remained in the day so vivid a reality that the reflections which it awakened served to fan into a consuming flame of ardor and fervor his passion for souls. And he always believed that this and other dreams were God's messengers sent to communicate to him some of the mightiest impulses that swayed his life.

While, therefore, Dr. Gordon was not the first man, or preacher of the gospel, whose life, character, and conduct have been singularly molded by a dream, he was careful to claim even for this remarkable and unique experience, no supernatural origin.

“The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream;

"And he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.

"What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord." In strict conformity to this divine injunction, this dream is told, as such, without affirming for it, or even implying in it, any authority. Nor is any philosophy here suggested as to those strange vagaries of the spirit in the semi-conscious state of sleep, which seem to belong to the borderland between insanity and inspiration, and which, after all these centuries, remain still an unsolved mystery. Yet, in this instance as in many others, the fact remains obvious that God has used a dream to put into life a new meaning, and impart to holy activity a new momentum.

There is one important law of dreams which should, however, be recognized: they do sustain an important relation to the habitual inner life. Whether by way of correspondence or of contrast, they serve as a sort of reflection of the mental moods and spiritual habits. Such a dream as is here recorded is therefore an index and interpreter of the man, and will bear careful study as a revelation of his inner self.

Dreams, moreover, have this unique peculiarity, that they translate the historical into the poetical, the actual into the allegorical; that is, they weave sensuous impressions or abstract ideas into concrete and often personal forms.

The

imagination, being no more restrained and corrected by the more practical senses, is left to itself to wander as it will and build fantastic forms unchecked by the sober realistic reason. Hence such a dream as is here crystalized into a narrative, when divested of its purely imaginative and allegorical dress, becomes a valuable exponent of the author's inmost habits of thought and feeling. As such we shall now consider it, believing these mental habits to supply the most helpful sort of practical and biographical commentary upon the striking narrative which was the last product of Dr. Gordon's gifted pen, and which forms the last legacy of this holy man and prince among preachers to the church of his generation.

The dream centers about the personal coming

of Christ to his own church, his reception there, the character of the worship he confronted, the fidelity of the gospel message he heard, the spiritual attitude of the hearers whom he met, and his general approval or disapproval of the whole atmosphere of the place of prayer; and especially the measure of his recognition of the invisible presence and presidence of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ. Who that knew Adoniram Judson Gordon needs to be told that such a dream is not a mere incoherent and senseless vagary of the mind, for it invests with poetic and allegorical form the ruling ideas and ideals of his whole later life, which may be classified somewhat as follows:

1. Loyalty to the person of Christ as Son of God and his own Saviour.

2. The blessed hope of his personal coming, as an imminent event.

3. The high vocation of the preacher as Christ's herald, witness, and ambassador.

4. The purity of worship as the exaltation of God alone in his sanctuary.

5. The supreme authority of the inspired and infallible word of God.

6. The conformity of entire church life to a biblical pattern.

7. The invisible presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the church as his temple and seat of administration.

To present these conceptions in their order, somewhat as they lay in Dr. Gordon's mind, and with impartial faithfulness, will be the simple purpose and purport of what follows; and it is our hope that, in so doing, there may be presented a commentary on this dream; and, what is even more valuable, an outline portrait, at least, of the man who is to be recognized as among the richest gifts bestowed by the Father of us all upon the church of this illustrious century; and whose character and influence, all who best knew him desire to perpetuate and reproduce in the history now making for the august future.

I

LOYALTY TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST

O a little deeper and you'll find the emperor," said the wounded soldier of Napoleon's bodyguard, to the surgeon probing for the ball. And in the deepest soul of Dr. Gordon was the shrine of the personal Christ.

The genius of his whole godliness was found in this personal bond. He was jealous of truth of which all sound doctrine is the crystallization, and all true life the incarnation; but to him the living Christ was the Truth, and no mere creed could satisfy the soul that longed for a person to believe and love; and error was repugnant mainly because it meant a denial, or at least a dishonor, of Christ the divine Teacher.

This personal center of the gospel and of the new life explains all that is otherwise mysterious about this man of God. His conversion was his turning toward Christ as his Saviour and Lord. He believed the message that God gave of his Son, that in him is life everlasting, and that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, nor come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.