To be near unto God - pagina 45

exhaustion of strength? He, after whose Image we are created, never wearies. The heavenly hosts of angels do not sleep. Of the new Jerusalem we read: "There shall be no more night." We can imagine a being, who does not exhaust his strength and therefore needs no sleep. Why God appointed life for us with the continual exhaustion of its powers and their restoration by sleep remains a secret. But though no one understands it, this Divine ordinance has not gone forth without a purpose and a wise disposal. Does not the Scripture say that in the night our reins instruct us, and does not this impart an higher significance to sleep ? Undoubtedly such was the case with David. But this is by no means an ordinary experience. And even if this were the case, yet for the sake of spiritual instruction in the soul, this regularly returning period of seven long hours would be out of all nroportion. Only think how large a part of the day it is from nine o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon. And yet it comprises but seven hours, and these we sleep away out of every twenty-four. This is modified by sickness, by pressing cares or old age, three causes which either shorten, disturb or delay sleep, so that a r>art of the night is sleepless. By either of these causes night obtains a different significance, but only because sleep can not be courted, or is too much interrupted or too early ended. Hence dreams are not without some significance. Dreams can They can suggest discover us to ourselves. They can afford us helpful thoughts of life. moments of fellowship with our dead, which God can reveal gives us melancholy delight. something to us in dreams. In spite of all this, 37

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