GOING TO SLEEP IN CHURCH.
DID you ever go to sleep in church? We don't mean to ask if you have done
so deliberately.
Of course you haven't. You put your head on the back of
the seat in front, just to rest it and to think of the sermon. The words
of the preacher are very distinct to you at first. They present something
for your mind to take hold of, and to wrestle intellectually with. Then they
calm you and soothe you. They become a lullaby that floats through your brain,
gently filling in the crevices, and giving you a blissful sense of rest.
They merge themselves so imperceptibly with your most distant thoughts as
to lose their identity. Farther and farther away they sound, until they have
disappeared entirely. The scene suddenly changes. You are in the midst of
a maddened mob. There is a struggle on your part to save yourself from their
violence. You strike out and kick out, and squirm and wrench yourself. It
is a desperate struggle. Every muscle in your body stands out like whip-cords;
every nerve is stretched to its utmost. You succeed in getting free of the
mass. Then you start on a run, with the pack running after you. You cry out
for help; you shriek at the top of your voice for succor. Blindly galloping
along, you come unexpectedly to a precipice. You make an herculean effort
to save yourself; but it is too late. With a scream of terror you go over
its edge, and are hurled headlong into the dreadful abyss below. Then you
awake. You have hit your head on the back of the pew. For
a moment there
is a dreadful vagueness as to your whereabouts: the next moment brings with
it the realization that you are in church, The words of the minister awake
you to this consciousness with awful distinctness. What did you do in that
dream? is a query that takes hold of you with frightful force. Did you throw
your arms in the air? Did you kick the bench? Did you scream out? The
perspiration gathers in great drops on your face, and sharp flashes of heat
shoot along your spine, while there is sinking enough in the pit of your
stomach to start a shaft in a gold-mine. You dare not look up. You can imagine
every eye in the assembly is turned upon you, waiting to confront you face
to face. It is a dreadful feeling,—so dreadful, that it finally becomes
unbearable; and finally you slowly raise your head, and gradually, but furtively,
glance about you. The congregation is as you left them. Not an eye is turned
towards you; and you might believe that you had not been asleep at all, were
it not for the awakening of one leg, accompanied by all the poignant sensations
of that operation.
