t, and the fruit for himself and his relatives.
Amongst other people and characters I met with at this time was a good,
respectable man, who had a remarkable dream. He came to me one day,
after I had been speaking about Jacob's ladder, and said that my sermon
had reminded him of his dream. I begged him to sit down and tell it to
me. He said, "I dreamt that I and nineteen other young men were living
in a beautiful house and place, where we had everything provided fer us,
and were free to enjoy ourselves as much as we pleased. We all
understood that the premises belonged to Satan and that we were his
guests. As such, we were permitted to take our pleasure upon two
conditions--one was, that we were not to pray; and the other that we
were not to go away. We smiled at this, and said it was not likely we
should do the former, for we were not the praying kind; and less likely
that we should do the latter, for why should we be such fools as to
forego or give up our enjoyments?"
I thought to myself, What a wonderful dream that is and how true to
reality! What numbers of young men there are, and young women too,
besides: many other people, who hold their worldly happiness on this
tenure, and of course from the same master.
Well, to continue the story of the dream, he said, "In the course of
time we all became heartily tired of the place and its pleasures, and
longed to get away, but we could not. One of us made an attempt to do
so, but he was captured and brought back, and made more of a slave than
ever. At last, I and a few others agreed to pray at a stated time in
different places, in the hope that if one was caught, yet the rest might
escape. Upon a set day and time we began praying, each in his appointed
place. I had fixed upon a dark corner in a large deserted room, where we
had stowed away bales and bales of goods we did not care to open.
Climbing over the top of these stores, I landed on the other side, and
went to the spot I had chosen. I had not prayed long before I heard
master