LETTER XIX.
Dear Charles,—Allow me to write a preface to my
dream. I am not, in the vulgar sense, what is called a believer
in dreams. Still, there is no crime nor any danger in
thinking that some dreams have been extraordinary and have
led to extraordinary results. It does not seem either unreasonable
or irreligious, to hold that in regard to certain temporal
matters in no apparent way connected with the gospel, and
therefore in no way connected with the object of revelation,
monition by unusual modes may be imparted to our minds.
Many presentiments and impressions are so marked, so clear,
so distinct, and have been followed by consequences so in
accordance with their nature, that it is more irrational to resolve
them into accident than to admit their real character—
a providential interference. And if so in regard to these
monitions, why not in regard to dreams?—that is, some
dreams.
Certainly no impossibility can here be urged. And if
good cause, or a cui bono can be shown, as we believe may
be for some remarkable monitions by presentiment, dream,
(nay, start not, domine,) or even apparition, it is both reverent
and wise to attribute such to a special, superintending
Providence.
Our day, Mr. Clarence, is Sadducean in its spirit. Men
feel a scoffing spirit towards all views, however supported by
probable and rational argument, on the intercourse between
this visible and that invisible state, separated by a line almost
as thin as imaginary ones between the zones. Yet strange!
many infidels, who abhor the admission of such possible intercourse
because it would admit a God at the same time, do
assiduously cultivate mesmerism! And why? Because they
hope to prove by some hocus-pocus of logic, that all miracles
may be resolved on natural principles. It is granted that
great caution is necessrry in treading on this solemn ground
of divine interference; for not a few who admit what is now
contended for, do become visionary and fanatical. But a
wide difference may be discovered between modest and probable
things, and the hallucinations of Swedenborg.
No new religious truth, no new moral revelation is supposed
to be conveyed to our mind by providential and special
monition: yet by such monition we may be urged to attend
to what is already revealed. Or we may be induced to shun
a lurking danger, or to send relief where it is needed. And,
pray, Charles, what harm if unusual hints and intimations
preserve in our minds a solemn awe of that mysterious world
—real, although invisible?
Is it so very wonderful and incredible that the Supreme
should care about his creatures? And a priori is it not
vastly more probable that certain unusual monitions should
be vouchsafed, than that such should not be? For my part,
I find it impossible to divest myself of the belief of what is
now advanced; and I make the avowal, at the hazard of being
thought credulous. Cooler and wiser men by far have
fully believed that “there are more things in heaven and
earth than are dreamed of in our philosophies;” and hence
if shelter be necessary, I stand behind these, and am well
content to be sneered at in such company.
Thus much for preface, and now the dream. Alas! in
recording it, I record my shame: but like other penitents, I
may, for good cause, tell of what is now sincerely abhorred
and deplored. Rarely in those days did I enter a church;
and then only to deride and scoff. Nay, my chosen companions
would often grossly disturb and insult such religious
meetings as could be disturbed and insulted with impunity.
At length so guilty a pre-eminence was gained in impiety,
that I often, and without much alarm, used to say, “If there
be a hell, I am very sure of it!” Most truly was I living
without hope and without God; and once in a sudden fainting
fit, as I believed myself to be sinking away from the
light of life, and the cold chill of a deathful shudder was
quivering through my very soul, with senses all keenly
awake, I thought within myself, “If there be a hell, perhaps,
—I am sinking into it!”
Oh! dear Charles!—twice have I thought myself to be
dying—once as an infidel apostate—and once as a believer
in the Son of God—and how different my feelings! May
the Infinite Mercy keep me from the view of the abyss once
before my terrified soul!—my very blood even now curdles
at the thoughts of my danger!
In the midst of this demoniacal life, when all ordinary
means seemed powerless to alarm me: and when, a few
months before the time of my present narrative, in the midst
of a fearful tempest, while the fierce lightnings were gleaming
over the city like the sword of the Eternal, and the loud
voice of his thunders was shaking the houses to their foundations,
and many, in consequence of a prediction, fearing
that in very deed the day of doom had arrived, lost their
senses, I had sat apparently calm upon a grass plot, and to
show my hardihood, had played an instrument of music in a
lively tune—even in such a course of life, I was thoroughly
alarmed by a dream!
