Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1899-02-25 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

ETHEREAL IMPULSES:  WARNED BY DREAMS.  BY A BANKER.  Amongst the more eurerstitious of our race, dreams are regarded as eupernatural portents of auccapilrollTbabeoiod probability by evbyilhle; too bad bafdreenigoonsumhtmarep.ticaoriusofed jn.ea digestibte food, being considered as the presage of some calamity, while an eoetatic, pleasurable dream is supposed to augur proepertiy and suecuss. But aithough in almost all cases dreams are solely the result of well-defined causes, arid are maialy controlled by the ga.strie and ether organs, vet there are undoubtedly exceptions to this general rule, whioh most clearly indicate that dreams and presentiments are occasionally appointed as the medium by which warnings rue ceuveyed, or guidance communicated. As an instance of theee exceptions, the experience of a very near relative cf the writer's .nay be menti,ned. A good many years ago she dreamed that she was walking down a country Elie with her husband, when they were attacked by highwaymen, and he was murdered by her side. Every feature of the scene was forcibly impressed unou her mind even to the most :there° detail, and for years afterwards, when 'n the c.ountry, she was always in dread lest she should come upon the site of the visionary tragedy. In the course of years, when the dreiun had gradually faded away from her recollection, she went to reside near the Surrey Lowrie, and one day, while driving oat with her husband, Limy mem to the identical spot of which she had drearaect five and twenty years previously. In every minutest particular the scene was recalled to her mind, the trees in the hedges she saw were the Paine trees she bad semi a quarter of a morale-a' before, alt.hotigh at that time some of them could not probably have existed, the hedges were in the same condition, in feet the whole was as if she had 'eon it the previous day, althitirh at the time of the dream she had never been with, n many rules of the spot. Of course that resi'erne was immediately quitted. As another instance of an exception to the general rule the writer would venture to adduce • personal experience of his own. He was staying at Glen Lyn, near Lynton (well known to tourists : in North Devon for its beautiful grounds arid waterfalls) and one morning decided upon walking towards Ilfracombe, returning by the meet, and informed his family of his plans. A powerful influence, however, impeded his progress, and appeared to warn him not to proceed. He fought against it; looked upon it as a superstitious fancy; and eudeavorued to disregard it, but all to no purpose; and he felt reluctantly compelled to relinquish his walk and went instead for a day's sail. Upon landing in the afternoon be was astonished at the extra-exuberant display of affection manifested by the members of his family (who had descried him with a telescope), who greeted him is if he had been absent for years. He was then informed that the coach by which he would have returned bad met with • terrible aceident, fifteen out of the seventeen passengers having been either killed or wounded, and that they' had been to all the hotels to which the wounded and dead were carried, and to the hospital, searching for, as they feared, his cerpee. Now all this (and it is the m:perience of many) proves that there is a spirit-world around us, and that ethereal beings, sent to administer to us, are ever hovering round us, even by our aide, prompting us to good, and avertieg calamities and disasters.  But there are also other spirits about us, malignant and unolean, ever trying to drag us down into the commission of sin, ever striving to lull us into a false security, to cause us to forget our Creator and Redeemer, and to sink us into tJae nethermost perdition.  And as we are constituted free agents, it is left solely in our own hands whether wo will yield ourselves to the one or to the other, to the good or to the evil. Happily,greater is He that is for us than he that is against us; and happily, too, th,tes who deliberately deoide that "as for them, they will serve the Lord" and thereby beoome "heirs of salvation" through faith in Him Who died for them, have the definite promise that those bright spirits, their guardian angels, shall be sent to minister to them in this life, and to escort them at the last to His glorious prevenoa.