lden times it has been
made the organ of communication between the Deity and His creatures; and
when, as I have seen, a dream produces upon a mind, to all appearance
hopelessly reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lasting
as to break down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of an
abandoned sinner, we see in the result, in the reformation of morals
which appeared incorrigible, in the reclamation of a human soul which
seemed to be irretrievably lost, something more than could be produced
by a mere chimera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could
arise from the capricious images of a terrified imagination; but once
presented, we behold in all these things, and in their tremendous and
mysterious results, the operation of the hand of God. And while Reason
rejects as absurd the superstition which will read a prophecy in every
dream, she may, without violence to herself, recognise, even in
the wildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering
intellect, the evidences and the fragments of a language which may be
spoken, which HAS been spoken, to terrify, to warn, and to command. We
have reason to believe too, by the promptness of action which in the
age of the prophets followed all intimations of this kind, and by the
strength of conviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting
from certain dreams in latter times, which effects we ourselves may have
witnessed, that when this medium of communication has been employed
by the Deity, the evidences of His presence have been unequivocal. My
thoughts were directed to this subject, in a manner to leave a lasting
impression upon my mind, by the events which I shall now relate, the
statement of which, however extraordinary, is nevertheless ACCURATELY
CORRECT.

About the year 17--, having been appointed to the living of C---h, I
rented a small house in the town, which bears the same name: one morning
in the month of November, I was awakened before my usual time by my
servant, who bustled into my bedroom for the purpose of announcing a
sick call. As the Catholic Church holds her last rites to be totally
indispensable to the safety of the departing sinner, no conscientious
clergyman can afford a moment's unnecessary delay, and in little more
than five minutes I stood ready cloaked and booted for the road, in the
small front parlour, in which the messenger, who was to act as my guide,
awaited my coming. I found a poor little girl cry