The following extract illustrates the more distressing dreams produced by opium.

"The waters now changed their character; from translucent lakes, shining like mirrors, they now became seas and oceans. And now came a tremendous change, which, unfolding itself slowly, like a scroll, for many months, promised an abiding torment, and, in fact, it never left me until the winding up of my case. Hitherto the human face had mixed often in my dreams, but not despotically, nor with any special power of tormenting. But now that which I have called the tyranny of the human face began to unfold itself. Perhaps some part of my London life might be answerable for this. Be that as it may, now it was, that upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human face began to appear; the sea appeared paved with innumerable faces, upturned to the heavens; faces imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by generations, by centuries; my agitation was infinite, my mind tossed and surged with the ocean."

I cannot resist the temptation of offering one more quotation, wonderfully interesting in what it describes, and still more so in the eloquence of the description.

"The dream commenced with a music, which now I often hear in dreams, - a music of preparation, and of awakening suspense, - a music like the opening of the coronation anthem, and which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast march, of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day, - a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where,- somehow, I knew not how, - by some beings, I knew not whom, - a. battle, a strife, an agony was conducting, was evolving, like a great drama or piece of music, with which my sympathy was the more insupportable, from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams (where of necessity we make ourselves central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the power to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself to will it, and yet, again, had not the power; for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. ' Deeper than ever plummet sounded,' I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake, some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms, hurryings to and fro, trepidations of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad, darkness and lights, tempest and human faces, and, at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed; and clasped hands, and heart breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells! And with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of Death, the sound was reverberated, - everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated, - everlasting farewells! - I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud, 'I will sleep no more.'"

I must now devote some remarks to the question of the prophetic character of dreams. And first we must endeavour to state the question clearly. It is not whether dreams are ever fulfilled, whether the subsequent facts correspond to those prefigured in the dream, but whether the correspondence is such that we are obliged to infer that the future was revealed to the dreamer by the interposition of super-human power?

Before receiving evidence as to events that do not lie within the limits of ordinary experience, we naturally and instinctively consider their antecedent probability. It may be that, however extraordinary the occurrence, still it has no improbability. The mind may have been prepared for it, as in the case of the magnetic spark; wonderful as was the discovery, it harmonized with previous knowledge upon the subject. On the other hand, it may not only be extraordinary, but it may be also opposed to all a priori views. In the former case a much smaller amount of evidence will be sufficient for inducing us to admit the fact. In the latter we require the most rigid proof that testimony is capable of affording.

As to the present question, it might appear to some that improbability cannot be predicated of such events, seeing that so many instances are vouched for in Holy Writ, and that if it has already pleased God to make communications to his creatures through dreams and visions, it is presumptuous to deny the probability of His doing so again. But upon a further consideration we must, I think, perceive that these very cases do really render more improbable the repetition of such interferences in ordinary life, inasmuch as they belong to a dispensation altogether miraculous and supernatural.

Now, the very nature of dreaming, according to what has been already advanced this evening, and, indeed, acr cording to every one's nightly experience, is such as to negative the probability of dreams being made the medium of Such communications as are assumed. We have seen that they are full of the most glaring incongruities, and that there is the closest resemblance between the mental condition of the dreamer and that of the lunatic; and unless, as in uncivilized communities, we are disposed to invest the latter with a sacred character, we can hardly be willing to look upon the former as a gifted personage, because he is a dreamer. If we are not justified in looking, in our waking hours, for communications that may supersede the results of those faculties which the Creator has given us for our guidance, a fortiori, we cannot expect them, when from the imperfect state of the mind, we should foe unable to distinguish the suggestions of our errant unbridled fancy from divine inspirations.*

It is a favourite and good argument much in use with Englishmen, that whatever leads to bad practical results must be unsound in theory. Now, it would be easy to shew that very evil consequences would result and have resulted from faith in dreams. The lives of some may be wasted in vague expectations of happiness, foretold in dreams, while visionary clouds and darkness may perpetually overshadow the days of others, who else might have gone on their way rejoicing.