I dreamed one night; and nothing suggested the dream
that I ever recollected, for the storm alluded to happened
months before; I dreamed myself as having gone with a
wicked comrade, one Sabbath afternoon, to disturb a prayer
meeting of Presbyterians. The meeting was held in a room
up a court or alley at the north side of the church. Whilst
we were engaged in making a disturbance at the window, on
a sudden the heaven above was wholly veiled with a mysterious
and portentous darkness! Soon, vivid and forked
lightnings shot forth in all directions, and with an intensity
so keen that they appeared to pierce to the centre of the
earth; and loud, crashing thunder-peals made it tremble under
our feet, as if all things were in the agony of dissolution!
And then immediately before our eyes opened a gulf
—wide—bottomless! and far away down in its terrific abyss,
were voices, and wailings, and cries of strange horror! and
quenchless fires were raging in vast tumultuating waves!
Fixed at the edge of that amazing gulf, we looked at each
other in utter despair. We knew it had something to do
with our conduct; and that God Almighty was fiercely yet
righteously angry; and we seemed to be waiting only for
some invisible power to plunge us into that fiery abyss!
Soon I heard a sweet voice above me in the thick darkness
that seemed to say, “Dost thou wish to be saved?”—on
which I eagerly replied, “Oh! yes! yes!” And then I
was borne up by my hair, and in an instant stood safe, across
that fearful chasm!
In a moment I looked back on my poor comrade in guilt;
and again came the voice from the darkness above, “If he
will take your hand, he too can be saved;” on which I immediately
stretched out my hand, inclining myself away over
the burning pit; and my comrade, as soon as he touched
the point of my fingers, was brought over, and stood wondering
at my side!
At that very moment the lightnings ceased; the mysterious
pall of sackcloth darkness gave place to a bright, cloudless
sky; and the awful gulf closed, leaving, as its edges were
compressed, a long ridge in the pavement. Turning to my
friend, I said, “Oh! William, this is a great deliverance!
Oh! come let us go into church!” The poor boy seemed
unwilling, still we both went into the house and sat together
in a pew. Upon looking at the preacher, I perceived he was
a stranger;—for when I did go to church it was to this church
I came usually, and the preacher was not the one that ordinarily
preached there. He was solemn even to awfulness;
and I listened with the profoundest solemnity, while my poor
comrade seemed careless as usual. And here the dream
was ended.
In the morning, my very soul quaked with terror. It
was with much difficulty I could perform a task. I related
the cause to a young man in the same employment, and who
himself was far from righteousness; but the bare narration
and my looks so alarmed this man, that he exclaimed, “I
would not be you for the whole universe!”
Within a few weeks, however, the deep impression of the
dream had passed, and—oh! dear Charles, can it be possible?—I
became again in some degree, a derider!! One
Sabbath afternoon I went to that very church in company
with that companion named in my dream, and a few others,
not to worship, but to trifle—alas! alas!—to mock! A
stranger was in the pulpit. His text was, “Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy youth.” And most solemnly did
he warn and expostulate with the young; most tearfully did
he mourn over the reprobate, till suddenly my attention became
irresistibly fixed. My gaze seemed riveted on his face
—where, oh! where, had that solemn voice been heard, that
earnest face been seen? Charles, it was the face and the
voice of my dream!—but my dream did not at that moment
occur to my mind—yet it was that face, it was that voice!
His words, however, came like a sword of burning flame
into the depths of my soul. And when he told the despairing
death of an infidel who had done a horrid act of impiety
—like one I myself, my
diabolical self, had done—then,
dearest Charles, then did the “sharp arrows of the Almighty
enter and drink up my spirit!” Then did “the horrors of
hell get hold upon me!” I
did understand “the terrors of
the Lord,” and
felt throughout my whole frame that “it is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!”
That the dream had a moral influence I know. Never
did I wholly lose its impression; and never after was I so
careless and callous. Indeed, my subsequent behaviour was
to gain peace, by destroying conviction. It prepared me for
what followed, and it exerted a restraining force, in some
degree, till the hour when a voice should speak that would
be heard, and a power compel, that could not be overcome.
The preacher has gone to his rest and reward. His end
was that of the righteous. May God grant that your friend,
a penitent since that sermon, may be made to persevere, and
to embrace that beloved preacher in the better land! My
comrade—he, too, is dead! But—(I shudder as it is written)—he
professed no change of opinions and practices!
He has stood before the Judge. We shall soon follow.
