The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-01-19
FOR POOR SLEEpERS.
INSOMNIA THE SUBJECT OF THE REV.
DR.. TALMAGES SERMON.
Sleep the Vacation of the Soul-A d.
vine Narcotfc-SIain by Public Life.
Words Of Consolation for Sufferers.
The Last Sleep.

In this discourse DIR. Talmage treats
of a style of disorder not much dis
coursed upon and unfolds what must
be a consolation TO many people; text,
Psalms, lxxvii, 4. Thou holdest mine
eyes waking"
Sleep is the vacation of the soul. 1t
is the mind gone INTO the playground
of dreams; it is the relaxation Of mus
cles and the solace of the nerves; 1t is
the hush of activities; it is the soft
curtaining Of the eyes; il is a trance
Of eight hours; it is a calming of the
pulses; 1t is a breathing much slower,
though far deeper; it is temporary OBJ
livion of all carking cares; it is the
doctor recognized by ali schools OF
medicine: it is a divine narcotic; Ii Is
a complete a~naesthetic; it is an angel
of the night; it is a great mercy OF COO
for the human race. Lack OF 1t puts
patients on the rack OF torture or IN
the madhouse or in the grave. On,
blessed sleeDi No wonder the Bible
makes much of it. Through sleep so
sound that a surgical incision of the
side of Adam did not wax him came
the best temporal blessing ever afford
ed to man-wifely companionship.
While in sleep OF a pillow OF rock ia
cob saw a ladder set up, with angels
coming uO"h dIIu SIAIAIOIL6- ~ ~
giveth his beloved Sleep ~soliloquized
the psalmist. Solomon listens at the
door of a tired workman and eulo-
gizes his pillow by saying, The sleep
of a. laboring man is sweet Peter was
calmly sleeping TIVE the two con-
stables the night before his expected
assassination. Christ was asleep in a
boat on Galilee when tossed in the
euroclydon. The annunciation was
made to Joseph in sleep, and death is
described as only a sleep and the res
direction as a glorious Weakening out
of sleep.
HE COULD NOT COMMAND SLEEP.
On the other hand, insomnia, or
sleeplessness, is an old disorder spoken
of again and again in the Bible. Ahas-
uerus suffered from 1t, and we READ,
"In tina night could not the KIN
Sleep" Joseph Hall said OF THAT ruler,
He that could command a hundred
and seven and twenty provinces could
not command Sleep" Nebuchadnezzar
had insomnia, and the record is, HIS
sleep brake from him." Solomon de-
scribes this trouble and says Neither
day nor night seeth he sleep with ms
eyes" Asaph was its victim, for he
complains in my text that his eyes are
wide open at midnight, some mysteri-
Gus power keeping the upper n low
er lids from joining, Thou Modest
mine eyes waking
Insomnia. which has troubled all ma
tions and all ages, has it's widest swing
in our land, because of the push ana
speed Of all styles OF activities, as IN
no other land. Where there is one man
or woman with equipoise of nerves
there are a dozen With O~verwrought
and tangled ganglion. Ait some time in
life almost every one has had a toucn
of it. 1t has been called "Amerlcanl-
it's" Last night there were as there
will be tonight, millions OF people 10
whom the words of the text are ap-
~propriate utterance, Thou Modest
mine eyes waking"
Wonderful is that law which Ralph
Waldo Emerson called the law Oh
COMPENSATION and it has been so ar
ranged that, while h hardWork1ng
afhuent of the earth are denied and
MANY of the luXuries, they have a.
least one luxury which many of ne
ffuen of tn eearth are denied and
for which some of them would give
millions of dollars in cash uOWn-
namely, capacity to sleep. The most OF
those who toll with hand n foot do
not have to send out invitations TO
sleep. They require no romid or va
lerian or sulphonaJ " triavol to put
them ito nightly Inconsistencies. In
five minutes after their heads touch
their pillows they are as far off from
the wall they were building, or the
ditch they were digging, or the anvil
they were pounding, or the wheels
they were controlling, as heaven is
from earth. About 8 o'clock in the
morning, the body at lowest tempera-
ture and it's urnace nearly out, what
a quietude for the entire
physical and mental structure. All
night long, for such, sleep is busy with
its enchanted amounting OF every cor
puscle of the arteries and every mole
Guile of the entire physical
and the morning finds the subjects OF
such sleep rebuilt, reconstructed ano
touched of God into a new life.
THE UNRIGHTEOUS SLEEP.
OF course there is an unrighteous
sleep, as when Jonah, trying to es-
cape from duty, slept in the sides of
tfhe ship while the Mediterranean was
in wrath because of that prophetic
passenger; as when Columbus in his
first voyage exhausted from being UP
many nights, gave the ship in charge OF
the steersman and the crew, who,
leaving the management OF the VeSsel
to boys, went asleep and allowed the
ship to strike on the sand banks of ST.
Thomas; as when the sentinel goes to
sleep at his post, endangering the whole
army; as when the sluggard, who ac-
composites nothing the day before he
went to sleep and Will accOmpnSn
nothing the day after lie wakes, fills
up Solomon's picture of him as he
yawns out, "A little sleep and a little
slumber and a little folding OF the
hands to Sleep" But sleep at the right
time and amid the right circumstances
can you imagine anything more
blessed? If sleep, according to sacred
and profane literature, is an emblem
of death, the morning to all refreshed
slumbers is a resurrection
Remark the first: If you have es-
capped the insomnia spoken of in the
text, thank God. Here and there one
can command sleep, and 1T comes the
minute he orders it and departs at the
minute he wishes it TO &c, as Napoleon
when he wrote: Different affairs are
arranged in my hea as in drawers.
When I wish to interrupt n train OF
thought, i close the drawer which con-
tains that subject and open that which
contains another. They do not mix to-
eether or inconvenience me. I have
never been kept awake by an invol-
untary preoccupation Of mind. When
ahrr% nv oil ~,