PERTINENCE OF SCRIPTURE DREAMS.

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dream was given at, for practical purposes, the same time as the dream itself. Further, they bore this mark of divinity, that no rules of the quasi-science of interpretation could avail to exhibit or to detect their meaning; God was "his own interpreter," and Himself made plain their message and significance.

CHAPTER III.

ON DREAMS AS BEING SENT BY GOD.

"Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream" (Num. xii. 6).

"Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions" (Joel ii. 28).

"Dreams descend from Jove" (Iliad, book i. 63).

"In the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities" (Eccles. v. 7).

"Songes sont mensonges" (French Proverb).

It will be seen that the foregoing quotations range between the opposite poles of faith and infidelity as to the significance of dreams, so far as that depends on their presumed origin. But none of the propositions, except the medium or indifferent one from Ecclesiastes, are universal ones, or intended to be so. Neither did any generation ever hold the divine origin of all dreams, to the exclusion of every other theory. In all times there have been men severally characterized by credulity, by unbelief, and by a philosophical scepticism which refused to commit itself. We have seen that inspired saints of the old Jewish dispensation knew how to recognize the worthlessness of the mere flitting brain-clouds, which Solomon understood to arise from the "multiplicity of business." And Homer was aware of the necessity of distinguishing between the ovap or the ovepos, the messenger of Jove, and itself a subordinate divinity, and the mere meaningless évúπviov which was incidental to any sleeping individual. In all ages some men have

INTERPOSITION AND LAW.

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held to one of the two extremes, whilst others have oscillated between. But if we sought to sever the opinion of one age from the impression of another, we should say that the earlier epochs of the world were characterized by a clinging to the divine origin of dreams generally; whilst modern times are most remarkable for seeking a refuge from the admission of divine agency in mental and physiological solutions of dream phenomena.

The ancients in their practice in this respect have only afforded a particular exhibition of a spirit universally prevailing. Theocracy, a direct God-government in all things, was the theory of the youthful world, as it has ever been the theory of the youth of nations. Of this we have an example in the political maxim of the divine right of kings,—a maxim which is now, not altogether with advantage, started only for the purpose of being hunted down. The nearer men were to the first creation, in fact or in idea, the more ready were they to look upon each novel event or coincidence as miraculous. Miracle was their starting-point; and it required the observation and experiment of ages to calm them down into a tamer recognition of general laws and a general providence. Our tendency to extravagance is the exact reverse of theirs. We are so familiar with laws, that we are apt to repose in them to the prejudice of the Lawgiver. Law, to the ancient world, looked like interposition; nowadays, interposition runs risk of having abdication forced upon it to make room for the installation of law; whilst moderation petitions for the setting up of a double throne.

We have already glanced at some instances where the Holy Scriptures affirm the direct intervention of God. It falls to us to speak of the dream-oracles which the heathen world acknowledged as God-given; and this, whether they come before us as professedly historical, or whether, emerging in fiction, they appeal to us as concrete expositions of a popular belief. And here we naturally turn first to Homer, and to those poets who decked their dramas with his drapery;

who-Eschylus especially and confessedly-set forth their banquets with re-dressed food that had heretofore fallen from his abundant tables.*

It was the advice of Achilles, in the context of the Homeric motto which finds a place at the head of this chapter, that some true priest or prophet should be deputed on behalf of the Greeks, then plague-stricken before Troy, to ascertain by an invoked dream-revelation the reason of the malific anger of the far-darting Apollo. There were sacred rites proper to such a quest. The sacerdotal person appointed to the inquiry would, after the performance of certain ceremonies, lie down in some holy place, in anticipation of a dream from the gods which should resolve his difficulty. That this was a practice in ancient classical heathendom appears from the temples of Amphiaraus in Boeotia, and Podalirius in Apulia, where the inquirer, in order to obtain an answer, was obliged to sleep before the altar recumbent upon the skin of the animal he had previously offered in sacrifice. This would appear to have been a recognized method for inviting illumination, so late as the time of Macrobius; and, in fact, mutatis mutandis, we find something analogous in a remarkable prayer of Dr. Johnson, to the spirit and letter of which the accomplished Boswell, of course, lends his valuable sanction. "In imitation," says Dendy, "of this spell for the divine inspiration of a dream, the modern Franciscans, after the ceremony of mass, throw themselves on mats already consecrated by the slumber of some holy visionary, and with all this foolery, they vaunt the divine inspiration of their dream."

In the fourth book of the "Iliad," Homer takes advantage of the circumstances of the death of Rhesus to introduce a dream of exactly the same purport as the reality. The Thracian prince is sleeping serenely in his tent in the midst of his forces, with his white steeds tethered in the rear of his "Eschylus used to say that his tragedies were only slices cut from the great banquet of Homeric dainties."-Athenæus.

SIMULTANEOUS FULFILMENT.

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chariots, when Diomed and Ulysses penetrate amongst the slumbering host; after slaying many of whom, they arrive where their chief lies prostrate.

The monarch last they found;
Tydides' falchion fixed him to the ground.
Just then a deathful dream Minerva sent;
A warlike form appeared before his tent,
Whose visionary steel his bosom tore:

So dreamed the monarch, and awaked no more.

The wit of man has never invented for any dream a speedier fulfilment.

Minerva commissions a more compassionate dream at the conclusion of the fourth book of the "Odyssey." Penelope one night, whilst depressedly looking for the protracted return of her husband, oppressed with fears for Telemachus, and altogether too anxious to indulge in food, retires supperless to her chamber, and whilst still revolving many things in her mind, in the midst of her perplexity yields to kindly sleep. Then the blue-eyed goddess is said by Homer to have fashioned an image resembling exactly "the lady Iphthima, the daughter of the high-souled Icarius; whom Eumelus, who inhabits a house in Pheræ, had married. And she sent her to the house of divine Ulysses, if she could by any means make Penelope, mourning and grieving, cease from her wailing and tearful sorrow." Entering the chamber, the incarnate dream opens a conversation with Penelope, whom, benevolently and successfully, she bids to be of better cheer. Penelope at length awakes, encouraged to strength and rejoicing of heart from her converse with the friendly dream.

On another occasion Minerva went in person, having assumed the form and likeness of the daughter of Dymas, a famous navigator, to counsel the sleeping Nausicaa, the daughter of strong-hearted Alcinous, to make preparations for her marriage. And it is to be remarked that the waking damsel faithfully complied with the advice of the goddess.

But even god-sent dreams were not always trustworthy.