Precept & Practice – MARCH 24 – The Balm of Sleep
There comes a day with you and me
When all things with us disagree.
We hate ourselves, our friends we hate,
And doubt all good and rail at fate. …
The tide that ebbs will flow again;
From rest to-day you wisely borrow
A double strength to bless tomorrow.
Goethe (Trans. J. S. Blackie)
Much might be said on the wisdom of taking a constantly fresh view of life. It is one of the moral uses of the night that it gives the world anew to us every morning, and of sleep that it makes life a daily creation.
T. J. Munger
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
Shakespeare
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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice
The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.
The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;- with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;- with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.
CONSTANCE M. WHISHAW
Suffolk Vicar 