well as that we have no notion of the duration of time in our dreams. The most varied occurrences, and the transactions of years, are crowded, without any consciousness of incongruity, into a period too brief for calculation; accordingly, we are informed by Dr. Abercrombie, that "A gentleman dreamt that he had enlisted as a soldier, joined his regiment, deserted, was apprehended, carried back, tried, condemned to be shot, and at last, led out for execution. After the usual preparations a gun was fired; he awoke with the report, and found that a noise in an adjoining room had both produced the dream and awakened him. The same want of the notion of time is observed in dreams from other causes. Dr. Gregory mentions a gentleman, who, after sleeping in a damp place, was for a long time liable to a feeling of suffocation whenever he slept in a lying posture, and this was always accompanied by a dream of a skeleton which grasped him violently by the throat. He could sleep in a sitting posture without any uneasy feeling; and after trying various expedients, he at last had a sentinel placed beside him, with orders to awake him whenever he sunk down. On one occasion he was attacked by the skeleton, and a severe and long struggle ensued before he awoke. On finding fault with his attendant for allowing him to lie so long in such a state of suffering, he was assured that he had not lain an instant, but

had been awakened the moment he began to sink. The gentleman, after a considerable time, recovered from the affection."

"A friend of mine," adds Abercrombie, "dreamt that he crossed the Atlantic, and spent a fortnight in America. In embarking on his return he fell into the sea, and having awaked with the fright, discovered that he had not been asleep above ten minutes."

"The rapidity," Darwin remarks, "of the succession of transactions in our dreams is almost inconceivable, insomuch that, when we are accidentally awakened by the jarring of a door which is opened into our bedchamber, we sometimes dream a whole history of thieves or fire in the very instant of awaking."

Lord Brougham's characteristic illustration of the same fact, is as follows:

"Let any one who is extremely overpowered with drowsiness, as after sitting up all night and sleeping none the next day, lie down and begin to dictate, he will find himself falling asleep after uttering a few words, and he will be awakened by the person who writes repeating the last word, to show he has written the whole; not above five or six seconds may elapse, and the sleeper will find it at first quite impossible to believe that he has not been asleep for hours, and will chide the amanuensis for having fallen asleep over his work, so great apparently will be the length of the dream which he has dreamt, extending through half

a life-time. This experiment is easily tried; again and again the sleeper will find his endless dream renewed, and he will always be able to tell in how short a time he must have performed it. For suppose eight or ten seconds required to write the four or five words dictated, sleep could hardly begin in less than four or five seconds after the effort of pronouncing the sentence, so that at the utmost, not more than four or five seconds can have been spent in sleep. But indeed the greater probability is, that not above a single second can have been so passed, for a writer will easily finish two words in a second, and suppose he has to write four, and half the time is consumed in falling asleep, one second only is the duration of the dream, which yet seems to last for years, so numerous are the images that compose it."

From all which it appears that, as volition ceases, the reflex powers of the mind, about to be released for a while from the controul of the body, and in a manner taking leave of this our mortal state of existence, almost realize the period when time shall be no more.

What is Time? The measure we are told of duration-whether involving the consideration of days or years-or the period of all created existence.

To me it seems that Time bears the same reference to events that space does to matter; and that time and space are with relation to the works of Creation, what eternity and infinity are with relation to the Creator. Accordingly, with the same correctness with which it is enunciated of the Supreme Being that to Him a thousand years are as one day, it may be said that a thousand miles are as a single point. When we speak of infinity in con

I have lately seen a well-written and, apparently, authentic account of a gentleman, who had been restored to life after suspended animation. It informs us that, far from having any recollection of sufferings in connection with his loss of consciousness, the only mental impression, retained by him, of his dying moments was, that all the events of his past life seemed to have been set in simultaneous array before him-thus evincing a close analogy between the death we die daily and that which it is appointed unto all men once to die, and, proceeding with the analogy to its legitimate extent, between the awakening to life in

nection with any of the works of creation, we speak with reference to man's limited capacity. It has indeed pleased the Creator to defy his intelligent creatures reaching the utmost limits of creation either in the ascending or descending scale; for if we are lost in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, we are no less so when we meditate on the infinitesimal myriads of animated beings with which all nature teems. Not only have our eyes been accustomed of late to witness the wonders of the microscope, under the magic influence of an almost miraculous gas, but we are informed, by that most philosophic traveller, Baron Humboldt, that he once had his ears accosted with the hum of insects when reposing on the banks of a South American river, when there was not the least perceptible vestige of vegetable or animal-existence near him. And who has not, in fact, when sauntering in summer under lofty trees, been greeted with the hum of an invisible insect choir?

Real Infinity-the infinity not of mathematicians but of metaphysicians, is an attribute of the Creator only, and, like all His other attributes, to us incomprehensible.

Speaking of the infinite divisibility of matter, Coleridge once amused us with the following illustration:

"Fleas that bite little dogs

Have little fleas that bite 'em,
Thus less fleas bite little fleas,
On -ad infinitum."

time and in eternity. And what an appalling hint do not such facts supply, to the reflecting mind, of that eventful day when, as we know from unerring authority, all who are in their graves shall arise and appear before the judgment seat of Christ! Time will then be no longer; and may we not collect even from the few instances (among ten thousand) above related, if the voice of Scripture were not decisive, that the proceedings of that stupendous tribunal will be as distinct and circumstantial as they must be just and conclusive; and yet that the whole scene may take place in the very instant of transition from the recesses of the tomb to the possession of those spiritual bodies over which death will have no more power?

I may be excused for inserting here a dream of the celebrated Dr. Doddridge, remarkably illustrative of this extraordinary capacity of the soul in its transition state, as it were, between life and death; between waking and sleeping; between in the body and out of the body-for, in deep sleep, as in death, what becomes of the immaterial and conscious spirit, who can tell?

In this dream, he thought that his soul had left the body; and after various adventures preparatory to a final state of happiness, he was conducted to a room hung round with pictures, which were found, upon examination, to contain the history of his whole life. The most remarkable incidents were represented in the most lively manner. The many temptations and