Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 90, 16 July 1943, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the Wliakatsuie Ministers' Association).

FOR NERVOUS PROSTRATION Some years ago, a lady who tells the story herself, went to consult a famous physician about her health. She was a woman of nervous temperament. whose, troubles —and she had many—had worried and excited her to such a pitch, that the strain threatened her physical strength,, and even her reason. She gave the doctor a list of her symptoms, and answered the questions, only to be astonished at. this brief description in the end: "Madam, what you need is to read your Bible more." "But, doctor!" began the bewildered patient. "Co home and read your Bible an hour a day," the great man reiterated, with kindly authority. "Then come back to me., a month from today." And he bowed her out, without a possibility of further proles'. At first his patient was. inclined to be angry. Then she reflected, at least, the prescription was not an expensive, one. Besides, it certainly had been a long time since she had read the Bible regularly, she reflected, with a pang of conscience. Worldly cares had crowded out prayer and Bible study,, for years; and though she would have resented being called an irreligious woman, she. had. undoubtedly become a most careless Christian. She went home and set herself conscientiously to try the physician's remedy. In one month she went back to his office. "Well," he said, smiling as he. looked at her face, "I see you are an obedient patient, and have taken my prescription faithfully. Do 3 T ou, feel as if you need arty other medicine now?" "No, doctor, I don't," she said honestly. "I feci like, a different person. But how did you know that was just what I needed?" For answer, the famous physician turned to his desk. There, worn and marked, lay an open Bible. "Madam," he said with fleep earnestness,, "if 1 were to omit my daily reading of this Book, I should lose my greatest source of strength and skill. Ii never go to an operation without reading my Bible. I never attend a distressing case without finding help in its pages. Your case called not for medicine# but for sources of peace, and strength, and comfort outside your own mind, and I showed you my own prescription, antl T knew it would cure" "Yet I confess, doctor,," said the patient, "that I came very near not taking it." "Very few are willing to try it, I find," said the physician, smiling again. "But there- are many, many cases in my practice where it would work wonders if t.hey only would, take it." . > The doctor died some, years ago,,

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

but his prescription still remains. —B. McCall Barbour

Sir James Griehton Browne, another .famous physician avers: "YvV doctors arc now constantly compelled m the treatment of nervous diseases to prescribe periods of absolute rest and complete seclusion. Some periods are, 1 think only Sundays in arrears." This latter statement is the crux of the problem from the point of view of physical health. It may seem as if man can go on for years without any rest on Sunday, just as lie can go for a week or more without .sleep at night, but in both cases there is an inevitable toll to be paid for the breaking of Nature's law. Sir Landon "Ronald, who had been conducting National Sunday League, concerts at the Palladium, was ordered a complete rest. . . The Evening Standard contained the statement of Sir Landon himself. It read: "f have decided to discontinue Sunday concerts on account of my health. I can no longer work seven days a week." Sir Landon had to bow to the Sabbath law. He is to be congratulated in tracing his breakdown to the right cause . . . Sunday as a "separated" day is of special value to the mind. Man's mind demands salvation from monotony,, and Sunday is given to man in order to preserve a much needed variety of interest in life. To a man or woman whose mind has been occupied with material pursuits for six days, the opportunity to think of something else on Sunday saves the mind from over-concentration, with its attendant evils of restricted vision and distorted aims,. Officials' to mental hospitals aver that most people whose minds give way have had the mind unbalanced by the quiet forces of monotony rather than the crushing power of tragedy . . . Florence Barclay, in her Rosary, tells how Jane Dalmaine w r as advised by her doctor to take a tonic of big things. . . He advised her to go to the East to see the Pyramids, and then to the West and see Niagara Falls; then when she came home and settled down to the little, ordinary things' of life, she could say to herself, "What does it matter? The Pyramids still stand, Niagara still flows." That is the purpose of Sunday, and that is just where games and amusements fail, and where worship succeeds,. . . . Sunday is meant as a rest to the. mind, a rest from the monotonous round of business, from absorbing sport,, fiddling occupations, low ideals. A new content should come into it which elevates and purifies the whole life, —A London Journalist.