Early Rising. [Footnote 251]
[Footnote 251: This article is translated from the Conferences Destinées aux Femmes du Monde, par Mgr. Landriot.]
"De Nocte Surrexit."
Sleep was given man to sustain life, to invigorate his strength, and to serve him as the best and most useful of medicines; one single prescription perfectly accomplished sometimes sufficing for the cure of serious disease, or, at least, the amelioration of violent pain. Sleep is the salutary bath that renovates life, the entire being growing younger under its influence; it is a station in the desert of this world; and often, after dull and wearying journeys, one comes to repose in this oasis prepared by divine Providence, enabled the next day to pursue the route with renewed courage and activity. The time of sleep is not only useful to the body, but the soul: it calms all agitation, spreads a balm over piercing grief, and hinders the precipitation of words and actions. Thus the ancients designated night the good counsellor; those even whom passion or bodily infirmity keep awake are subservient to her designs, and, in the calm which, through shade, she diffuses everywhere, she recalls man to better sentiments. If he is Christian, she quickens within him the fibres of prayer; a single aspiration toward heaven sufficing sometimes to crush the bad or dangerous germs of thought, and prepare for the morrow a pure and uncloudy sky. In other times, there was so much calmness and placidity in the sleep of the just, said St. Ambrose, that it was like an ecstasy in which, while the body reposed, the soul, to speak thus, was separated from its organs, and united itself to Christ: Somnus tranquillitatem menti invehens, placiditatem animae ut tanquam soluto nexu corporis se ablevit, et Christo
[Footnote 252: Ep. xvi. No. 4, p. 960.]
Again, sleep is an excellent preacher, because it recalls to us the image of death: the ancients named it the brother of death, and both are sons of night. The daily arrival of sleep should make us say: "The other brother will come soon, and this time I will extend myself on my bed, never more to rise. Each visit of the night should be an invitation to prepare me for the last and solemn departure."
Sleep is, then, excellent in itself; but how greatly it may be abused; and, if we do abuse it, it will produce effects exactly contrary to those I have just enumerated; that is to say, it will weaken the body, stupefy the ideas, and that, far from refreshing and repairing life, it will prepare for it a kind of living sepulchre in which to bury it.
It is not sufficient to determine the quantity of sleep, which should be wisely regulated, without according or refusing too much to nature. We must also calculate the quality of sleep.
Now, according to general observation, the sleep from the real night to the real morning, that is to say, which is taken in the interval of nine and five or six o'clock, is the best, the most salutary, and the most favorable to health. I do not say that it is absolutely necessary to sleep all the time, I have indicated: this is merely the space designed to choose one's hours of sleep. Let us willingly admit all the exceptions necessitated by transitory relations; but, as a general thesis, it is better to retire early and rise early in the morning. It is the best, the most favorable time for the nocturnal bath we call sleep; the body better refreshes itself, the repose is more conformable to the laws of nature; therefore is it sweeter, at once lighter and more profound, and has not the heaviness which indicates an abnormal condition. Sleep, prolonged too much in the morning because it has been retarded at night, has serious inconveniences. It communicates to the general system a sickly languor which becomes the habitual condition of certain temperaments. Life with them is a sort of perpetual convalescence, and never do they enjoy the most precious gift of nature, a state of health, truly and solidly established. See, on the contrary, these robust village girls; at night at an early hour they demand of their beds the repose for their tired members; in the morning they rise with the crow of the cock. In winter, the fire is lighted at dawn of day on the domestic hearth; the house-keeping is arranged, the order of the day disposed in advance, the breakfast of the laborers is ready to be served, and the sun has not yet appeared above the horizon. During the summer, these same children of the village accompany the star of day in its matutinal march; their chests dilate, and they strengthen themselves in breathing the fresh and perfumed air shed with the rays of sun, and they seem to breathe life and health. Later these same girls marry, and, if they are not imprudent, they may for many years continue an existence made up of fruitful labor, and ornamented sometimes with all the charms and freshness of a vigorous old age; for their regimen is an excellent medicine which gives them a commission of long life.
