The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1883-03-31
HE COULD NOT SLEEP.
Sermon Preached by Rev. Il.
Dewitt Talmage.
There Is Nothing Like an Aroused Con-
science to Keep Man Awake
When he Courts Slumber.
suBJEcr--A sLEEPLEss NIGHT.

"On that night could not the king
sleep. ."-ESTHER vi. l.
Three persons seated at table in
Persian palace. AhasueTus, granuer III
stature and more beautiful Ill FEATURES
than any man i'll all his army OF Two
million, three hundred ana seventeen
Thousand men. Esther, the belle OF Lne
empire. the most attractive woman OF
Ali the nation brought together In
grouD. and she selected out Of the group
6re-emInently attractive. Haman, who
was Drime minister, or secretary Qf
state, the Bismarck Of the realm. stanu
ing next to the king. IL ls private
party in the queens parlOrs. lOu may
yet some idea of the bill OF rare Wnen
tell YOU that the whole empire was trl6-
utaTv to that table. What rare meat
of bird. and fish, and quadrupedI What
rare fruit of ralSin, and ng, ana pOlne-
Rranate, and apples of gold In casket5
of silYerl What rare wines smacKlng
of the sunshine OF ARABIA ana syria!
The upholstery looking as II ~ nau DSen Ss
dyed in rising and setting suns. The
furniture of room and table most pecu-
Iiar-each chair, and lounge, and cup,
and tankard, and spoon, OF an lndepen-
dent pattern, drawn out by the artists
of the king. The floor LOOKING ike
fallen rainbow. Clouds OF curtains
lowering amid marble and statuary
lnD luuSlC Vi a AulA DAhN ASA
the laughter of Minnehaha, or the voices
of falling waters. But now the sun
strikes aslant through the queens ban
uuetiuQ-hall and across the r1ndS and
peelings Of the grape clusters, and the
path of the spilled wine, and the lntOxl-
Gated cheeks of the blear-eyed banquet
ers. Ahasuerus rises to depart. The
officers Of the palace appear as his escort.
With laundering and staggering step
he gets into the sedan and Is carried to
his canOpied couch, and retires for the
night. Come in, O sleepl through the
window hangings of TyTian purple, and
put your soft feet on the kings eyelids.
Wait upon him, sweet dreams! There he
is, the owner of all the world that Is
worth owning from India to EthiOpial
Let the chamberlains draw the curtain
around this son of fortune. Let the
lights be lowered. Let the sentry out
side the door stop their pacing. Let
n everything be silent. The officers of the
guard outside give their orders in
whisper, Night In Sh lshan; Nlght In
all the land. Night in the palace.
Standing outside the sleeping apart
ment of the king, hear first cough,
and then grOan, then the turning over
on the imperial couch, and last of all
the voice of the king saying: Let the
officers of the guard bring me the book
of the record of the Chronicles, and read
10 H6. Chn OAOCP AOA bhO
sculliOns in the kings kitchen, and for
the pages who run on his errands; sleep
for the gate-keepers of the imperial
park, and for the grOOms who polish the
smooth coats of the horses in the royal
news; but no sleep for their master.
"On that night could not the king
Sleep"
Yon see that sleep is a mixture made
by Gods own finger. We are told that
He keeps in heaven bottle In which He
gathers all the tears of His children, and
after while those tears arelchanged into
pearls for crowns, and then the bottle Is
empty. Methinks God puts into that
bottle few drops of quiet, few drops
OF fOrgetfulness, and few drops OF
restoration, mingles them together,
then dips His finger into the mixture and
bathes us into new lifo and invigOra-
tiOn. o, heaven descended sleep! May
God give us eight hours of it cut of every
tWenty-fOur. Better be in hOVel with
sleep than in the Tuilleries without it.
But Ahasuerus cannot get one drop Of
that mixture. What is the matter
why" you say, ''it is Indigestion. He
has been gormandizing, and now he is
only paying the penalty" o, no. He
had taken enough wine to cOunteTact
that. That would not have hindered
you from hearing his drunken snOre out
side the palace. What was the matter
that way to sOOthe his pulse; but no
sleep. He turns over on his right side;
but no sleep. Then he counts the shadows
on the wall, hoping to put himself in a
somnOlent state; but no sleep. "On that
night could not the king sleep"
There may have been three or four
reasons for this fidget and restlessness.
One was the care of his kingdom. A
United States president, a British queen,
Russian Czar, have no care compared
with this Ahasuerus. He has one hun
dred and twenty-seVen provinces, not
bound together by telegraph wires or
railroad tracks. Any moment that en-
pire may be disintegrated;. so he cannot
sleep. Besides that, he Is ambitious
and he is going to make conquest. II
you knew that tomorrow morning you
would make twenty thousand dollars OF
one hundred thousand dollars, you
would not sleep tonight. Three or four
times you would be up in the night
striking match to see if 1t was not to-
ward morning. And here this AhRsu-
erus cannot sleep because he Is going to
conquer Greece. He is going to rally
an army Of eighty thousand horse and
one million seven hundred Thousand
foot, and he is going to have four thou
sand two hundred ships. The queen OF
Mithridates had a blue band on her fore
head, showing that she was queen Of the
from her forehead under her chin and
qstrangled her life out. And 80 it is with
the ambitious of this world; they lead q
soul not so much to glory as to death
He had raging passions, this man Aha
suerus, that would not let him sleep
passions that showed themselves in &
ridiculous way, so that when he came
back from that Grecian expedition h
was SO mad at the river Hellespont fO
breaking up his bridge of boats, that hI
ordered his servants to whip that rive
with three hundred lashes, compelling
his servants to cry out while they wer,
flashing the river: "ThOu bitter water
thy master puts upon thee these stripe
because thou has treated him so badly
o, treacherous and unsavOry stream.
OF course such a man as that could no
sleep. Besides that. his cOnscienc
troubled him. 1t spurned the pillow
No chlOral. no extract of poppy, no NOR
phine can put man to sleep when hi