That powerful influences should occasionally arise out of dreams, affecting the conduct and the destiny of men, is only natural, and is illustrated by numerous examples. Literature is crowded with instances of the efi'ect of dreams upon life, for good and evil ; and the personal experience of each of us will add additional ones. There is no one of us who has not been conscious of the influence of night visions in deterring him from evil and leading him to good. The annals of religion are sown with instances in whiili the careers of men have been swayed and their outlook for time and eternity altered by a dream. We may recall the dream of Evagiius of Pontus, recorded by Socrates, for example, by which he was nerved to resist temptation, and his whole life determined Oi \\ e may recall the dream of Patrick, gnen m his Con fession, on which hung his ^\ hole w oi k as apostle of the Irish. Or we may recall the dreim of Elizabeth Fry, by which she \\as rescued finni tlie indecision and doubt into%\hKli she fell aftei lu i conversion. The part played by ditams m the conversion of John Bunyan, John Newton James Gardiner, Alexander Duff, are but well known in.stances of a phenomenon illustrated copioii'ily from every age of the Church's experience Con verting dreams' are indeed a lecognized -variety VOL. I.— 32
(cf. Myers as cited, No. 409, i. pp. 126, 127), and are in nowise stranger than many of their fellows. They are the natural result of the action of the stirred conscience obtruding itself into the visions of the night, and, as psychological phe- nomena, are of precisely the same order as the completion of mathematical problems in dreams, or the familiar experience of the invasion of our dreams by our waking anxieties. In the provi- dence of God, however, they have been used as instruments of Divine grace, and levers by which not only individual destiny has been determined, but the very world has been moved. (Cf. Delitzsch, as cited, and 'Dreams and the Moral Life,' in the Homiletic Revieiv, Sept. 1890).
AVith such dreams and the issues which have flowed from them in mind, we surely can find no difficulty in recognizing the possibility and pro- priety of occasional Divine employment of dreams for the highest of ends. Obviously dreams have not been deemed by Providence too empty and bizarre to be used as instruments of the most far-reaching effects. Indeed, we must extend the control of Divine Providence to the whole world of dreams. Of course, no dream visits us in our sleep, any more than any occurrence takes place during our waking hours, apart from the appointment and direction of Him wlio Himself never either slumbers or sleeps, and in whose hands all things work together for the execution of His ends. We may, now and again, be able to trace with especial clearness the hand of the great Potter, moulding the vessel to its destined uses, in, say, an unusufS dream, producing a profoundly arresting effect upon the consciousness. But in all the dreams that visit us, we must believe the guidance of the universal Governor to be present, working out His wOl. It will hardly be possible, however, to recog- nize this providential guidance of dreams, and especially the Divine employment of particularly moving dreams in the mode of what we commonly call ' special providences,' witliout removing all legitimate ground for hesitation in thinking of His employment of special dreams also as media of revelation. The God of providence and the God of revelation are one God ; and His providential and revelational actions flow together into one har- monious effect. It is not possible to believe that the instrumentalities employed by Him freely in the one sphere of His operation can be unworthy of use by Him in the other. Those whom He has brought by His providential dealings with them into such a state of mind that they are prepared to meet with Him in the night watches, and to receive on the prepared surface of their souls the impres- sions which He designs to convey to them. He surely may visit according to His will, not merely by the immediate operation of His grace, but also in revealing visions, whether these visions them- selves are wrought througli the media of their own experiences or by His own creative energy. It is difficult to perceive in what the one mode of action would be more unfitting than the other.
Literature. — Some of the special literature has been sug- gested in the course of the article A good general account of dream'^ in their relations to the supernatural ma\ be found in Alf hehm3.nn i Aberqlaube und Zauberei, &er tr , Stuttgart, 1898, p 389 f At the foot of p 648 is gnen an e\cellently the geneial subject On the historj of n the ntinns into contact with «h '
the Eihhral \
Homerische Theologn §;} J5 20 pp 1 de) Ronur 79 108 13) 160 Grander Romajis, 28-52 For dreams among, the burners RF i 996-998 Jeui'!h Ln v Philo de Somnns For Patristic \ien
also the
Jlelij. or the
DRESS
Benjamin B. Warfield.
The words used in the original for articles of dress have lost nuich of their force through great variation in translation in the AV. For clothes in freneral hi^/jun. occurs; it is tr. 'cloth- ing,' Mt 715 ; • rnimnnt,' Mt ^ e.ii 28 283, Lk 122a ; • garment,' Mt 2211-12. lucLTu.'. ■^' ; I— ^;: Ml r u^arment, a mantle or cloak ; it is tr. 'garmeiii : -l"^ 235 27if5, Mk 2'-i 627 (;r.t, lo^d