But whence, on the contrary, comes that weakness of temperament so observable in women of the world? It may be deduced from various causes, but one of the principal is the mode of life too generally adopted, especially in large cities. A part of the night is spent in soirées, to finish only with longer matinées; a portion of the day is given to sleep, and from this results a general debility of constitution, fatigue of the nervous system, a numbness of the organs, and in all an habitual and continual prostration. There may be exceptional temperaments that resist these effects; but it is incontestable, in the eyes of an impartial observer, that the loss of health, especially among women, is due in great part to the life of excess I here mention. "Prolonged night watches," said a learned man, "necessarily bring on a fatigue which bears on the brain and on the digestive and respiratory organs. And fatigue of this nature, far from favoring sleep, renders it incomplete and painful. From thence, in great measure, comes this valetudinary state which we meet with so habitually among the women of our cities; balls and soirées ruin their health in advance, and it is often on youth even, but still oftener in ripe and old age, that the foolish and miserable dissipations of the world leave their sad and fatal impress." [Footnote 253]
[Footnote 253: Leçons de la Nature, nouvelle édition, par M. Desdouits, 1. 3. 188e considér, t. iii. p. 125.]
You would, then, condemn soirées? I pray you to remark that, if there is something to condemn, it is not I who condemns them; these are facts according to nature and the temperament of the human body. Is it not true that the health of many women of the world is weakened? No one can deny this. Is it not also true that one of the principal causes is the world's manner of organizing social relations? It is a fact of which science every day gives undeniable proof. I am far from condemning soirées; and perhaps you have not forgotten that, in our reunions, I applied myself some years ago to show you how religion was the friend of honest pleasures and the demands of society; on condition that they should be regulated by wisdom, and that the interests of both body and soul were faithfully managed; for so greatly does Christianity respect our bodies that we can sin in compromising one's health by serious imprudences. Merry conversations in the evening have all sorts of advantages. They divert the mind, refresh the body, bring hearts together, dissipate clouds, and bind more closely the ties of family and friendships. In a certain degree, pleasures are necessary to man. I speak of innocent pleasures that virtue can admit, and those who entertain some doubt in this respect can consult the writings of the greatest theologians of the church, and especially St. Thomas. This great doctor has on this point a clearness and precision, and at the same time a reason and wisdom, at once full of reserve and condescension. The rule he establishes is to use all pleasure with moderation, according to time, place, and the circumstance of those with whom we live: moderatè pro loco, et tempore, et congruentiâ eorum quibus convivit, (temperatus.) [Footnote 254]
[Footnote 254: See in particular L'Ethique et La Somme.]
"There are many people," said Fenélon, "who like to groan over everything, and weary themselves continually by encouraging a disgust for all rational amusement. For me, I avow I could not accommodate myself to such rigidity. I like something more simple; and I believe that God himself likes it much better. When diversion is innocent in itself, and is entered into according to the rules of the state wherein Providence has placed us, then I believe all required of us is to take part in it, as in God's sight and with moderation. Manners more rigid and more reserved, less complaisant and less open, only serve to give a false idea of piety to worldly people, who are already sufficiently prejudiced against it, and who believe God is only served through a sombre and mortified life." [Footnote 255]
[Footnote 255: Avis a une Personne de la Cour. Manuel de Piété. Ed. Dupanloup.]
We would wish, then, that Christian societies would adopt for their maxim these beautiful words of St. Chrysostom: "Christians have the sense for delicate pleasures, but decency should preside over all." It is impossible to make more reasonable concessions to human nature, but is not religion authorized, therefore, to show herself severe to all who exceed the bounds of wisdom, conformity, and virtue, and even for all who compromise the interests of health or fortune? Would it not be possible, to return to our subject, to combine in our reunions of family and society everything for the general good and the vigorous health of actual generations? Allowing for exceptional circumstances, where one may be obliged to be up later, would it not be possible to make soirées shorter, rendering them, at the same time, more agreeable and more frequent, more salutary and less compromising to health? This is the problem I propose to solve; and is it not a singular thing that here religion interposes to say to you, Think of the interests of your bodies; you sin the same by seriously neglecting them? "Hoc esset peccatum" said St. Thomas. This excess in the length of soirées comes to us from paganism. In the time of Seneca they existed, and these are the terms which this philosopher used toward them: "There are people who reverse the uses of day and night. Thus, nothing looks more sad and broken-down than the appearance of such persons, who are, so to say, dedicated to the night; their color is that of sick people, they are pale and languishing, carrying a dead flesh in a living body. And this is not the only evil: their minds are surrounded by shadows apparently, benumbed, and inhabiting the clouds. Is it possible not to deplore an irregularity which banishes the light of day, and passes life in darkness and shade?" [Footnote 256]
[Footnote 256: Epist. 122.]
