ll bring
thee again into this land: for I will not leave thee until I have done
that which I have spoken to thee of." And Jacob awaked out of his sleep,
and he said: "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." And
he was afraid, and said: "How dreadful is this place! this is none other
than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven." And Jacob rose
up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his
pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and
made at the same time a vow to God, that if he should return safe and
sound, he would give Him a tithe of all he might possess.

Here is yet another vision. Watching the flocks of his father-in-law,
Laban, who had promised him that all the speckled lambs produced by his
sheep should be his recompense, he dreamed one night that he saw all the
males leap upon the females, and all the lambs they brought forth were
speckled. In this beautiful dream, God appeared to him, and said: "Lift
up now thine eyes and see that the rams which leap upon the cattle are
ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled; for I have seen all that Laban
does unto thee. Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto
the land of thy kindred." As he was returning with his whole family, and
with all he obtained from his father-in-law, he had, says the Bible, a
wrestle with an unknown man during the whole night, until the breaking
of the day, and as this man had not been able to subdue him, He asked
him who he was. Jacob told Him his name; and He said: "Thy name shall be
called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with
God and with men, and hast prevailed."

This is a specimen of the first of these pretended Visions and Divine
Revelations. We can judge of the others by these. Now, what appearance
of Divinity is there in dreams so gross and illusions so vain? As if
some foreigners, Germans, for instance, should come into our France,
and, after seeing all the beautiful provinces of our kingdom, should
claim that God had appeared to them in their country, that He had told
them to go into France, and that He would give to them and to their
posterity all the beautiful lands, domains, and provinces of this
kingdom which extend from the rivers Rhine and Rhone, even to the sea;
that He would make an everlasting alliance with them, that He would
multiply their race, that He would make their posterity as numerous as
the stars of Heaven