Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1893 — DREAMS AND VISIONS. [ARTICLE]

DREAMS AND VISIONS.

Lessons Drawn From Various Psychological Phenomena. Dreams of the Bible—Visions of To-riay of Doubtful Significance. ■ Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn, Sunday. Subject: “Psychological Phenomena.” Text: Genesis xxvni, 11 —“He ■'took of the stones of that place and put them for his pillows and lav" down in that place to sleep, and lie dreamed.” He said: Asleep on a pillowcase filled with hens’ feathers it is not strange one should have pleasant dreams. But here is a pillow of roc-k and Jacob with his head on it, and, lo! a dream of angels, two processions, those coming down the stairs met by those going up the stairs. ‘ It is the first dream of Bible record. __ '* God appeared in a dream to Abim-

elech warning him against an unlawful marriage; in a dream to Joseph, foretelling his coming power under the figure of all the sheaves of the harvest bowing down to his sheaf; to the chief butler, foretelling his disimprison men t; to the chief baker, announcing his decapitation; to Pharaoh, showing him first the seven plenty years and then the seven famine struck years, under the figure of the seven fat cows devouring the seven lean cows; to Solomon, giving him the choice between wisdom and riches and honor; to the warrior, under the figure of a barley cake smiting down a tent, encouraging Gideon in his battle against the Amalekites; to Nebuchadnezzar, under; the figure of a broken image and a iiown down tree, foretelling his overthrow of power; to Joseph of the New Testament, announcing the birth of Christ in his own household; to Mary, bidding her to fly from Herodic persecutions: to Pilate’s wife, warning him not to' become complicated with the judicial overthrow of Christ. We all admit that God in ancient times and under Bible dispensation addressed the people through dreams. The question now is, Does God appear in our day and reveal himself through dreams? That is the question everybody asks, and that question this morning I shall try to answer. You ask me if I believe in dreams. My answer is. I do believe in dreams, but all I have to say will be under five heads. Remark the First —The Scriptures are so full of revelation from Clod that if we get no communication from him in dreams we ought nevertheless to be satisfied. With twenty guidebooks to tell you bow to- get to Boston or Pittsburg or London or Glasgow or Man Chester, do von want, a night vision to tell you how to make the journey? We,have in thm-Scvipiure full direction -in regard to the journey of this life and how to get to the celestial city, and with this grand guidebook, this magnificent,directory we ought to be satisfied..

Sound sleep received great honor when Adam slept so extraordinarily that the surgical incision which gave him Eve did not wake him. But there is no such need for. extraordinary slumber now. and he who catches an Eve must ho wide awake. No need of such a dream as Jacob had, with a ladder against the sky, when ten thousand times it had been demonstrated that earth and heaven are in communication. No. such dream needed as that -which was given to Abimolech, warning him against an unlawful marriage. .when we have the records of the county clerk’s office. 1 can very easily understand why the Babylonians and Egyptians, with no Bible, should pul’so much stress on dreams, and the Chinese, in their holy book, Chow King, should think their emperor-gets his directions through dreams from Cod, and that Homer should think that all dreams came from Jove, and that in ancient times dreams were classified into a science. But why do you and I put so much stress upon dreams when we have a supernal book of infinite wisdom on all subjects? Why should we harry ourselves with dreams? Why should Eddystonc and Barnegat lighthouses question a summer firefly? Remark the .Second—All dreams have an important meaning. They prow that the soul is comparatively independent of the body. The eyes are dosed, the senses are dull, the entire body goes into a lethargy which in all languages is used as a type of death, and then the soul spreads its wings and never sleeps. It leaps the Atlantic ocean and mingles in scenes 3,000 miles away. It travels great reaches of time, flashes back eighty years and the octogenerian is a boy again in his father’s house If the soul, before it has entirely broken its chain of flesn, can do ali this, how far can it leap, what circles can it cut when it is fullv liberated?