Sometimes I am asked, if religion were to command half the sacrifice that the world demands if it ordered a part of every night spent in fatiguing both body and soul, what would not be said against it? What anathemas, what bitter reproaches! But the world speaks, and no one says anything; we are enchanted, or, at least, appear so. St. Francis de Sales has given us, on this subject, some reflections wherein the delicate point of a pleasant malice is touched with superior reason, and I should reproach myself did I not present them to you: "We have seen gentlemen and ladies pass not only one night, but several in succession at play—worldly people said nothing, friends gave themselves no trouble concerning them; but let us give one hour to meditation, or rise a little earlier than usual to prepare for communion, these same friends would run for the doctor to cure us of jaundice or hypochondria. We may occupy thirty nights in dancing, no one complains; but for the single watch of Christmas night every one coughs, and cries next day with the stomach-ache."
The salutary regimen of retiring and rising early is very precious for the soul, and the duties of life much better fulfilled. The soul is calmer at night, calm as everything that is regular and not troubled and turned topsy-turvy by the thousand preoccupations of a too worldly life. In the evening, before going to sleep, we can fix our attention on ourselves, analyze the day, its thoughts, desires, and actions, praise, blame, or correct, and, as a skilful merchant, make an account of our losses and gains. Do not imagine such a practice is confined to narrow minds; it is the usage of reason and sound philosophy, as are all other practices of an enlightened devotion. Pagans as well as Christians have given us a lesson on this subject. Listen to Pythagoras: "Never allow sleep to close thine eyes before having examined every action of the day. In what have I failed? What have I done? What duty have I forgotten? Commence by the first of thy actions, run over the others; in fine, reproach thyself with what thou hast done ill, and rejoice in what thou hast done well." "What can be more beautiful," said Seneca, "than this habit of inquiring into a whole day? What sleep succeeds to such a review of one's actions! How calm, deep, and free it is when the soul has received its share of praise or blame, and, submitting to its own control, its own censure, it secretly tries its own conduct! For me, I have taken this authority on myself, and every day I cite myself to appear before the tribunal of my conscience. So soon as the light has gone, I scan my day entirely, weigh anew my acts and my words, dissemble nothing, and omit nothing." [Footnote 257] Adopt this habit, everything in you will gain by it—reason and piety; a sweet serenity will be diffused around your soul, and you will sleep in angelic peace somnus sanitatis in homine. [Footnote 258] You have sometimes seen children sleep. What calm! What sweetness of expression! What kindness of feature! What living and silent rest! This will be the image of your sleep.
[Footnote 257: Da la Colere, 1. 3. c. 36.]
[Footnote 258: Ecclus. xxxi.]
But—and now we touch a delicate point—it is the result of life's organization that you ought to get up in the morning. I hear already a deep sigh of fear from your trembling couch. First, then, let us understand the value of the words, Get up in the morning. I do not exhort you to imitate a very delicate lady, who said, during her sojourn at Vichy, "I commence my day at four o'clock in the morning, in order that my body may not take off too much from my soul." [Footnote 259]
[Footnote 259: Lettres de Madame Swetchine. t. ii. p. 111.]
I do not propose you this model, for I am very sure, if I opened a register, I should find very few members for the confraternity of Madame Swetchine. Let us leave, then, the value of the expression slightly undecided. Get up in the morning; let it only be the earliest hour possible, and this, perhaps may be too late. Once, however, the hour of your rising determined, hold to it, with a firmness proportioned to the difficulty of the step, and let the unfortunate bed shut up again the magnetic fluid whereby one is drawn to it, I do not say in spite of one's self, but with a sweetness of violence which nails one to the post. I avow we are here in face of one of the most terrible of enemies, and this enemy the pillow. When we want to leave it in the morning, it assumes the artificial language of the siren, and caresses us with tender precaution. It seems to say: Why do you leave me? are you not better here? what a sweet temperature! what inappreciable well-being! don't you see it is too soon? do you not feel your limbs too tired, and as yet enjoying a very incomplete repose? Touch your forehead and you will see you begin to have headache; a few quarters of an hour more will dissipate it; to-morrow you will rise earlier! Then it's so cold out of bed: why brave the inclemency of the seasons? The day is long enough; you will have time enough for everything; in truth, do not be so severe with yourself. After such eloquent language the dear pillow extends its two arms to entangle you, and soon the victory is consummated; true, it was easy, none are so happy as the vanquished; and behold you fallen again and buried for several hours more.
