The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-01-12
FOR THE SLEEPLESS.
DR.. Talmage Speaks on the Subject
of Insomnia.
sleep the Vacation OF the Soul A
Divine NnrcOIIc-wOrdH of Con-
ISOLATION for SuRerers-The
Last sleep.
copyright. 1890. by Louis Klopsch.l

OF style OF disorder not much dis
coursed upon and unfolds what must be
a consolation 10 many people. Text,
Psalms TT:4: Thou holdest mine eyes
wakingR
Sleep 81 the vacation of the soul. II
is the mind gone into the playground
of dreams; il is the relaxation of mus
cles and the solace of the nerves: il is
the hush of activities; it is the soft cur
tanning Of the eyes; il is a trance of
eight hours; il is a calming of the
pulses; IL is a breathing much slower,
though far deeper; il is a temporary OBJ
hvion of all carking cares; il is the doc
tor recognized by all schools of medi-
cine; il is divine narcotic; il is a COM
plete anaesthetic; il is an angel of the
night; il is great mercy of God for
the human race. Lack of il puts pa
Jients on the rack of torture or in the
madhoUse or in the grave. Oh, blessed
sleepl No wonder the Bible makes
much of il. Through sleep so sound
shat a surgical incision of the side of
Adam cid not waken him came the best
temporal blessing ever offered to man
-wifely cOmpaniouship. 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" soliloquized the psalmist. Sol
Omon listens at the door of a tired
workman and euIOgizes 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 a glorious
wakening out of sleep.
On the other hand. insomnia. OF sleep
iessness, is an old disorder spoken Of
again and again in the Bible. Ahasuerus
suffered from il, and we read: in that
night could not the king 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 describes this
trouble and says: Neither day nor
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 holGest mine eyes
waking"
Insomnia. which has troubled an ma
tions and all ages, and its widest swing
in our land, because of the push and
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 Overwrought and tan
gled ganglion. At some time in life
almost everyone has had a touch of it.
IL 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
peusatiOn," and il has been so arranged
that, while the hard-working popula-
lions of the earth are denied many of
the luXuries, they have at least one lux
ury which many of the affiuent 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-
lions 10 sleep. They require no bromide !
or valerian or sulphOnal or triavOl 10
put them 10 nightly unconsciousness. |
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
pIete guietude for the entire physical
and mental structurel All night long,
for such sleep is busy with its en-
chanted amounting of every corpuscle
Of the arteries and every molecule of
The entire physical organism, and the
mOraing finds the subjects of such sleep |
reblilt, reconstructed and touched of |
GOD into a new life.
CT course there is an unrigbteous |
sleep, as when Jonah, trying to escape |
from duty. slept in the sides of the 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 steers |
man and the crew, who, leaving the |
management of the vessel to boys, went |
usleep and allowed the ship TO strike |
on the sand banks of St. Thomas; as |
when the sentinel goes to sleep at his |
post, en6angering the whole army; as |
when the sluggard. who accomplishes |
pothing the day before he went 10 sleep |
and will accomplish nothing the day |
after he wakes, fills up Solomon's pic |
ture of him as be yawDs 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. ac-
cording TO sacred and profane itera- |
ture, is an emblem of death. the morn |
ing to all refreshed slumbers is a resur- |
Tection.
If you have escaped the insomnia |
spoken of in the text. thank God. Here |
and there one can command sleep, and J