DR. DODDRIDGE’S DREAM.

Dr. Doddridge and Dr. Samuel Clark, of St. Alban’s, having been conversing in the evening upon the nature of the separate state, and the probability that the scenes on which the soul would enter, at its first leaving the body, would have some resemblance to those things it had been conversant with while on earth, that it might by degrees be prepared for the more sublime happiness of the heavenly state, this and other conversation of the same kind probably occasioned the following dream.

The Doctor imagined himself dangerously ill at a friend’s house in London, and after remaining in this state for some hours, he thought his soul left his body, and took its flight in some kind of a fine vehicle, though very different from the gross body it had just quitted, but still material.  He pursued his course through the air, expecting some celestial messenger to meet him, till he was at some distance from the city, when turning back and viewing the town, he could not forbear saying to himself, “How vain do those affairs in which the inhabitants of this place are so eagerly employed, seem to me a separate spirit!” At length, as he was continuing his progress, though without any certain directions, yet easy and happy in the thoughts of the universal providence and government of God, which extends alike to all states and worlds, he was now met by one who told him he was sent to conduct him to this destined state of abode, from which he concluded it was an angel, though he appeared in the form of an elderly man.  They accordingly advanced together, till they came within sight of a large spacious building, which had the air of a palace.  Upon his inquiring what it was, his guide replied, it was the place assigned for him at present; upon which the Doctor wondered that he had read on earth, “that eye had not seen, nor ear had heard, the glory laid up for them that love God,” when he could easily have formed an idea of such a building, from others he had seen, though he acknowledged they were greatly inferior to this in elegance and magnificence.  The answer, his guide told him, was plainly suggested by the conversation of the evening before, and that the scenes presented to him were purposely contrived to bear a near resemblance to those he had been accustomed to on earth, that his mind might be more easily and gradually prepared for those glories which would open upon him hereafter, and which would at first have quite dazzled and overpowered him.  By this time they came to the palace, and his guide led him through a kind of saloon into an inner parlour.  The first object that struck him was a great golden cup which stood upon a table, on which was embossed the figure of a vine and clusters of grapes.  He asked his guide the meaning of it; who told him that it was the cup in which his Saviour drank new wine with his disciples in his kingdom; and that the figures carved