Early to Bed, and Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise, Or, Early Rising, a Natural, Social, and Religious Duty

Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. EABLY BI8ING PBOMOTES THE HEALTH OF THE MIND AND SOUL. This is unquestionably by far the most important view of the subject. How we may best promote the interests of the soul, and develope the faculties of the understanding, should ever be our chief concern. And I submit that early rising is eminently calculated to help forward both of these grand objects. That it is so, it needs only to be tried to prove, if the testimony and the example of many of the most holy and most learned men be not sufficient evidence. And I think that every one, who, from conviction and from choice, has adopted the practice of rising early, would be most unwilling to fall into the opposite habit. An habitual early riser, especially if a child of God, knows well that his intellectual vigour, his cheerfulness, his comfort, and his contentment of mind, are materially aided and improved by this means. He also knows well that his spiritual strength, his loving-service for God, his selfcontrol, his peace of mind, together with all other inward graces and outward evidences of them, depend not a little upon the recollectedness of mind, and the time for devotional exercises, which the habit of rising early helps him to cultivate, and secure. To enlarge, then, upon some of these advantages: --I. First, as to those which the Mind derives by this means, it has been found by experience, that, 1. The TTUDEBSTANDING is most VIGOBOtTS m the early morning; and that Eaely Eisiug Impboyes It. The mind is clearer, and the judgment more to be depended upon, in the early morning, than at any other part of the day. It is the habit of judicious men to "sleep upon" any important plan or decision, at least one night if they can, before committing themselves to it. They know...