DREAMING.

you

I HAVE chosen a singular subject; and you may even suppose that I am a dreaming creature myself. But do not condemn me until have duly considered what I have to say on this topic. I ought, however, very candidly to tell you that, while I endeavor to instruct you, I also endeavor to instruct myself; and when I reprove or censure you, I wish to feel the reproof and censure which I advance. If I tell you that you are a dreamer, or caution you against being such a character, I am aware that I often dream, and that I have the greatest reason to guard against it.

We dream in the night, when we are asleep; and I dare say that you are perfectly familiar with all the bright and the dark vagaries with all the fantastic and incoherent creations-of the mind, when the senses are suspended. We hear, and see, and feel nothing; we are motionless; we are insensible to all around us: but still the mind is active, as though it needed not the pause and repose which the body requires for recruiting its exhausted energies; and since, by the laws of our constitution, it cannot act with regularity, rather than be inactive it collects scattered fragments of things, puts them together in the most odd combination, as if it delighted in what is curious, or even preposterous. Perhaps, in the morning, we may be able to amuse those around us with a narrative of some of these airy and fleeting visions; but most of them make too slight an impression to allow us to recollect them.

But our night-dreams are not my subject: I leave them to the phi

losopher. Our day-dreams are the important things to which I would direct your attention; for their power is great, and their effects highly injurious. But I ought here to tell you what I mean by a day-dream. I mean by it simply this-a thought or fancy, or a multitude of thoughts and fancies, which have no solid basis, which are fantastically put together, which have no reality in themselves, and which we shall never realize. But, although they are such empty things, we form them, we cherish them, and, which completes the mischief, we act upon them, at the expense of renouncing real truth, and solid principles and rules. The world of truth and reality is one; it is God's world; it is things as they are, according to His constitution of them: but the world of dreams, fancies, and shadows is another; it is man's world; it is things arbitrarily put together in such a way as we wish them to be combined, in order that we may enjoy what in fact we never shall enjoy.

I am sorry that I cannot aim to discuss the subject as I could wish: it would require very wide illustration if it were pursued to any length; I must satisfy myself with a few hints. We may take a child as our first instance of day-dreaming. He is at home, under the control of his parents; or he is at school, under the more strict control of masters; or he is learning some trade or art by which he is to gain his living in the world, and obliged to sit down many hours in the day to a task which he dislikes. But what are his thoughts and feelings? "I shall be a man by and by: I shall then be my own master; I shall have what I wish, go where I like, do what I please, and enjoy all happiness, freed from this authority, confinement, and drudgery." It is thus that the little urchin dreams.

But this dreaming is not confined to childhood. For let the child be now a young man. He has forgotten the dreams of his earlier years; but others succeed to them; and he is as much a dreamer

now as he ever was. "I shall marry, and have a home and a family; and my wife will increase my happiness, and share and diminish my cares and sorrows; and our children will grow up around us, and be our joy and comfort. How delightful to have a nice dwelling, and all the sweet endearments of human life!" So reasons, if reasoning it be, the young man; that is, so he dreams.

Let thirty years pass away, and is dreaming laid aside? No: he is a dreamer still; and not only so, but he has been a dreamer through the whole period. When the boy became a young man, he did not find that joy and liberty and delight which he expected by exemption from the control of others. When the young man married and saw his children around him, he did not experience the full accomplishment of his fond fancies. But imagination still put forth its activity, and almost every day produced its dream; and how often has he cherished the thought that, when his children are settled in the world, he shall be free from care, toil, and anxiety, and enjoy tranquillity and comfort by his own fireside!

I wish it were in my power to portray a few characters of dreamers which, I fear, are but too common in our day. I will, however, only mention two. There is such a thing as political dreaming; there are such characters as political dreamers. Perhaps you have entered into a room, in some tavern, where ten or a dozen men were sitting. The room was full of the fumes of tobacco, and resounded with mingled clamor. Jugs and glasses were on the table. You were at first rather amazed; you sat down; perhaps you became one of the party. And what did they speak of with such vehement spirits? Of trade, of machinery, of public men, of laws, of taxes, and of a hundred other such things. Of course, they must have read a great deal, and thought a great deal, before they could speak so fluently, and decide so positively, about such deep and intricate matters? They read and think!

The newspaper is their oracle; and their zeal and fancy supersede the necessity of reflection. They all agree that everything is wrong; and each is confident that he can put all right. Each has a Utopia. But what does it all mean? Why, it is sheer dreaming; and these men are political dreamers.

But there is also such a thing as moral dreaming, infidel dreaming, latitudinarian dreaming. Yes, we have these abominable dreamers among us. I will not enter into particulars, for I feel the subject to be shocking and tremendous. They build a temple with snow and mire; cold, and filthy, and perishing, but destined to whelm its build-* ers and frequenters in utter ruin. But their unholy dream pleases them; - no restraint, no thought, no restraint on action; man is lawless, irresponsible, a mere breathing machine. No more. These are wild and dark dreamers indeed. Happiness-yes, they promise themselves happiness; but it is even that which brutes would despise. They promise men clear, and sparkling, and exhilarating wine, but they give them foul, and dead, and poisonous dregs.

But leaving all these, I would observe, my dear reader, that there is such a thing as dreaming in religion. If I were to say that many or even most good people are more or less dreamers, I should say what is true. Some serious people may be offended at my assertion, but I do not accuse others without accusing myself. If I had time and space, I would divide religious dreamers into two classes. In the first class I would put all mystics and superstitious people, with all formalists: all those, in a word, who think that they are truly religious by virtue of what they do; by self-tormenting, by rites and ordinances, by external worship and ceremonies. All who put the Church in the place of Christ, ministers in the place of the Bible, ordinances in the place of the Holy Spirit, external service in the place of inward piety—these, in my estimation, are mere dreamers.

Their whole work is a moral vagary, of an awful description. They mingle truth and error, and delude both themselves and others.

In the second class of religious dreamers I would comprehend all those who mingle their own fancies with the truths, and their own feelings with the spiritual operations, of religion. Here, almost all of us err more or less. The young and ardent are exposed to much mischief from this perverseness; so likewise are the lovers of rigid systematical theology according to their own school; but all of us are here liable to injury. Wild fancy and false feeling-we cannot too carefully guard against them.

If, my dear reader, you follow up the few observations which I have set before you, I think you will admit that the subject of dreaming is not so singular as you might have supposed at first. But there is one dreamer more whom I must mention before I conclude; I mean him who dreams of obtaining heaven without making any exertions to obtain it. He is, perhaps, a plain, plodding, laborious, honest, sober, quiet man. He has no wild dreams about reforming Church and State, and he thinks those to be meddling simpletons, or worse, who prate about such things. He has very few fancies of any kind in his head. He is dull and heavy himself, and all is dulness around him. He knows his work and wages, what he receives and spends, the way from his home to his labor, and from his labor to his home; and he knows very little more. The Sunday bells are no music to his ear; Sunday and Church, Bible and Minister, are words that have no particular emphasis with him. But he has his dream— "I shall go to heaven, I trust, as well as the rest." Surely this is a dream; a baseless fabric.

I am compelled to conclude my paper without advancing those remarks which the subject so obviously suggests; and I can only give you one word of caution-Beware of day-dreams. Look, as to com