SLEEP AND DREAMS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR:1
Sin,—It is said to be the sluggard only who tells his dreams, but I will venture to trespass on your time with an account of one I dreamt the other night. I dreamed that I was chosen to preach a sort of lecture-sermon, taking as my subject Butler's "Analogy," and that I was desired to give a specimen of what I should say.
I began thus :—" It may be expedient—it may be necessary— to prove the truth of Christianity. To prove the truth of religion without entering into the question of the differences between the various religions of the world is as unnecessary as to prove the truth of hunger or of sleep. There are states of being when a man does not feel the craving of hunger, or receive the gift of sleep ; there are a few Atheists among the millions who live and have lived in the world, but the one state is as unnatural as the other."
Is this an old, hackneyed argument, which I have heard and forgotten, or is it a new one ? It seemed to me forcible, not only when I was asleep, but after I woke.—I am, Sir, &c., E. G. T. F.
[It is an old argument, which the dreamer had probably read often and forgotten, but not the less forcible, for that. New arguments on the subject would perhaps not be very forcible. Still it probably indicated the activity of the memory of the dreamer, rather than of his reasoning powers, at the time.—ED. Spectator.]
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