1.H 14. Sleep after Work.
Sleep after Work.
People have often asked me how I managed to sleep after preaching. Generally, I do not have any difficulty in getting to sleep. I can always sleep after a good sermon, and even bad ones do not keep me awake long. You must remember that the reason why a man cannot sleep after excitement is because his brain is gorged with blood. The blood is the stimulus which works the brain, and the brain draws to itself all the blood it can get. I always know whether my brain has been doing its work well or not. If I find my hands and feet warm, I say generally that the product of my thought is not worth much; and I begin to think there has been a waste of brain-material. But if my hands and feet grow chilly, and I have to wrap up all over, on account of the blood, which is the working force, being drawn away from the extremities to the brain, I know that the thinking power has been busy, has probably worked to some effect. You must deal with yourselves on this theory; whatever will distribute the blood to every part of your system will relieve the brain, and you will be able to go to sleep. In the first place, do not talk after preaching on Sun day nights. Do not go home and have a good time over what you have seen and heard. Many a minister uses himself up more by the after-piece than he does by the main performance. It is sweet to talk when you are in such fine condition! Everybody is there pouring out compliments upon you. But they are wasting you. You are like the cocoon of a silk worm, which they are unwinding, and in so doing they take the life out of you. You never get through your work. I owe what I know of horticulture to the study I gave it at short intervals, when I was preaching every day for two years, and twice on Sunday, besides doing revival and other work. I got out of the State Library of Indiana four or five volumes of Loudon’s works on agriculture and horticulture. I read them. There was a charm in reading even the names of the plants in the catalogues, although there was nothing very stimulating in it.
It was like Webster’s Dictionary, where the connection is broken at every word, and yet it is intensely interesting to read. In that way I let myself down quietly, and then I could go to sleep. But suppose I cannot go to sleep? I get up from bed, and walk about the room without dressing my self. That is, I take an air-bath, and, if need be, I throw up the window, and keep on walking, not until I am chilled, but until I am pretty nearly chilled. The moment that any part of the human body is attacked, the vital forces rush to that part to repair any loss that may have taken place. If you take cold, the vital forces instantly attempt to establish the equilibrium. Bring cold to bear upon your body, and the vital forces instantly send out the blood to the part where the cold is, to restore the warmth, and that relieves the system. The blood ceases to be dammed up in the brain and in the large vessels. But suppose I cannot sleep then; what is to be done? I say to myself, " Now, you have- </ot to go to sleep; and the sooner you give up, the better it will be." So I walk into the bath-room, and turn on a little water, just enough to put my feet and ankles into; and it is very rare indeed that the obstinacy of my system resists that. This operation brings the blood down to the feet, and I can almost always get to sleep. If I cannot, I timi on a little more water and sit down in it.
All this is treating one s-self physiologically, medically, so to speak, without medicine. It is treating one s-self according to correct principles for the sake of procuring sleep. If you do not sleep, first or last, your audience will; and therefore it is necessary that you should sleep for them, that they may keep awake to hear what you may have to say. More than that, when a man has gone through the paroxysm of the week, which is Sunday, it is necessary that he should, as soon as possible, be put into a state to go to work again.
Therefore you should eat as you would lire an engine; and sleep, remembering that out of sleep comes the whole force of wakefulness, with the power you have in it.
There are many other points that I had in mind, but I have already taken so much of your time that I will not detain you longer, but will merely await your questions.