ASLEEP IN CHURCH.

Evening Star, Issue 4197, 9 August 1876, Page 4

ASLEEP IN CHURCH.

(Danbury News.)

Did you ever go to sleep in church ? We don’t mean to ask if you have done ao 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 word's of the preacher are very distinct at first. They present something for your mind to take hold of, and to wrestle intellectually with. Then they calm you and aoothe you. They become a lullaby that floats through your brain, gently filling in the crevices, and giving yon a blissful sense of rest. They merge - themselves so imperceptibly with your most distant thoughts as ±o lose their identity. Further and further away they sound, until they have disappeared entirely. The scene suddenly You are in the midst of a maddened mob. There is a struggle on your part 4o 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 atands out like whip cords, every nerve Is stretched to its utmost. You succeed In getting free from 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 succour. Blindly galloping Along you come unexpectedly to *a precipice. You make a herculean effort to save yourself. But it is too late. With a scream of terror you go over its edge and are huded 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 realisation that you are in church. The words of the minister awake you to this consciousness with _ awful distinctness. Wliat did you do in that dream 1 is a query that takes bold of you with frightful force. Did ' £ yqt* throw your arms in the aii 1 Did you kick the bench 1 Did you scream out! The perspiration gathers in great j v, 'dr&p/l' on • youif.face, and sharp flashes of heat shoot along your spine,, while .ibere 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 it': on you, waiting to confront you face to face. It is a dreadful feeling—so dreadful that it finally becomes unbearable, and presently 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.