Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-08-19

From the Christian at Work.
The truth is that the very rapidity of our life,
the wakefuness and wastefulness of our times,
the strain and drive of all pursuits. make longer
periods of sleep necessary for Us than people
living In more quiet countries and Mt a slower
rate. We get tired enough If we are well. and
if we do not get tired enough to sleep all over
and clear through 1t is sign of nervous dis
order. Sleeping is something more than a
luxury for Americans. though the very opposite
would be inferred from our habits. There is no
way by which the wear and tear. the drain and
strain of American life can be neutralized but
by large feasts of sleep every now and then. and
a generous allowance every twenty-fOur hours
Four hours work Of man who is thoroughly
awake and vitalized, at the top of his faculties,
are worth more for all practical business or lit
erary or social purposes than fourteen hours of
weary muscles and jaded nerves and flaccid i'm
pulses. The man at his best is worth one hun
dred per cent more than the same man fatigued,
depressed and demOralized If he has no vital
electricity playing through him he is a weari-
ness to Others and burden to his own SOUL II
he is conscious of having one. And to keep at
this top condition of fiber and faculty he must
be good sleeper and sleep We'll When Mr.
Beecher was asked how he managed to keep his
congregation so wide awake at a second service
he replied: SPY taking big dose of sleep in the
afternoon. 1t is my sleeping that keeps my
SohSiSSdtlou tiWuhc. IHt tIHc given W steep
is not so much loss Of lfe but so much gained,
and at dOubly enhanced valuation.
1t is easy to say ''sleep much and WE'LL" but
there are many unfortunate people who can
not sleep much. and the little sleep they get
is disturbed and unrestful. How to sleep is a
question which. in some instances, it taxes the
skill Of physicians to the utmost to answer.
Persons afflicted with insomnia are often great
sufferers. and their lives are shortened by the
disease. There are persons who require much
less sleep than Others and it is useless for them
to WOO soft slumbers to their pillow for they
will not come. A popularity of constitution is
not disease and should not be doctored. With
the disorder known as insomnia we
shall not venture to deal. But with the ma
iOrity of people sleep is regulated by
habit, convenience, within. They make
it yield to every other considera-
ton. People who would not omit meal on
any account will throw away half their allow
ance of sleep for the merest trifie They do not
feel the Importance of giving the system its fill
of unconscious refreshing. and hire entertainers
to clip off two or three hours from the needed
restorative in the evening, and set an alarm
clock to cut away an hour or more at daybreak.
They seem to think that they can steal from
sleep with impunity. when it is pretty much the
only thing that Furnishes every pilferer of it as
he goes along. Others destroy the possibility Of
sleeping well by carrying all their cares and
troubles and griefs and ambitions to bed with
them, and one might as well seek rest on rack
as with such bedfelOws. The ability to lay off
cares and perpleXities, like ones clothes. and
dismiss everything that can excite the brain or
disturb the emotions, may be gained by cOntin-
nous effort even when it is lost.