NERVOUS PROSTRATION AS A FINE ART.
By Editor
[From the Sunday-School Times, of October 16.] The splendid gains of civilization have been achieved by tragic and pathetic losses. To-day it is interesting as it never has been before. By the railway, the steamboat, the telegraph, the newspaper, the whole world is welded into a common brotherhood; and the man in New York is not content unless he knows something of what the men in Tokio are doing. Assuredly modern life is interesting,—but it is not quiet. It interests the mind, but it does not rest the spirit. Perhaps there never has been so much noise in the world as there is to-day; certainly the stress and strain of life were never before spread over so wide an area. The result is that many,—and these not the weakest and the worst, but often the strongest and the best,—are fainting beneath their burdens. There are some who, humbly speaking, can not help themselves. There are others whose physical ruin is, in large measure, their own fault. If they can fairly be called victims at all, they are the victims of their own good nature or stupidity. The malady known as nervous prostration is appallingly common. It attacks the strong, robust, and eager man, as well as the nervous and susceptible woman; but no one who has watched the unhappy victims of its assaults can deny that it attacks many who ought to have been impervious to its attacks, had they used the common sense which God has given them, or availed themselves of the opportunities for rest, refreshment, and recreation, which in many cases were scattered plentifully enough about their lives. It almost looks as if the unhappy sufferers had deliberately aimed to place themselves in the position in which they now are, and had cultivated nervous prostration as if it had been a fine art. Of course, the statement has only to be put thus badly for the absurdity of it to be self-evident. The disease is a ghastly one. In its power to dull the intellect, to paralyze the moral energies, to cripple the spiritual power, to darken the outlook upon life and God, to envelop the spirit with gloom, and to inspire the sufferer with morbid and suicidal thoughts, it is an affliction from which the bravest might well shrink back in terror. But, at the same time, many a man, and perhaps still more, many a woman, lives as if he or she were positively courting its oncoming. They do,—sometimes, indeed, thoughtlessly, but often enough deliberately, and with their eyes fully open to all the horrible possibilities,—the very things which are bound, in the long run, to reduce them to nervous wrecks. For a man has not lived to much purpose if he has not learned that all life is governed by laws, and that his health and his usefulness depend upon obedience to those laws. It matters not what the reason for the disobedience may be; often the sin may seem venial enough. But disobedience must be punished, and the wages of sin is prostration, and often death. Many men burden themselves with unnecessary duties. Imagining themselves to be indispensable to a certain piece of work, they willfully refuse to avail themselves of the useful help which could easily be had, and work on single-handed or with inadequate assistance until their own power of work is ruined. Then they learn, what they ought to have known all the time, that they were not indispensable. Women yield to the exacting demands of a too frivolous society, thinking that they can only refuse those demands on the penalty of social extinction; and then the nervous affections creep insidiously on, till the woman is a wreck, and the social extinction which she dreaded, and to avoid which she sacrificed everything, becomes a fact. But perhaps the saddest thing of all is that many men allow themselves to be misled by their own good nature. It may be that a man can do three or four things well. He is a good preacher, a good platform speaker, a good writer. Were he only one of these, he would have his hands full enough, but, as it is, he is assailed on three different sides. The assailants, representing, as they do, different interests, do not know how cruel they are; all they know is that they are asking a capable man to do what they know he can do. It is a situation like this that tests a man's real wisdom and insight. In a weak moment, and for want of the power to say "No," he may accept engagements which he can only fulfil through the ultimate ruin of his physical, and perhaps mental, strength; and one may be pardoned for doubting whether, under ordinary circumstances, and unless there be some great claim to be greatly met, God demands such a sacrifice as that. Even in the interests of the work itself the man must learn to say "No," because he does that work a gross injustice—the greatest injustice he as an individual can do it—by putting himself deliberately in the position of being ultimately unable to do it. The loss of a good worker is the most serious loss which a great cause can sustain, and that loss is inevitable if the worker commits the folly of working beyond his strength. And it is precisely the best workers who are most exposed to this temptation, for it is upon them, very naturally, that the world lays its most numerous and heaviest demands. But the laws of health are the laws of God. The sooner we learn that if a man has the hardihood to defy the laws of God, it is he who suffers, and not they, the better it will be for us all. We pray glibly for a revelation from God, and here is one of the plainest and most undeniable revelations that man can ever hope to receive. Yet every month Christian men defy it repeatedly and deliberately. How can we hope to be happy if we defy the great and beneficent laws of God? Is it fair that we should be happy? The way of transgressors is hard, and the man or woman who needlessly overworks is a transgressor, and just as sure of punishment as any other transgressor. It is easier to run down than to run up. It is months, and often years, before the victim of nervous prostration recovers that elasticity and buoyancy of spirit which constitutes more than half the happiness of life. It is a fearful thing to fall into the arms of these mighty laws of God. Every Sabbath day is a reminder of the folly, indeed of the crime, of overwork. The man who refuses to avail himself of his proper rest and recreation is indeed a bold man; he is defying the established order of the world, violating the constitution of his own being, and dashing himself against the laws of God. But in such a collision we may be very sure that it is he, and not they, that will be broken in pieces.