Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1872-08-29
Helena, Montana, Thursday, August 20, 1879.
sleep the hest stilnnIanI.

Inc pulpit, tne DeICn, tne Oar, the forum,
have contributed their legions of victims to
drunken habits. The beautiful woman, the
sweet singer, the conversationalist, the peri
odical writer, have filled, but too often, the
drunkards grave. Now that the press has
become such great power in the land, when
the magazine must come out on certain day,
and the daily newspaper at a fixed hour, no
thing waits, everything must give way to the
inexorable call for copy, and sick or well,
disposed or indisposed, sleep or awake, the
copy must come The writer must compose
his article whether he feels like it or not, and
it he is not in the vein of writing, he must
whip himself up to it by the stimulus of
drink. Some of the greatest writers of the
country have confessed TO the practice, on
urgent occasions, of taking a sip of brandy
at the end Of every page or even oftener. 1t
may have escaped the general readers no.
tice that more men have died young who
have been connected with the New York
press within ten years, and that too from in
temperance, than in all the other educational
eallings put together-young men whose tai
ents have been of the first order, and gave
promise of usefulness, honor and eminence
The best possible thing for man to do when
he feels too tired to perform a task or too
weak to carry it through, Is to go to bed and
sleep week if he can. This is the only true
recuperation of brain power, the only actual
renewal of brain force. Because, during
sleep the brain is in sense of rest, in con-
dition to receive and appropriate particles of
nutriment from the blood, which take the
place of those which have been consumed in.
previous labor, since the very act of thinking
consumes, burns up solid particles, as every
turn of the wheel or screw of the splendid
steamer is the result of the consumption by
fire of the fuel in the furnace. The supply
of consumed brain substance can only be
had from the nutriment particles in the blood
which were obtained from the food eaten
previously, and the brain is SO constituted that
it can best receive and appropriate to- itself
those nutriment particles during the state of
rest, of quiet, and of stiffness in sleep Mere
stimulants supply nothing in themselves
they only goad the brain, force it to greater
consumption of substance, until that sub
stance has been so fully exhausted that there
is not power enough left 10 receive supply,
just as men are SO near death by thirst or
starvation, that there is not power; enough
left to swallow anything, and all is over.
The incapacity of the brain for receiving re-
cuperative particles sometimes comes on with
the rapidity Of a stroke of lightning, and the
man becomes mad in an instant, loses sense.
and is an idiot. 1t was under circumstances
OF this very sort, in the very middle of SEN
tence of great oratorical power, one of the
most eminent minds of the age forgot his
ideas, pressed his had upon his forehead, and
after moments silence said, "God, as with
sponge, has blotted out my mind" Be as
sured, readers, "There is rest for the weary, !"
only in early and abundant sleep, and wise
and happy are they who have firmness to re-
solve that 'By Gods help will seek il in no
other way."-HdTs JourI.dl Of Health.