metals from the bowels of the earth, should have shorter hours in proportion as their labor is more severe and trying to health. Then, again, the season of the year should be taken into account; for not infrequently a kind of labor is easy at one time which at another is intolerable or exceedingly difficult. Finally, work which is quite suitable for a strong man cannot reasonably be required from a woman or a child. And, in regard to children, great care should be taken not to place them in workshops and factories until their bodies and minds are sufficiently developed. For just as very rough weather destroys the buds of spring, so does too early an experience of life's hard toil blight the young promise of a child's faculties,