Belief in the prophetic signification of dreams is not only not discountenanced by the Christian religion, but is explicitly taught by it. If in the present age this belief has fallen somewhat out of repute, this is not because there can be any doubt that the inspired writers of the Christian Scriptures firmly held it, but is a feature of the general relaxation of the bonds of dogma which characterizes the modern mind. To take a few instances: when Abraham had called Sarah his sister, and thus permitted the king of Gerar to appropriate her, God himself came to Abimelech by night in a dream, and told him that she was a married woman (Gen. xx. 3). Highly important information as to the future of his race was given to Jacob in a dream (Gen. xxviii. 11-15). His son Joseph enjoyed an extraordinary faculty, not only of dreaming true dreams himself, but also of interpreting the dreams of others. It was his own prophetic dreams which led to his sale into the hands of the traders by his brothers, and it was his power of correct interpretation which both freed him from his prison in Egypt, and led to his promotion to the high office he afterwards held at the Egyptian court (Gen. xxxvii., 5-11; Gen. xl., xli). Moreover, Joseph, who must be considered an authority on the subject, expressly informed Pharaoh, when that monarch had related his dreams that God had showed him what he was about to do (Gen. xli. 25-28). A most important dream was granted to Solomon, to whom "the Lord appeared in a dream by night," and told him to ask whatever favor he might wish: on which occasion the king preferred his celebrated request for wisdom (1 Kings iii., 5-15). Another ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, was also visited by a prophetic dream, the nature of which was revealed to the interpreter, Daniel, "in a night vision," by God himself, who thus admitted that it was he who had sent it. A further communication was made to Nebuchadnezzar, in the dream which he himself has recorded in the proclamation which bears witness at the same time to the fulfillment of its warning (Daniel ii., iv). But of all the dreams handed down to us by the Scriptural writers, by far the most material, as evidence of their Divine character, is that on which the mystery of the Incarnation mainly rests. Take away the dream in which Joseph was informed that the Holy Ghost was the parent of Mary's first-born child (Matt. i. 20), and that mystery will depend exclusively on a story of an angel's visit, of necessity related by Mary herself (Luke i. 35); for obvious reasons not the most trustworthy witness on so delicate a point. But this is not all; for it was by a dream that the Magi, after their adoration, were warned to escape the vengeance of Herod (Matt. ii. 12); and by a dream that the life of the infant Christ was preserved in the massacre of the innocents (Matt. ii. 13). Christianity, therefore, may be said to owe its very existence to the celestial intimations conveyed in dreams,