Now thou art laid in the solemn tomb Of ages vanished 'mid storm and gloom; W. G. C. PHILADELPHIA. DREAMS. DREAMS are topics of universal interest. They are subjects of investigation to the philosopher, and not unfrequently furnish an inspiring theme for the poet. Under their influence, sanguine minds have been led to embark in utopian schemes: the enthusiast has sought in them the secret indications of the divine will: the votary of fame has kindled into rapture at the deeds of glory which they placed before his excited fancy: the miser has been a thousand times richer than his sordid soul had dared anticipate: love has built in dreams her most beautiful elysium, and ravished her victim with delight, or wrung him with despair. They are as effectual to console, as they are powerful to terrify and to enrage the soul. The disconsolate have found in them a momentary balm for a wounded spirit. The waves of trouble have sunk to H rest: scenes of hope and tranquillity have stolen upon the view, as if to point the wretched to a land where sorrow is unknown. The guilty have dreaded them. With no outward circumstances to divert the attention, conscience has compelled the terrified culprit to take a direct look at his crimes. She has gathered around him the images of his ultimate destiny, and given him, in anticipation, a momentary experience of horrors which, in his case, and when dreams give place to realities, may prove to be unending. On the other hand, the believer has often, in nightvision, vividly anticipated his approaching triumph. The shadows which overhung his path have disappeared. He has passed exulting the dark portals, crossed the swelling waters of Jordan, and felt his emancipated spirit enlarging and rejoicing amid all that is pure and blissful and glorious. Yes, heaven has burst on his enraptured view. But alas, upon waking, he has found himself still on the field of conflict, fettered by the flesh and far from his final home. Thus the ordinary season of repose for the body, is by no means the period of the soul's inactivity. Not unfrequently is it the signal for its loftiest excursions. When the body, exhausted by fatigue, loses in sleep its power of locomotion; when its portals are closed, and its sensibilities are in a measure blunted, how will the soul rejoice in its liberty, and commence its untiring career. It will visit, with the rapidity of thought, regions the most remote. It will create new worlds, and people them at pleasure with angels or with men. It will condense the events of ages into an hour. It will live over the past, or leap forward to the future. A thousand fairy creations will rise at its bidding. Heterogeneous combinations of men and circumstances will swim before the excited vision, and elicit as many corresponding images of dread and desire, of love and hate, of joy and sorrow. How wonderful, how incomprehensible its powers! Who who can say, that a spirit so ethereal, so discursive, of such lofty flight, of such untiring career, is destined by its creator for a region less comprehensive than that of immortality? Some philosophers have maintained that the soul does not always think; that often in profound slumbers there is a torpidity or inaction of the mental powers analogous to the inactivity of the body. It is true, we are not always conscious, at the very moment of waking, that the soul has been employed on objects either of speculation or desire. Memory does not furnish us with the images which may have passed before us. But is it not possible that the soul may have been employed, even though we are unable to retain a recollection of it? How treacherous is memory, in relation to the passing events of a single day! A word, suddenly addressed to us, will sometimes erase in an instant, from the recollection, a train of reasoning, or a course of interesting remark. Our utmost efforts will not enable us to recall it. In like manner, so many scenes and images may in sleep succeed each other, and in such quick succession, as to render it impossible for the memory to catch and retain a single distinct view. Thoughts are coursing through the mind with great rapidity. A sudden waking may arrest and divert the attention, from subjects which, but a moment before, engrossed the reflections or the passions of the soul. It by no means follows, because we cannot remember a dream, that therefore none has occurred. We experience also, at times, dim and shadowy recollections, which cannot well be explained but on the principle that the mind is ever active. Who has not, for example, come suddenly upon a scene, or mingled in a company, where something has suggested the idea that this scene, or this company, is but the repetition of what had been before witnessed? The countenances, the conversation, the whole group |