The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-07-17
DREAM DISCOVERIES.

The Rev. MT. Woodrow the historian of the Covenanters is an enthusiastic Calvinist; 1t was he, I think, who told g. poor woman with a large family that 'it would be an uncouth mercy if all her children were saved" This was To- gicaL from his point of view-they that be saved are few; here is a family of a dozen, and their mother actually ex- poets to meet them all in the New Je- rusalem. Such a mercy would be "un- couth.'' Then Woodrow believes in every kind of portent, and miracle and warn- ing,and bogie, down to Cotton Mather's lost sermon, marvellously pursuing him and rejoining him as he rides.
 The following anecdote would have delighted Woodrow, though how he would have classed 1t I cannot guess. A gentleman, very we'll known in many ways, was at his house in the country, where g. young lady was visiting him. self and his wife. She lost a pearl from a ring. It could not be found, and she went home. Four or five weeks later she again visited her friends, arriving 1 in the evening, and, as 1t happened, not going into the library that day. Next morning, while dressing, her host said 1 to his wife:
 Did you remember to take away the pearl that Mary lost from the place where I put it?'
 You never said anything about it" answered the lady.
 "Oh, excuse me! I told both you and her that found 1t in a chink of the 1 bureau in the library, and put it on l top of my papers, and I asked you to take 1t lest the servants should dust It away in the morning
 1 The lady then went to her guests room and asked her Is she remember ed being told about the discovery of the pearl. She agreed with her hostess that i the subject had not even been mention 1 ed.
 Then the maids will have swept it away" said my friend, and he ran down to his study in his dressing gown. l The pearl was not where he remember i ed having laid it. But ne looked in the crevice where ha said that he had found it, and theresl lay the pearl
 One explanation would be that he had dreamed the whole affair, the dream | being suggested by an unconscious or subconscious, perception of the pearl In the crevice. But lie cannot recall any dream on the subject he was certain that he had found the thing when wide awake, taken it out of the chink, placed 1t on the top of his papers, and told both ladies.
 l It was just conceivable that he ac- tua1ly did find 1t and place it on the l papers; that meaning to inform the ladies, he believed that he had actually done so; and that the pearl was ao- | cidentally swept back by the house. maid into the chink of the bureau whence he had rescued it. This would
 not have been Wodrow's explanation,
 but it would have recommended itself to Dr. Carlyle.
 :. I know personally of four cases in
 which lost article were discovered by
 a dream of the losers. The last case
 was the key of the cellar-an awkward
 thing to lose. After it had been miss ing for days the owner dreamed that it was lying in a certain drawer where if
 was found, though why, how, or when it was placed there memory could not recall. Sleep seems occasionally to have tfis power of reviving lost mem ories of things done or perceived with imperfect waking consciousness. Andrew Lang in Longmans'.