These relations are also recorded in the holy scriptures. Several of them have been attended with the most important consequences in the history of mankind; and they are also so interwoven with the sacred story, that they cannot be rejected without shaking the credit of the whole book wherein they are found. But the truth of holy scripture is established upon such an immoveable foundation, that it can never be subverted, but upon principles that would overturn the faith of all history. Be -fore we can commence infidels, therefore, with respect to these parts of the Bible which record the divine interpositions by dreams and night-visions, we must be prepared to reject the whole system of revelation; for the credit of the former stands or foils with that of the latter.

Among the ancients, we know that those famous philosophers, Socrates, Plato, XEnophon, Aristotle, Ci-cEro, and Pliny, and several more of the great men of antiquity, believed the doctrine of dreams and night visions, as also the ancient poets. Homer, in particular, expressly tells us, in the beginning of his immortal Poem, the Iliad, that "dreams descend from Jove." And he gives us a fine example of one, in the beginning of the second book, thus translated by Pope:

" Now, pleasing sleep had seald each mortal eye, Stretch'd in the tents the Grecian leaders lie,-TV immortals slumber'd on their thrones above; All, bat the ever watchful eyes of Jove, To honour Thetis' son, he bent his care, And plunge the Greeks in all the woes of war; Then bids an empty Phantom rise to sight, And thus commands the visions of the night: ' Fly hence, deluding dream! and, light as air, To Agamemnon's ample tent repair. Bid him in arms draw forth the embattled train, Lead all his Grecians to the dusty plain. Declare e'en now, 'tis given him to destroy The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy! For now no more the gods with fate contend,-At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end. Destruction hangs o'er yon devoted wall, And nodding llion waits the impending fall., Swift as the word the vain illusion fled, Descends, and hovers o'er Atrides, head ! Cloth'd in the figure of the Pylian sage, Renown'd for wisdom, and rever'd for age, Around his temples spreads his golden wing.

And that the flattering dream deceive, the king. 'Canst thou, with all a monarch's care opprest, Oh, Atreus' son! canst thou indulge thy rest? Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides, Directs in council, and in war presides-To whom its safety a whole people owes, To waste long nights in indolent repose. Monarch, awake! 'tis Jove's command I bear,-Thou, and thy glory, claims his heavenly care. In just array draw forth the embattled train, Lead all thy Grecians to the dusky plain: E'en now, O King! 'tis given thee to destroy The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy. For now, no more the Gods with fate contend,-At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end. Destruction hangs o'er yon deserted wall, And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall! Awake, but waking this advice approve, And trust the vision that descends from Jove.' The Phantom said 5 then, vanish'd from his sight, Resolves to air, and mixes with the night."

Hippocrates, the ancient renowned physician, has some curious observations relative to dreams. "To dream of fire," says he, "indicates a redundance of yellow bile 5 to dream of fogs, or snow, indicates a predominancy of black bile; to dream of seeing a fall of rain, or snow, or a great quantity of ice, shows that there is a redundancy of phlegm in the bodyj he who fancies himself among bad smells, may be assured that he harbours some putrid matter in his body; to have red things represented before you in sleep, denotes a redundancy of blood. If the patient dreams of seeing the sun, moon, and stars, hurry on with prodigious swiftness, it indicates an approaching delirium; to dream of seeing the earth overflowed with water, or of being immersed in a pond or river, indicates which was called Academics, where it so stretched out its neck, that it reached and pierced the heaven: the next day, while Socrates related his dream to his scholars, Plato's father presented his son to Socrates to be instructed, whereupon Socrates cries out, - Behold! this is the swan that shall soar up to the celestial secrets, and discover hidden things.

There is an ancient tradition, that while Plato was an infant, sleeping in his cradle, a cluster or swarm of bees pitched themselves on his lips, and afterwards dispersed themselves in the air. The ancients prophesied, from thence, that the child would be a great philosopher, as it indeed proved.

It is related by historians, that Nerd's mother, while pregnant with that afterwards inhuman monster, dreamed that she gave birth to "a cruel great dragon,,' which, rising up against the mother, tore her to pieces. This dream being related to the soothsayers, they prophesied that she should " bring forth a wicked man, one who would be the cause of her own death:" it happened accordingly.

Suetonius relates of Calphurnia, Julius Caesar,$ wife, that the night before the assassination she dreamed that the roof of the house fell, that her husband was stabbed, and that the chamber door of itself flew open. Julius himself also had a vision, that he flew above the clouds; another time, that he shook hands with Jupiter; and, another time, that he was cast down headlong, all which were ominous of his tragic end and disastrous exit.

The Emperor Darius, before the last battle with Alexander the Great, dreamed that he saw a burning army marching through Asia, coming even to Babylon, where he saw Alexander clad in a Persian robe, entering the temple, and presently vanishing. By which dream Darius was persuaded, that by the flames destruction was meant to the Macedonian army; and that Alexander being clad in a Persian habit, signified he should be brought under the power of the Persians. But the event made it appear, that by the flames was portended the swift and victorious progress of Alexander, like that of fire, devouring all things: by the Persian habit, the Persian empire was foresignified to Alexander.