So much for the effects of what is a reality to be seen and felt by all men. But now and again the mere haphazard predictions of some self-constituted prophet of evil, if plausibly presented and steadily insisted upon, find a multitude of credulous believers among us. It is only a few years since a certain religious sect, notwithstanding repeated failures in the past, with much consequent ridicule, again ventured to fix a day for the second coming of Our Lord. Similarly it falls within the recollection of most of us how a certain self-constituted Canadian seer solemnly predicted the coming of a monster tidal wave, which in its disastrous effects was to be another Deluge. All the great Atlantic seaboard was to be buried in the rush of mighty waters; all its great maritime cities swept away in a moment. Fresher still in the recollection is the prediction that the end of the world would surely come as the inevitable result of the shower of meteors of November, 1899. It is a fact that many good and worthy but, alas! too credulous people living along the New England coast, who believed themselves in danger from the destroying tidal wave, were thrown into a state of unspeakable agitation and alarm by this wicked prediction. Yet there was absolutely nothing to warrant it except the unsupported declaration of this one man, whom no one knew, and few had ever heard of. Yet some really believed, more half believed, and some who openly ridiculed the prediction apparently did so more to keep their courage up than from actual unbelief. So easy it is to arouse the fears of a community, who usually act first and reason afterward. I heard of one man who actually packed all his household goods in a wagon, so as to be ready to start off for higher ground upon the first signal of the approach of this much-dreaded rush of waters. [Illustration] XIV “SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT” “_Songe est toujours mensonge_,” says a French proverb; “Dreams go by contraries” says the English proverb,--that is, if you dream of the dead you will hear from the living. Who shall decide, where the collective wisdom of centuries is at such wide variance? To put faith in the supposed revelations of a disordered or overheated brain seems, on the face of it, sheer absurdity, especially when we ourselves may induce dreaming merely by overindulgence in eating or drinking. Yet there are people who habitually dream when the brain is in its normal condition. This brings the question down to its simplest form, “What is a dream?” And there we halt.