The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1900-01-08
FOB POOR SLEEPERS.
iNsoMNiA rAe sugtcT oFTHs REV.
DIR. TALMAcE's SERMON.

Divins Nareotic-slain by Public
Life words Of Consolation Eos
suaesess--The Last slee1.
n Copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1901
WASHINGTON, Jan. Tn this dis.
course DR.. Talmage treats of q style Of
disorder not much discoursed upon and
unfolds what must be consolation to
many people; text, Psalms lxxvii. 4.
"Thou hOldest mine eyes waking"
Sleep ID the vacation Of the soul. It 10
the mind gone into the playground Of
dreams; II ID the relaxation of muscles
and the solace Of the nerves; It il the
hush Of activities; It is the soft curtain
ing Of the eyes; 1t is o trance Of eight
hours; 1t is calming of the pulses; it Is
q breathing much slower, though far
+ deeper; 1t 10 a temporary oblivion Of all
carking cares; 1t IL the doctor recognised
BY all schools Of medicine; it is divine
narcotic; 1t IL a complete anRsthetic; 1t Ia
an angel of the night; it il great mercy
Of God for the human race. Lack Of II
puts patients on the rack of torture or in
the madhouse or in the grave. Oh. blessed
sleep! No wonder the Bible makes much
Of 1t. Through sleep so sound that a
surgical incison of the side Of Adam did
not waken him came the best temporal
blessing ever afforded to man-wifely
companionship. While In sleep on pill
low Of rock Jacob saw ladder set up,
with angels coming down and climbing.
80 ''he giveth his beloved Sleep" solilo-
quised the psalmist. Solomon listens at
the door Of a tired workman and eulo-
gises his pillow by saying, ''The sleep Of
. laboring man 10 sweet" Peter was
calmly sleeping between the two consta-
bles the night before his expected assas-
sination. Christ was asleep In boat on
Galiiee when tossed In the euroclydon.
The annunciation was made to Joseph in
sleep, and death is described as only a
sleep and the resurrection rs a glorious
Weakening out Of sleep.
He Could Not Command Sleep.
On the other hand, insomnia, or sleep
lessness, IL an old disorder spoken Of
again and again in the Bible. Ahasuerus
suffered from II, and we read, "In that
night could not the king Sleep" Joseph
Hall said of that ruler, ale that could
command hundred and seven and twen-'
~ provinces could not command Sleep"
Nebuchadneszar had insomnia, and the
record Is, "EIis 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 holdest mine eyes
waking"
Insomnia, which has troubled all ma
tons and all ages, has 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 dog
en- with overweight and tangled gan
glion. At some time in life almost every
one has had touch Of it. 1t has been
called "Americanitis." Last night there
were, as there will be tonight, millions Of
people to whom the words of the text are
appropriate utterance, "Thou holdest
mine eyes waking"
Wonderful is that law which Ralph
Waldo Emerson called the Flaw Of COM
pensation," and It has been SO arranged
that, while the Woodworking populations
Of the earth are denied many of the luxu-
ries, they have at least one luxury which
many Of the affiuent of the earth are de-
MED 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 invitations to sleep.
They require no bromide or valerian or
sulphonal or triavol to put them to night
ly Inconsistencies. In i've minutes after
their heads touch their pillows they are
as far off from the wall they were build
ing, 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 temperature and its
furnaces nearly out what complete quiz
etude for the entire physical and mental
structure! All night long, for such, sleep
Is busy with its enchanted amounting of
every corpuscle Of the arteries and every
molecule of the entire physical organism,
and the morning finds the subjects of
such sleep rebuilt, reconstructed and
touched of God into new life.
... The Unrishteous Sleep.
OF course there is an unrighteous 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 Co.
lumtus 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 al
lowed the ship to strike on the sand
banks of st. Thomas; as when the
sentinel goes to sleep at his post, endan-
gering the whole army; as when the slug
gard, who accomplishes nothing the day
before he went to sleep and will accom-
plish nothing the day after he wakes,
fills up Solomon's picture Of him as he
yawns out, "A little sleep and little
slumber and 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 litera-
ture, is an emblem Of death, the morn
ing to all refreshed slumbers is a resur-
rection.
Remark the first: II you have escaped
the insomnia spoken Of in the text, thank
God. Here and there one can command
sleep, and 1t comes the minute he orders
1t and departs at the minute he wishes it
to 60, as Napoleon when he wrote: DIFF
ferent affairs are arranged In my head
as in drawers. When wish to interrupt
one train of thought, close the drawer
which contains that subject and open
that which contains another. They do
not mix together or Inconvenience me.
! have never been kept awake by an in
voluntary preoccupation of mind. When
wish for repose, shut up all the
drawers, and am asleep. l have always
slept when l wanted rest and almost at
will" But l think in most cases we feel
that sleep is not the result Of resolution,
but direct gift from God. You cannot
purchase 1t. A great French 6nancier
cried out: ALAS! Why is there no sleep
to be sold?"
Do not take this divine gift as matter.
Of course. Your seven or eight hours OF
healthful unconsciousness is blessing
worthy of continuous and emphatic rec.
ognition. Praise the Lord for 1866 resur.
rections in year! Artificial slumber can
be made up by the apothecaries, but nat
ural sleep Is balm, a panacea, a cathol-
icon that no one but God can mix. With |
it he bathes your eyes and brain and