The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-01-19

viva1, all their powers OF endurance
drawn upon day by day and week by
week and month by month-sermonEc
preparation, neighborhood visitation.
heartbreaking ~obsequies. sympathetic
help for the anxious. the despairing
and the dying. It Is a wonder ira.
ministers Of the gospel have any nervs
left and that the angel of sleep Dies
not quit their presence foreyer
But I hear and now pronounc high
consolation for all those who in any
have sacrificed their health
to duty. Your sleeeplessness is as
much a wound as you al find on any
battlefield and is an honorable wound
all look with reverence and admit
ration upon one who has lost an eye or
an arm in the service of his country,
and We ought to look with admiration
upon those who, through extreme idel-
ity to their life work, have lost capaci-
ty for siumber. Remember glorious
Albert Barnes going along the streets
of Philadelphia at 4 o'clock in the
morning for many years TO his church
study, writing all his commentaries be-
fore breakfast and keeping on until lie
was stone blind. Will not the Lord re-
ward such sacrifices? And if, through
your fidelity, you have lost capacity to
sleep, God, who never slumbers or
sleeps, will look after you. When you
hear the clock strike II and / 2 n
8 and 4 without you going into slum
Der let it remind you that vol have not
been a sluggard or a do nothing. You
are suffering in a goood cause. Paul
got sore eyes in the Lords serves and
had many a scar, but, so far from
complaining about it, he exults in those
scars, saying-in the only inspireA let-
ter we know that he wrote with his
own hand, for the other letters were
dictated to amanuenses- in that letter
to Galatians, Il bear in my body the
marks of the Lord Jesus"
SLAIN BY PUBLIC LIFE.
1t is high time that We enlarge the
scroll of martyrs. We are accustomed
to put in HI scroll only those who
have gone down under headsman's ak
or have been wrapped in fires at the
stake, or torn apart with the machin-
cry of persecution. But the world is
full of martyrs who were never touch
ed by any such instruments of torture.
Many of our public men in this capital
and, indeed, in all the capitalS-have
their life beaten out of them by inter-
ruptions, a~nnoyanceS and unreasonable
demands added to their Straightforward
duties. Washington sends many of
the public men back to their different
states worn out and incapacltated.
Why is it that in all our land there are
but wo eX-presidents and two eX-vice
presidents? The others were slain by
the exhaustions of public life or by
hand of assassin. Our public men can
not control their time, cannot regulate
their hours cannot Scape the implora-
ton of constituents. All who go down
to invalidism through the service of
God or their country are martyrs.
Remark the fourth: Insomnia is no
sign of divine displeasure. Martin Luz
Their had distressing insomnia and
wrote, when I wake up in the night,
the devil Immediately comes and dis
putes with me and gives me strange
thoughts, until at asst 1 row enraged
beyond endurance and give him ill
words.' That ccnsecrated champion
of everything good, DR.. Stephen H.
Tying, ST., in his autobiography says
that the only encouragement he had
to think he would sleep az night was
the fact that he had not slept the night
before. One of the greatest English
clergymen had a jet on either side of
when he could not sleep. Horace Gree
ley told me ne had not had a sound
sleep in 15 years. Charles Dickens un-
derstood London by night better than
any other writer, because not being
able to sleep he spent that time in ex-
ploring the city.
Perhaps this wakefulness may come
to you as an opportunity to think over
the mercies of the past and lay out
plans for the future. David occupied
the hours of wakefulness in music. He
speaks of songs in the night" We
could hardly recommend such a solo
for most people, for it would disturb
the slumber of others, and you have no
right, because you cannot sleep Dur
self, to keep others awake by that mid
night music of the pSalmist we can
commend.
WakefulnesS nay be an opportunity
for prayer, opportunity for profitable
reflection, opportunity for kindling ex-
pectations of the world, where there is
no night and where slumber will have
no uses. God thinks just as much of
o when o get but three or four
hours of sleep as when at night o get
eight or nine hours. One of the great
est prayer meetings ever held was in
a penitentiary at IL o'clock at night,
where Paul and Silas could not sleep.
The record says they prayed and sang
praises to God. They had cured an
idiotic girl of her trouble, and for that
they were imprisoned. They were rob-
bed of their liberty, but not of their
psalmody. Have you ever thought that
sleeplessness may be turned into a
rapture, a communion with God, a
preparation for heaven?
WORDS OF CONSOLATION.
Remark the fifth: Let all insomnists
know for their consolation hat some
people sleep more rapidly han others,
as much in one hour as others do in
two, and hence do not require as long
a time in Inconsistencies. In a book
on the subject of health years 6 I
saw this TACT stated by a celebrated
medical scientist: Some people do ev-
erything quick; they eat quick, they
walk quick, they think quick, and of
course they sleep quick. An express
train can go as far in 30 minutes as a
way train in 60 minutes. People of
rapid t-emperaments ought not to ex-
pect a whole night to do the work of
recuperation which slow temperaments
require. Instead of making it a matter
of irritation and alarm be a Christian
philosopher n set down this abbre-
Walton of somnolence as a matter of
temperament. An antelope ought not
to complain because it was not an OK
nor an eagle because it can go faster
than a barnyard fowl.