It may be only at such a time that we can feel the closeness of the tie that binds all mankind, only in such a time that a life-giving sense of oneness can renew life and joy. Some persons are so acutely conscious of the surge around them during the day that it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to get any large view of it. They are so beset and bewildered by each little detail of life that they cannot see any relation among things as a whole, cannot “see the wood for the trees.” Or, it may be that a lack of poise, a false estimate of the relations of things, makes them find “their own affairs” so interesting or exhausting that the observing mind gets no large or deep impressions to be added to the sum of the knowledge the inner self possesses.
For either of these classes the wakeful night may prove more restful and helpful than hours of sleep. It may be made to bring a breadth of view that will lift one out of the narrow limits in which daily life is passed. It may do as much as this for any of us, and, if we reject the receptive mood, and insist upon objecting to the wakefulness, we may thereby deprive ourselves of some of the most illuminating experiences.
Someone has said: “Sleep, like drink, may drown our sorrows, yet it also drowns our joys. What could we not accomplish if we did not require sleep?” It may be comforting to think of this when we are lying awake, that at least we are wasting no time. The gift of wakefulness is often as desirable as is the gift of sleep, and, if we welcome the one as what must be—with as much cheerfulness as the other—each will bring us equal blessings. It often happens that what we regard as evil is but Life’s left hand outstretched with a gift whose use we did not recognize when presented by her right hand.
CHAPTER XII
THE PURPOSE OF SLEEP
Sleep is a life giver as well as a life saver.
Willard Moyer.
But none of these things lessens the benefits of real sleep, nor are they intended to show that sleep is unnecessary, for although it may be true, as Dr. Charles Brodie Patterson says in “The New Heaven and the New Earth,” that man will some day get along without sleep, no one is yet able to do that.
Although our troubles make us lose sleep, we could lose all or nearly all our troubles if we got natural sleep. Forgetfulness of daily frets, of the wear and tear of contact with the sharp edges of our own temper and the temper of others—these are the things that sleep blots out. “Go to sleep,” says Mother Nature, “and forget your troubles.” And to blot them out even for a time means surcease of sorrow and worry for that time at least, and a new way of looking at them when we have awakened. That is what sleep is for. It is the use of it.
Pat took Mike to church for the first time, and, when the ceremony was over, he said, “Well, Mike, what do you think uv it?” “Think uv it, Pat? The candles, the bowings, the incinse, and the garmints,—it do bate the divil.”