dreamed gazed reverently, one and all, on the same part of the letter, so do humble Christians, morning and evening, even in distant regions of the world, ponder over the same chapter in the Scriptures. Not without a twinge of conscience, I might say, of shame, did I come to these conclusions. It was only a few days before that I had failed to see as clearly as I ought the obligation we are under to adopt the arrangement of the Prayer Book Calendar. No doubt my dream, in its minute and circumstantial details, C involved more abundant instruction than what I had already appropriated, but my lesson I resolved should be one of unbroken unity! With these questions I purposed to impress the dream on my too-faithless memory. They were concentrated on one point alone; for I feared to forget the chief moral of my dream. When I read a portion not appointed by the Calendar instead of the one selected therein, do not I at least willingly break one of the most closebinding links by which Christian people are connected together? In self-reproach I asked myself this question; and also these two others. Is it prudent to set aside customs, which seem almost to be special provisions of God? Is it the part of humility to be guided by my own judgment, in preference to the collective judgment of holy and experienced men of the past and the present time? |