Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1893-03-27

do you and l 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 Eddystone and Barnegat
lighthouses question summer firefy.
PROOF OF IMMORTALITY.
Remark the Second-All dreams have
an important meaning.
They prove that the soul is compara-
lively Independent of the body. The
eyes are closed, the senses are dull, the
entire body goes into lethargy which in
all languages is used as type of death,
and then the soul spreads its wing and
never sleeps. 1t leaps the Atlantic
ocean and mingles in scenes 5000 miles
away. 1t travels great reaches of time,
flashes back so years, and the octoge-
marian is boy again in his fathers
house. IF the soul before it has entirely
broken its chains of flesh can do all this,
how far can it leap, what circles can it
cut, when it is fully hberatedl
Every dream, whether agreeable or
harassing, whether sunshiny or tempes-
tuous, means so much that rising from
your couch you ought to kneel down and
say: 20 God, am immortal? Whence?
Whittier? Two natures. My soul Gagged
now-what when the door of the cage is
opened? If my soul can fly so far in the
few hours in which my body is asleep in
the night, how far can it fly when my
body sleeps the long sleep of the grave?"
Oh, this power to dream, how startling,
how overwhelming If prepared for the
after death fight, what an enchantment!
If not prepared for the after death fight,
what crushing agony! Immortal! I'm
mortal!
Remark the Third-The. vast majority
of dreams are merely the result of dis
turbed physical condition and are not
supernatural message.
Job had carbuncles, and he was scared
in the night. He says, "Thou scarest
me with dreams and terriiest me with
visions" Solomon had an overwrought
brain, overwrought with public bust
ness, and he suffered from erratic slum-
Der, and he writes in Ecclesiastes, "a
dream cometh through the multitude OF
business" DR.. Gregory, in experiment
luS Will uItdlIo, lOuliei oudo a OoooAO Va
hot water put to his feet while in slum-
ber made him think that he was going
up the hot sides of Mount Etna.
Another morbid physician experiment
ing with dreams, his feet uncovered
through sleep, thought he was riding in
an Alpine diligence But a great many
dreams are merely narcotic disturbance.
Anything that you see while under the
influence of choral or brandy or 'hash-
eesh" or laudanum is not revelation
from God The learned De Quincy did
not ascribe to divine communication
what he saw in sleep, opium saturated:
dreams which he afterward described in
the following words:
81 was worshiped. was sacrificed.
fed from the wrath of Brahma
through all the forests of Asia. Vishnu
hated me. silva laid in wait for me.
came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris. !
had done deed, they said, that made
the crocodiles trelnble. Twas buried for
thousand years in stone cofins, with
mummies and sphinxes in narrow cham
bers at the heart of eternal pyramids. l
was kissed with the cancerous kiss of
crocodiles and lay confounded with un-
utterable Shiny things among wreathy
and Nilotic mud" Do not mistake mar
cotic disturbance for divine revelation.
DREAMS OF DISEASE OR DRUGS.
But have to tell you that the majori-
ty of dreams are merely 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 salads at II o'clock at night in
stead of opening tho door heavenward
open the door internal and diabolical.
You outrage natural law, and you insult
the God who made those laws. 1t takes
from three to five hours to digest food,
and you have no right to tax your diges-
tive organs in struggle when the rest OF
your body is in somnolence. The gen.
eral rule is, eat nothing after o'clock
at night, retire at 10, sleep on your right
side, keep the window open five inches for
ventilation, and other worlds will not dis
turb you much.
By physical maltreatment you take
the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream
and you lower it to the neither world, al
lowing the ascent Of the demoniacal
Dreams are midnight dyspepsia. An un-
regulated desire for something to eat
ruined the race in paradise, and an un-
regulated desire for something to eat
keeps it ruined. The world during 5000
years has tried in vain to digest that first
apple. The world will not be evangel-
lied until we get rid Of adyspeptic Chris
tianity. Healthy people do not want
this cadaverous and sleepy thing that
some people call religion. They want a
religion that lives regularly by day and
sleeps soundly by night.
If through trouble or coming on OF
old age or exhaustion of Christian serv-
ice you cannot sleep well, then you may
expect from God ''songs in the night, y
but there are no blessed communica-
tions to those who willingly surrender to
indigestibles. Napoleon's army at Leip-
sic, Dresden and Borodino came near
being destroyed through the disturbed
gastric juices of its commander. That
| l. tha NAV won have lost some of your