door. Perhaps this is going a little too far; but we are sure of this-that it is better to sin in that way than to use the stupidly proud and supercilious airs which some of us do towards our servants and tradesmen. If we pay honest money, we want honest service, and there the matter ends. We do not demand fulsome compliments, nor do we assert that we have a right to humiliate any one. A little plain goodnature, and a true desire to conciliate people, will go further than the most complimentary speech ever uttered, because it will last longer, from being natural and true.

7.

DREAMLAND.

APPY is the man, says a proverb, who can tell all his dreams; and, following out the spirit of this saying, Izaak Walton, when he would tell us of the innocence of "a fair and happy milkmaid," adds, that she was so pure and clear in her thoughts and mind that " even her dreams were pleasing unto God." The climax of this sentence is very beautiful, but there are probably very few of us who can deserve such praise. Even the great Milton was haunted with bad dreams; and he reasons out the matter, declaring that—

"Evil into the mind of man

May come and go, so unapproved, and leave
No spot or stain behind."

Now, probably there is hardly a man or a woman living, of twenty years of age, who has not had wrong and vicious dreams-dreams of violence, murder, and other sins-dreams which make the sleeper start into life from the arms of Death's twin-brother, Sleep, and hastily thank God that the vision was untrue.

Of the various mental phenomena which are common to man, not one has met with more general attention than dreaming. There is always an interest attached to it, and for ever there will be something to say upon it. Sister and brother, husband and wife, father and child, tell their dreams to each other. Silly as the incidents may be, there is always something interesting. Wild as the dream may be, it may come true. So it was that upon dreams and their interpretation the soothsayer laid the basis of his juggling power; and by their true interpretation the patriarch of Scripture rose from the slave of a soldier to the throne of a tetrarch. But although in this and various other instances we must accord great weight to the actual dream under consideration, we need not consider that, as a rule, dreams are to be valued. When the chief baker and butler tell Joseph, "We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it," Joseph at once answers, "Do not interpretations belong to God?" With this proviso and limit (a very important and significant one) all dreams recorded in Scripture must be taken, and not a few of those which are unrecorded, but instances of which may recur every day. If the Almighty gives an interpretation, then we may be sure that He sent the dream. If we have a vision in the night, when our lids are closed, which is "mendax, inane, fallax, vanum, leve" (lying, empty, deceptive, shallow, and light), terms so liberally applied to dreams by the Romans, then we may be certain that our dreams arise from very natural causes-some of which we are about to examine.

So far as we are acquainted with mental phenomena, we may easily suppose that dreaming is nothing but a continued state of mental action after sleep has set in. This state of mental action is more or less disordered. In perfect sleep all the organs of the brain are quiescent, and there is no dreaming. But, on the contrary, if any irritation, such as fever, a heavy meal, or drunkenness, should throw the perceptive organs of the brain into a state of action, whilst the reflective ones continue asleep, we have a consciousness of scenes, colours, or occurrences, which we are unable to rectify or to pass judgment upon. This, which has been pretty well established by the science of phrenology, combined with a study of the functions of the brain and its diseases, the poets, always in advance of the savans, as receiving their inspiration direct from God, had long ago perceived. The jumble of dreams Dryden very well describes :

"Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes:
When Monarch Reason sleeps, the Mimic wakes,
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,

A court of cobblers and a mob of kings."

These images are very incongruous; for when Reason is asleep, as in the brain of a madman, Fancy or Imagination takes the wildest strides. Things occurring in America and Europe, in the first century and the nineteenth, a hundred years ago and yet in the present moment, jumble themselves together in dreams. So they do in the brain of a madman.

In London, in the present year, a young fellow declared that he was Albert Edward Prince of Wales, and broke a tradesman's window because he would not take down the arms and cognizance of the Prince over the door. The young man was quite aware that there was another Prince of Wales elsewhere, and that he was the true and lawful heir to these realms and the armorial bearings complained of. But, although he knew this well enough, he thought it no absurdity to believe that there were two Princes of Wales, both true and good men, existing at the same time. A dreamer will imagine that he can fly, swim, live in fire, or have his head cut off, without injury.

But, besides these wild and vain dreams, there are others which are very logical and reasonable. Notwithstanding the dictum that, when in perfect health, we ought not to dream at all, some dreams are very healthful in their tone. By them the mathematician has often worked out the problem which puzzled him in his waking moments. The poet, as was the case with Coleridge and his Kubla Khan, has dreamed a glorious poem; and, waking, he took his pen, and 'eagerly wrote down the lines preserved. At the moment he was called out by some person on business, and, on his return to the room, found that all, except some eight or ten lines, had passed away for ever from his memory." Coleridge is not the only instance. In a volume of Ghost Stories, published by Bentley, there is a complete story, full of life and incident, related by the author just as he had dreamed it. Sartini, a celebrated violin-player, composed his famous

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