Health, or, How to Live

DAMP BEDS

SLEEP is essential. However moderate the work, the best constitution will soon break down under a loss of sleep. It is especially necessary for preachers. If they are engaged in their work, as they should be, their labors are exciting and wearing, more than those of most other men, and after the exhausting services of a meeting, they need quiet and refreshing rest at night. This is far more essential than food or drink. Friends who invite them home show no want of hospitality in the supplies which they furnish to tempt the appetite. But in the provision which they make for their obtaining needful rest, there is often a culpable negligence which is sometimes attended with the most serious results. The late Wm. Dawson, an eminent and useful Methodist minister in England, was killed by a damp bed. Prince Albert was said to have shown the first symptom of his fatal illness as the consequence of a damp bed at Madingly Hall. We have had some painful experiences in this matter. At one time, after preaching three sermons on the Sabbath, to a crowded house, we were invited home by a brother to stay all night. We were very kindly received. After an interesting season of prayer, we were sent to sleep in a room — the third one away from any fire — in a bed that was seldom occupied, and which had accumulated all the damp and cold that a winter’s frost could give it. The night was the coldest of the season. In vain did we try to sleep. We were so thoroughly chilled that rest was impossible. In the morning we arose languid and depressed, feeling as if we had suffered a long fit of sickness. The good people had none but the kindest intentions, but if God had not blessed us with a strong constitution, and watched over us for good, our labors might have suddenly closed. HHTL 354.3

We have heard some of our old preachers say that they did not suffer in the early days of their ministry when they slept in the chambers of log cabins, through the roofs of which they could see the stars, as much as they often do now when put to sleep in some cold room of the large house of some wealthy brother. In those days the big fire below warmed the chambers; but the spare chamber of the large house is generally removed far from the influence of fire. HHTL 355.1

Will not our sisters think of these things? Make it a matter of conscience, never to put an ambassador of Christ, weary with toils, nor indeed any one else, to sleep in a bed that is cold, damp and uncomfortable. There is never any necessity for it. If you cannot take a fire to the bed to dry it thoroughly, you can always, with a little trouble, take the bed to the fire. This is a great deal better than to kill one off prematurely, or to give him the rheumatism, or some other painful disease for life. HHTL 355.2