One of the main purposes of sleep is to secure rest to men. But intelligence will find rest in many other ways independent of sleep or of promoting sleep. We are just beginning, under the leadership of such people as Miss Eva Vescelius, to make a full use of music as a soother of the nerves: yet, as long ago as the time of David, some persons knew its value. Browning’s magnificent poem, “Saul,” recounts its force.

As David exorcised Saul’s evil spirit by the skillful harp and voice, so those who are studying the therapeutics of music are now helping the physically and mentally ill. Miss Vescelius and those working with her claim that “music is capable of great life-awakening energy.... The use of music for healing the sick is therefore a natural use of a natural power. Music, like medicine, has been divided into classes as stimulants, sedatives, and narcotics. It is now admitted that music can be so employed as to exercise a distinct psychological influence upon the mind, the nerve centers and the circulatory system, and that by the intelligent use of music many ills may be cured.” For almost all of us “music hath charms to soothe.” Others again find in some form of massage a sweet though artificial sedative; some even in the combing of the hair, which is possibly connected with an electric effect, for we know little definitely as yet of the principles of the possible curative force of electricity.

Others again rest by a mere mental change in their ordinary avocations. My wife was once talking with Mr. Stiegler, a well-known riding teacher in New York, and he said that he was in the saddle every day from six or seven in the morning till eleven at night, with only short intervals for meals. “It’s a hard life,” he said.

“But Sundays?” the lady asked.

“Oh, Sundays! I have Sundays to myself.” “And what do you do on Sundays?” “Oh!” he said, “I take a ride in the Park.” The relief from the strain of watching the pupils and their horses was rest to him.

When Weston had won his first six days’ walk in Madison Square Garden, he went out to take a walk on Fifth Avenue on the Sunday.

To find harmony with our own natures, to act in accordance with our natural or acquired tendencies, is rest. A peaceful surrounding is rest in itself, though sleep may not be wooed. One may be rested by a walk in a country lane, when a walk in the bustle of Broadway would only tire him the more.

And this peaceful surrounding may be interior just as well as exterior. Mrs. Elizabeth Burns Ferm, who has a playhouse for children on the East Side in New York, and does a great deal of other work, recently said: “I could never accomplish what I do if I did not sleep so well. That rests me completely. I do not dream nor stir. I drop into the homogeneous, forgetting myself and becoming just a part of life. In this way I rest.” The oldest books show that, ever since there have been any records of man, he has been seeking happiness and rest, yet he has not attained either happiness or rest. But the seeking has helped in his growth upward and progress has been his reward. As Browning says:

Even though man seeks in wrong directions, he is sure to move onward so long as he continues to seek, for, if we sufficiently desire any goal, we shall eventually find it. “What d’ye lack? quoth God,” says Emerson, “take it and pay the price.” Jesus put the same thing in another form. Said he, “Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” Those who misunderstand life and its purposes apply this only to what are called religious matters, but those who see farther into life know that it applies in every way. It all depends upon what we feel that we lack. If we feel we lack pleasure, or happiness, or rest, we seek them along the lines we think they may be found. And we pay the price that is asked. We cannot avoid this so long as cause and effect follow each other.

If we seek happiness through selfish gratifications, we pay the price of disappointment and pain, if we are at all enlightened. Of course, if a man lives the life of the animal merely, cutting himself off from any recognition of the claims of his fellows, he may get all the happiness he can understand through self-seeking. But the price he pays is that he is not able to understand or to appreciate more than this lesser happiness. As Walter Scott says:

This is the price he pays.

If we seek happiness through the happiness of all; if we forget self, understanding that all are One, seeking that wisdom which comes only from seeing all life as one, we, in like measure, get the reward.

Men, mere animal men, who understand nothing but self-seeking, may speak evil of us, they probably will, but even that cannot “hurt” us. We shall understand that such evil speaking is the best they know, and that, therefore, it is not evil to their minds. Moreover, the further premium to us will be a broader understanding, a deepening love, an increase of happiness, an influx of peace, a pervading sense of rest, and quiet sleep.

This is a premium most of us would be willing to work for, did we but see it. And we may see it if we will. If we ask of life that we get into harmony with its purposes; if we seek diligently even into our own hearts for those purposes; if we knock at the door of man’s full life, we shall find our asking answered, our search rewarded, and the door wide open. What a man desireth most, that, somehow, somewhere, shall be gain. Desire creates function.

And, when the soul has gained what it sought, we shall find beauties and virtues hitherto unsuspected in every human being; we shall learn that, above the turmoil and noise of our rushing, jarring, modern civilization, we can hear the morning stars sing together for joy, the music of the spheres, that which shall yet soothe man’s fear and teach him to find restful sleep.