Dreams, and the interpretation of dreams, have opened the future, pointed out the course of empire through all the troublous times of successive ages, till Saints alone shall rule, and immortality alone endure. Oh, what a doleful situation was Saul the king of Israel placed in, when the army of the Philistines stood in battle array against him, and the Lord answered him not, either by dream, by Prophet, by vision, or by Urim and Thummim! He sought the unlawful gift of familiar spirits, or "Magnetism." He there learned his doom, and rushed to battle with the desperation of hopeless despair. Himself, his sons, and the hosts of Israel, fell in battle in that awful day; while David, to whom these gifts had been transferred by the ordination and holy anointing of Samuel, arose by their use to the throne of Israel. A dream announced to Joseph that his virgin wife should have a son. A dream forewarned him to flee into Egypt with the young child and his mother. A dream announced to him in Egypt the death of Herod, and warned him to return to his native land. A dream warned the wise men from the east to return home another way, and not return to Herod to betray the young child. Dreams and visions warned Paul, and the Apostles, and the Saints of his day, of various dangers, shipwrecks, persecutions and deaths, and pointed out the means of escape. Dreams and visions attended and guided them, more or less, in their whole ministry and sojourn on the earth. CHAPTER XIV. THE WORLD OF SPIRITS. Ye worlds of light and life, beyond our sphere; Mysterious country! let your light appear. Ye angels, lift the vail, the truth unfold, And give our Seers a glimpse of that bright world; Tell where ye live, and what are your employ, Your present blessing, and your future joy. Say, have you learn'd the name, and tun'd the lyre, And hymn'd the praise of him--the great Messiah? Have love's emotions kindl'd in your breast, And hope enraptur'd seiz'd the promis'd rest? Or wait ye still the resurrection day, That higher promise of Millennial sway? When Saints and angels come to earth again, And in the Mesh with King Messiah reign? The spirits answer'd as they soar'd away-- "We're happy now, but wait a greater day, When sin and death, and hell, shall conquer'd be, And _earth_, with heaven, enjoy the victory." The spirit of man consists of an organization, or embodiment of the elements of spiritual matter, in the likeness and after the pattern of the fleshly tabernacle. It possesses, in fact, all the organs and parts exactly corresponding to the outward tabernacle. The entrance of this spirit into its embryo tabernacle of flesh, is called quickening. The infallible evidence of its presence is voluntary motion, which implies a degree of independent agency, or inherent will, which individual identity alone possesses.