Remark the Third —The vast majority of dreams are merely the result of disturbed physical condition and are not a supernatural message. Job had carbuncles, and he was scared in the night. He says, “Thou scarest me with dreams and terrifiest me with visions.” Solomon had an overwrought brain, overwrought, with public business, and he suffered from erratic slumber, and he writes in Ecqlesiastes. “A dream coinefh through the multitude of business.” Dr. Gregory in experimenting with dreams found that a bottle of hot water put to his feet while in slumber made him think he was going up the hot side of Mount Etna. But I have to tell you that the

majority of the dreams are m irely the penalty of outraged digestive organs, and you have no right to mistake the nightmare for heavenly revelation. Late suppers are a warranty deed for bad dreams. Highly spiced s’ijl.nds at 11 o’clock at night instead of opening the door heavenward open the door infernal and diabolical. You outrage natural law T , and you insult the God who made those laws. Lwili give you a recipe for ant dreams: Fill your days with elevated thought and unselfish action, and your dreams will be set to music. If all day you are gouging and grasping and avaricious, in your dreams you wifi see gold that you cannot clutch and bargains in which you were outshylocktd. If during the, day you are irascible, pugnacious and gunpowdery of disposition, you will have at night battle with-ene-mies in which they will get the best of you. If you are all day long in a hurry, at night you will dream of rail trains that you want to catch while you cannot move one inch toward the depot.

If you are always oversuspicious and expectant of assault, you will have at night hallucinations ofassasins with daggers drawn. The scholpoet’s dream is a rhythmic echo. Colerige composed his“KublaKlian v asleep in a narcotic dream, and waking up wrote down 300 lines of it. Tartini, the violin player, composed his most wonderful sonata while asleep in a dream so vivid that waking he easily transferred it to paper. All dreams that make you better are from God. How do I know? Is not God the source of all good? It doffs not T&ke u very logical mind to argue that out. Tertullian and Martin Luther believed .in dreams. The dreams of John Huss are immortal. St. Augustine, the Christian father, gives us the fact that a Carthaginian physician was persuaded of the immortality of the soul by an argument which he heard in a dream. The night before his assassination the wife of Julius Cmsar dreamed that her husband fell dead across her lap. It is possible to prove that God does appear in dreams to warn, to: convert and to save men. The Rev, Dr. Busline! 1 , in his marvelous book entitled “Nature and the Supernatural,” gives the following fact that he got from Captain Yount in California, a fact confirmed by many families: Captain Yount dream® twice one night that 150 miles away there was a company of travelers fast in the snow. He also saw in the dream rocks of peculiar formation.and telling his dream to an old friend the hunter said: “Why, I remember those rocks. Those rocks are in the Carson Valley pass, 150 miles away.” Captain Yount, impelled by this dream, although laughed at byhis neighbors, gathered men together, took mules and blankets, and started on the expedition, traveled 150 miles, saw those very rocks which he had described in his dream, and finding the suffering ones at the foot of those rocks brought them back to confirm the story of Captain Yount. Who conducted that dream? The God of the show, the God of the Sierra Novadas. Furthermore. T have to say that Jihere are people in this house who were converted to God through a dream. The Rev. John Newton, the fame of whose piety fills all Christendom, while a profligate sailor on. shipboard, in his dremjji.thought that a being approach®-Bm VH, &nd gave him a very beautiful ring and put it upon his finger and said to him, “As long as you wear that ring you will be prospered; if you lose that ring, you will be ruined.”

In the same dream another personage appeared.-and by a strange infatuation persuaded John Newton to throw that ring overboard, and it sank into the sea. Then the mountains in sight were full of fire, and the air was lurid with consuming wrath. While John Newton was repenting of his folly in having thrown overboard the treasure an - other personage came through the dream and told John Newton he would plunge into the sea and bring the ring up if He desired it. He plunged into the sea and brought the ring up and said to John Newton, '‘Here is that gem, but I think I will keep it for you, lest you lose it again,” and John Newton consented, and all the fire went out from the mountains, aud all the signs of lurid wrath disappeared from the air, and John Newton said that he saw in his dream that that valuable gem was his soul, and that the being who persuaded him to throw it overboard was satan, aud that the one who plunged in and restored that gem, keeping it for him, was Christ, and that drearr. makes one of the most wonderful chapters in the life of that most wonderful man. There are enough materials to make a dream. Enough voices, for there shall be the roaring of the elements and the great earthquake. Enough light for the dream, for the world shall blaze. Enough excitement, for the mountains shall fall. Enough water, for the ocean shall roar. Enough astronomical phenomena, for the stars shall go out. Enough populations, for all the races of all the ages will fall into line of one of two processions—the one as cending, the other descending; the one led by the rider on the white horse of eternal victory, the other led on by Apollyon on the black chargor of eternal defeat.

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