I speak very seriously in telling you that one of the most difficult enemies to vanquish is this pillow of the morning; and there is but one way to conquer it: it is a prompt and decisive blow, a military charge, a jump out of bed: charge the enemy by a vigorous sally, and the victory is yours. An old Capuchin said that, after long years of a religious life, what cost him most was to rise at four o'clock in the morning. It is true there is a sacrifice to make, a real sacrifice, incontestable; but here life is full of sacrifices, and each one is followed by a sentiment of true happiness, and each victory gives to man an astonishing power. When I see a person who has the courage to get up in the morning, I have immediately a high opinion of his firmness of character, and I say to myself: This person, when occasion demands it, will know how to develop extraordinary energy; each morning his nature is tempered again in the struggle against his pillow, and this combat is often more difficult, especially on account of its continuity, than that of the soldier on the field of battle. Besides, wait as long as you will, even if you sleep until mid-day, you will have to make a sacrifice on leaving your bed. Sometimes the more you think of it, the sacrifice will be greater, and increased by the sad perspective of the approaching effort; so with one minute of decision, prompt and generous, all is over, and the enjoyment of the active day has commenced. Long waiting in bed when one is awake makes serious detriment to the soul; the whole being is softened, and plunged into a sort of reverie, more or less sensual, which may lead to the brink of certain abysses. Take care, the butterfly flutters on its golden wings, then goes to burn itself in the light which shines for it so treacherously; image of those aerial promenades where, by dint of approaching certain deceitful lights, one ends by damaging the wings of the soul, or, at least, rubbing off the velvet nap of a pure conscience. "It is dangerous," said St. Ambrose, "for the sun to come and trouble with its indiscreet rays the dreams of a lazy mind in its bed." [Footnote 260]
[Footnote 260: In Ps. 118, s. 19, No. 22, t. ii. p. 1476.]
The Italian poet, speaking of morning, says: "At the hour when one's mind is greatest stranger to the flesh, and less near terrestrial thoughts, then is it almost divine in its visions." [Footnote 261]
[Footnote 261: Dante, Purgat. c. 9, v. 16-19.]
Each day, after a good night, we can renew our souls with the wonders of a beautiful spring morning; all is fresh in mind and body, all interior faculties are warmed; life experiences a sort of need of expansion; all thoughts, all desires seem to tremble with cheerfulness, as plants in a celestial garden. If the sun of prayer arises on the horizon, all the germs of good awake, develop, and mount up in proportion as the divine heat becomes more intense. "The manna," said the prophet, "disappearing at the dawn of day; was to show us, my God, that we must anticipate the rising of the sun to receive thy most precious benedictions." [Footnote 262]
[Footnote 262: Sap. xvi. 28.]
There is something remarkable in our Lives of the Saints; morning prayer is always specially mentioned: "My God," said the prophet "thou wilt favorably hear my prayer in the morning." [Footnote 263]
[Footnote 263: Ps. v. 4.]
"I will present myself before thee in the morning, and will see thy glory." [Footnote 264]
[Footnote 264: Ps. v. 5.]
"It is in the morning that my prayer will surprise thee." [Footnote 265]
[Footnote 265: Ps. xxxvii. 14.]
"In the morning thy mercy is shed on us abundantly." [Footnote 266]
[Footnote 266: Ps. lxxxix. 14.]
"Those who watch from the morning," said Wisdom, "will find me." [Footnote 267]
[Footnote 267: Prov. viii. 17.]
Our Lord himself is called "splendid star, star of the morning:" "Ego Stella splendida et matutina." [Footnote 268]
[Footnote 268: Apoc. xxii. 16.]
In these continual repetitions I can only see a perfectly fixed and stationary thought: the natural relation established by divine Providence, and which she loves to preserve in a supernatural world. The morning is the hour when life recommences on earth; the hour when everything is reborn, solitude favoring the first leap of life, which retakes its course where the dew is deposited, and gives fresh nourishment to the plant. It is also the most delightful hour for the collection of thought, for the effusion of the dew of souls. The sky is charged with rain that night has condensed; the manna is everywhere, but it soon disappears; and, whilst indolence loses its power of body and mind in the swaddling-clothes of sleep, the active soul has laid in its provision of celestial nourishment, has disposed its interior heaven for the entire day, has dissipated in advance the shadows of the day, and established time's serenity until the next sleep. One of the most precious and the sweetest hours of life is the hour of morning prayer. I do not merely speak of vocal prayer; I wish to say the prayer of union with God, the silence and the repose of the soul in God; I wish to say this opening of the mouth of the soul which aspires to divine milk, drinking in silence, light, and love, and hiding itself in the bosom of that mother par excellence we call God, and that so few Christians understand. Os meum aperui et attraxi spiritum. [Footnote 269] If you only realized the gift of God we call the love of morning: Si scires donum Dei! [Footnote 270]
[Footnote 269: Ps. cxviii. 181.]
