ASLEEP IN CHURCH.

Bruce Herald, Volume IX, Issue 827, 11 August 1876, Page 3

ASLEEP IN CHURCH.

(Daribury News.)

Did you ever go to sleep in church ? We don't mean to ask if you have done so deliberately. Of course you haven't. Yoxx put your head on the back of tlie seat in front just to rest it, and to think of the sermon. The words of the preacher are very distiuct at first. They px*esent something for your mind to take bold of, and to wrestle intellectually with. Then they calm you and soothe you. They become a lullaby that floats through yoxxr brain, gently filling in the crevices, and giving you a blissful sense of rest. They merge themselves so imperceptibly with your most distant thoughts as to lose their identity. Further and further away they soxxnd, xxntil they have disappeared entirely. The scene suddenly changes. You ai*e in the midst of a maddened mob. There is a struggle on your part to save yourself from their violence You strike out and kick out, and squirm and wrench yourself. It is a desperate struggle. Every muscle in yoxxr body stands out like whip cords, every nerve is sti'etched to its utmost. You succeed in getting free from the mass. Then yoxx 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 yoxx come unexpectedly to a precipice. Yoxx make a hercxxlean effort to save yourself. But it is too late. With a scream of terror you go over its edge and are hurled headlong into the dreadful aby.ss below. Then you awake. You have hit yoxxr head on the back of the pew. For a, nxoment tlxex*e is a dreadful vagueness as to your whereabouts. The next moment bi'ings with it the realisation that yoxx ax*e in church. Tlxe words of the minister awake yoxx to this consciousness with awful distinctness. What did yoxx do in that dx*eam 1 is a query that takes hold of you with frightful force. Did you tlxx'ow your arms in the air j Did you kick the bench 1 Did you scream out? The perspiration gathers in great di*ops on yoxxr lace, and sharp flashes of heat shoot along j-our spine, while there is sinking enough in the pit of your stomach to start a shaft in a gold mine. You date not look up. You can imagine every eye in tlxe assembly is turned uy.on you, waiting to confront you face to face. It is a dreadful feel ing — so dreadful that it finally becomes unbeax*able, 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 aocom panied by all the poignant sensations of that operation.