"He walked through the province of human misery and crime, a mysterious being, doing what He pleased, without ostentation and with perfect ease. He gave sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf; disease, in its multifarious forms of infliction, withdrew when He issued the command; the dead arose to do Him homage; the raging elements, when His disciples were in danger, hushed to a calm at His bidding; and the dumb became vocal in His praise. These were the triumphs of benevolence over the miseries of man, requiring, on His part, no privations or suffering to effect them. Shift the scene of His history, and what a sight do we behold! He is poor, homeless, and unpitied; often weary in His great exertions of beneficence; and sometimes having to endure the extreme of hunger and of thirst. His enemies revile Him as a fanatic; denounce Him as an impostor and maniac; and accuse Him of treason and blasphemy; and secretly conspire to put Him to death. The quietude of Gethsemane, where He was pleading with heaven in behalf of the people, is broken by the foot-treads of His betrayer, stepping in advance of an armed force; in the council-chamber of Caiaphas he is maligned and insulted; and when arraigned at Pilate's tribunal, He is scourged and condemned; and at Calvary they crucify Him between two malefactors. There this illustrious Prince bleeds, and there He dies; for what? and for whom?" The pathetic tones in which this sentence was uttered--there He bleeds, and there He dies; for what? and for whom?--bathed the whole audience in tears; there was a sudden pause, and its stillness awoke me. "This," I said, as I came back to wakeful consciousness, "is a dream, which has called up day thoughts in the visions of the night; painting on the fancy, in vivid colours, the meditations of the heart. A dream! strange phenomenon! the mysterious action of the mysterious spirit, ever active, with or without the auxiliary aid of the senses; but the facts of this dream are the realities of absolute truth--the most wonderful and important realities within the compass of universal knowledge. I can reply to the questions of the dream in my wakeful hour. He bleeds; for what? The iniquities of the people. He dies; for whom? He gave His life a ransom for the redemption and salvation of man. Wondrous event!" On looking out of my bedroom window, I saw the sun rising in his splendour; the winds were at rest, no clouds veiled the heavens in gloom. "It is," I involuntarily exclaimed, "a delightful Sabbath morning." Seeing Hervey's _Meditations_ on my dressing-table, I took it, and read his "Descant upon Creation," closing with the following soul-inspiring paragraph:--