The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-01-17


llc business, and he suffered from erratio
slumber, and he writes In Ecclesia8tes,
"a dream cometh through the multitude
Of business" DR. Gregory, In experiment
ing with dreams, found that a bottle Of
hot water put 20 his feet while Ia sumber
made him think be was going up the hot
sides Of Mount Etna. Another morbid
physician, experimenting 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 chloTal or brandy
or hosheesh or laudanum is not a revela-
tion from God.
The learned De Quincy did not ascribe
70 divine communication what he saw in
sleep, opium saturated, dreams which he
attcrward described in the following
words Il was worshiped / was saeri-
feed, | fed from the wrath OF Brahma,
through oil the forests of Asia. Vishnu
hated me. Sceva laid in wait for me.
came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris. had
done a deed they said, that made the
crocodiles tremble. / was buried for a
thousand years in stone collins, with mum
mics and sphinXes in narrow chambers at
the heart Of eternal pyramids / was
kissed with the cancerous kiss Of croco-
dies and lay eoniounded with unutterable
Shiny things among wreathy and Nilotic
mud"
Do not mistake narcotic disturbance for
divine revelation. But / have TO tell you
that the majority of the dreams are mere
ly the penalty Of outraged digestive or
game, 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 IL o'clock
at night, instead Of opening the 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 keep your
digestive 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, allowing the ascent Of the demohi-
acal. Dreams are midnight dyspepsia An
! unregulated desire for something TO eat
ruined the race in paradise, and an unreg-
ulated 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 evangelical until
we get rid of a dyspeptic Christianity.
Healthy people do not want the cadaver-
GUS 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 OF coming on Of
old age or exhaustion Of Christian service
you can1ot sleep well, then you may ex-
pect from God Songs in the night" but
there rle no blessed communications to
those wAO willingly surrender to indigesti-
! h!es. E.dpOleon's army at Leipsic Dres-
den and BOrodino came near being de-
! juices Of its commander. That is the way
4 you have lost some Of your battles.
! All dreams that make you better are
! from God. How do 1 know it? Is not
! God the source of all good? It does not
! take vcTy Logical mind to argue that out.
! Tertullian and Martin Luther believed in
dreams. The dreams of John Huss are i'm
mortal. st. Augustine, the Christian
father, gives us the fact that a Carthage
man physician was persuaded of the inn
mortality of the soul by an argument
which he heard in a dream. The night be-
fore his assassination the wife of Julius
Caesar dreamed that her husband fell
dead across her lap.
Furthermore, I have to say that there
are people who were converted to God
through a dream. The Rev. John New
ton, the fame of whose piety fills all Chris
tendon, while a proAigate sailor on ship
. board, in his dream thought that being
approached him and gave him very beau
tiful ring and put it upon his finger and
said to him: Gas long as you wear that
ring you will be prospered. If you lose
that ring you will be ruined" In the same
dream another parsonage appeared and
by strange infatuation persuaded John
Newton to throw overheard that ring, and
it sank into the sea- Then the mountains
in sight were full of fire, and the air was
twas lurid with consuming wrath. While
John Newton was repenting of his folly in
having thrown overheard the treasure an
other parsonage came through the dream
end told John Newton he would plunge
into the sea and bring that ring up if he
desired it. He plunged into the sea and
brought it up and said to John Newton,
Here is that gem, but think / will keep
it FOR YOU lest you lose it again" And
John Newton consented, and all the fire
went out from the mountains, and 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 overheard was Satan, and
that the one who plunged in and restored
that gem, keeping it for him, was Christ.
And that dream makes one Of the most
wonderful chapters in the life Of that
most wonderful man
A German was crossing the Atlantic
Ocean, and in his dream he saw man
with a handful of white flowers. and he
was told to follow the man who had that
handful of white flowers. The German,
arriving in New York, wandered into the
Fulton street prayer meeting and Mr..
Lamphier, the great apostle of prayer
meetings. that day had given to him a
bunch Of tuberoses. They stood on his
vices he took the tpberoses and started
homeward. and the German followed him
and through an interpreter told Mr.. Lam,
phier that on the sea he had dreamed OF
man with a handful of white flowers
and was told to follow him. Suffice it to
sav that thrnngh that interview and fol