[Footnote 270: Joan. iv. 10.]
.....
There is a freshness in it, a suavity and an energy, which come directly from God. Have you never been on the mountains in summer, at three o'clock in the morning, when the first rays of the sun appear? How limpidly they seem to come! They have not passed through other breasts; the purest essence of the planet of day is ours, and thus we seem to realize our union with God while most men are asleep. On these divine mountains the soul has the first-fruits of celestial favors; she is penetrated with light, love, and strength; a gentle intoxication for the day, which, far from weakening the soul, gives firmness to our thoughts and actions, and sheds a perfume of joy on all our works. Were there no other reasons for rising in the morning, I would say to you, Disengage yourself from your pillow, the Lord comes to visit you with choice favors; but the least delay will be proof of your indifference, and you will force him to go further to seek souls more worthy his benefits. There is no one who would refuse to rise early if each morning a messenger were to tell him, A prince is come among you and waits for you. Place your God in the place of your prince, and you will do well. If you wish to accomplish some great work in your life, get up in the morning. The morning hours are not so deranged, the calm of a sweet solitude surrounds you, and you more readily expedite your affairs. You can occupy yourself with business or the regulation of your household, with your reading, your intellectual work if you love study, and the result in some years of these extra hours will be incalculable. By rising two hours earlier each day, you will have gained at the end of forty years, twenty-nine thousand hours, that is more than seven years, and solely counting the twelve working hours of the day. To increase one's life seven years in forty is enormous, and what can be done during this continuous time is almost incredible. Clement of Alexandria said, "Wrest from sleep all of our lives we can."
Sleep is truly a thief who ravishes our greatest treasures; a thief, too, we cannot entirely chase away, but we can run him off the ground and hinder his encroachments on our actual life. "We live but the half of our lives," said Pliny the elder; "the other half is consumed in a state similar to death,.... and still we do not count the infancy which knows nothing, or the old age of imbecility." Then have the courage to take something each day from this brother of death, who thus divides our life in two, and for himself would reserve the better part; let us give to nature what is necessary, but make no concession to indolence.
The most favorable time to commit this robbery is during the first hours of the morning. "The quality of time is different at this hour," said Madame Swetchine.
One hour of the morning is worth two at night, because the mind in its freshness is naturally more collected, its strength is not yet dispersed, and it is not exhausted by the fatigue of the day. The morning hours resemble, in the agility of the mind and the rejuvenated forces of the soul, the first hour of the courser just placed in the carriage. So the same author we love to cite advised early rising, cost what it might, "in order to reserve some hours of the morning for entire solitude." "It is not only," said one of her friends, "to consecrate to God the first hours of the day that she commenced it so early, but to have also considerable time to give to study." She said to me on that day, that the pleasure it gave her only increased with years. "I am come to this," she said, "when I approach my table to resume my labors, my heart beats with joy." [Footnote 271]
[Footnote 271: Lettres, t. ii. p. 443.]
She avowed, besides, that, deprived of these her accustomed hours, all the rest of the day seemed pillaged. If you would not be pillaged, rise in the morning; then you can do as you please, no one will come to disturb you, you will consecrate the closest and best of your strength to the most serious and truest duties of your existence; and, when the hour of pillage comes, that is, the hour when you must cut your life in little pieces, to dispense it in a thousand nothings more or less necessary, you will, at least, have secured its better and most precious part. If you rise late, your life will be a perpetual pillage, and whoever pleases will tear it in shreds from you.
Plato—if you will not consider pagan morality severe—Plato said somewhere: "It is a shame for the mistress of a household to be awakened by her servants; she should awaken them." [Footnote 272]
[Footnote 272: Les Lois, 1-7, p. 808.]
Such words may seem an exaggeration; but, if such were here the case, would not everything go better in the interior of the family? Woman, as we have said with the holy Scripture, is the sun of her household; but it should be the sun which everywhere announces the awakening of nature. It mounts first on the horizon, and soon everything rises in the universe, plants, animals, and men. The sun is never awakened by his satellites; he himself gives the signal. Let the strong woman do the same. Sicut sol oriens in altissimis Dei, sic mulieris bonae species in ornamentum domus ejus.[Footnote 273]
[Footnote 273: Eccl. xxvi. 21.]