The Grenada sentinel., 1900-01-13
FOR THE SLEEPLESS.
DR.. Talnlage Speaks on the Subject
of Insomnia.
Sleep the Vacation of the Soul A
Divine Narcotic-Werds OF Con-
sointion for suRerers-The
Last sleep.
fCopyrlght. 1900. ey Louis Klopschl


copyright 1900. by Louis Klopsch.l
Washington
In this discourse DR.. Talmage treats
of a style of disorder not much dis
coursed upon and unfolds what must be
consolation 10 many people. Text,
Psalms 77:4: 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; it is
the hush of activities; it is the soft cur
tanning of the eyes; II is trance of
eight hours; it is a calming of the
pulses: II is a breathing much slower,
though far deeper; it is u temporary OBJ
llvion of all carking cares; it is the doc
tor recognized by all schools of med-
cine; it is divine narcotic; ii is COM
plete anaesthetic; it is an angel of the
night; it is great mercy of God for
the human race. Lack of it puts pa
tients on the rack of torture or in the
madhouse or in the grave. Oh. blessed
sleep! No wonder the Bible makes
much of it. Through sleep so sound
that q surgical incision of the side of
Adam did not waken him came the best
temporal blessing ever offered 10 man
-wifely companionship. While in sleep
on a pillow OF rock Jacob saw ladder
set up. with angels coming down and
climbing. So "He giveth His beloved
sleep" soiloquized the psalmist. Sol
ornon listens at the door of a tired
workman and enlogizes his pillow by
saying: "The sleep of laboring man
is sweet" Peter was calmly sleeping
between the two constables the night
before his expected assassination.
Christ was asleep in boat on Galilee
when tossed in the euroclydon. The an
nunciation was made to Joseph in
sleep. and death is described as only a
sleep and the resurrection as glorious
Weakening out of sleep.
On the other hand. insomnia, or sleep
lessness. is an old disorder spoken of
again and again in the Bible. Ahasuerus
suffered from it, and we read: "In that
night could not the king sleep" Joseph
Hall said of that ruler: HI. 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 describes this
trouble and says: Neither day nor
night seeth he sleep with his eyes"
Asaph was its victim. for he complains
in my text that his eyes are wide open
at midnight, some mysterious power
keeping the upper and lower lids from
joining: Thou holoest mine eyes
waking"
Insomnia. which has troubled all ma
tions and all ages, and its widest swing
in our land. because of the push and
other land. Where there is one man or
woman with equipoise of nerves there
are a dozen with overwrought and tan
gled ganglion. At some time in life
almost everyone has had a touch of it.
1t has been called "Americanitis." Last
night there were. as there will be TO-
night. millions of people to whom the
words of the text are appropriate utter
ance: "Thou holdest mine eyes wax
ing"
Wonderful is that law which Ralph
Waldo Emerson called the law of COM
pensation," and il has been so arranged
that, while the Woodworking popula-
tions of the earth are denied many of
the luxuries. they have at least one lux
ury which many of the affluent of the
earth are denied and for which some OF
them would give millions of dollars in
cash down-namely. capacity TO sleep
The most of those who toll with hand
and foot do not have to send out invita-
tions TO sleep. They require no bromide
or valerian or sulphonal or triavol to
put them to 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 three o'clock in the morn.
ing, the body at lowest temperature
and its furnaces nearly out, what a com
plete quietude for the entire physica
and mental structure! All night long
for such sleep is busy with its en-
chanted amounting of every corpusclt
of the arteries and every molecule o.
The entire physical organism, and thu
morning finds the subjects of such sleeI
rebuilt, reconstructed and touched ot
God into a new life.
OF course there Is an unrighteou!
sleep, as when Jonah. trying to escape
from duty, slept in the sides of the shiI
while the Mediterranean was in wratl
because of that prophetic passenger,
when Columbus in his first voyage
Exhausted from being up many nights
gave the ship in charge of the steers
man and the crew, who, leaving tn,
management of the vessel to boys. wen
asleep and allowed the ship TO strik,
on the sand banks of st. Thomas; al
when the sentinel goes to sleep at hi
post, endangering the whole army; a
when the sluggard, who accomplishe
nothing the day before he went to slee]
| and will aocomplish nothing the da,