conclusion, the whole purpose bursts upon their
understandings. But I think the objection as to purpose is answered by
one undoubted fact, the dream of Pilate's wife--"Have thou nothing to
do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a
dream because of him." There is here no apparent purpose--the warning
was unheeded. Yet the dream, recorded as it is and where it is, was
unquestionably a dream upon the event to happen; and is not to be
considered as a mere coincidence, which would have been unworthy the
sacred historian, who wrote the account of it under inspiration. And
this is a strong--the strongest confirmation of the inspiration of
dreams, or rather, perhaps, of their significance, natural or
otherwise, and with or without a purpose. So the dream of Caesar's wife
did not save Caesar's life. And what are we to think of the whole
narrative, beginning with the warning of the Ides of March? Now,
Joseph's dream and Pharaoh's dream were dreams of purpose; they were
prophetic, and disclosed to the understanding of Joseph. So that, with
this authority of Scripture, I do not see how dreams can be set aside
as of no significance. And we have the like authority for omens, and
symbols, and visions--so that we must conclude the things themselves
to be possible; and this many do, yet say that, with other miracles,
they have long ceased to be.

Then, again, in things that by their agreement, falling in with other
facts and events, move our wonder, we escape from the difficulty, as
we imagine, by calling them coincidences; as if we knew what
coincidences are. I do not believe they are without a purpose, any
more than that seeming fatality by which little circumstances produce
great events, and in ordinary life occur frequently to an apparent
detriment, yet turn out to be the very hinge upon which the fortune
and happiness of life depend and are established. I remember a
remarkable instance of this--though it may not strictly belong to
omens or coincidences; but it shows the purpose of an accident. Many
years ago, a lady sent her servant--a young man about twenty years of
age, and a native of that part of the country where his mistress
resided--to the neighbouring town with a ring which required some
alteration, to be delivered into the hands of a jeweller. The young
man went the shortest way, across the fields; and coming to a little
wooden bridge that crossed a small stream, he leaned against the rail,
and