PHILIP DODDRIDGE and Samuel Clark were one evening engaged in conversation upon the subject of death, and whether the soul at death rises at once to the enjoyment of the glory of heaven. This had so powerful an effect upon his mind that he dreamed during the night.
He dreamed that he became ill, and his illness ended in death. Not a dark, painful, gloomy death, which is the association we are apt to give to it, but a joyous relief from pain and care an escape from the confines of his earthly prison-house to the liberty and peace of heaven. His poor frail body was exchanged for a seraphic form, and he seemed to float in a region of brightness. And though he had put on immortality, he saw what was going on in the earth he had quitted: he saw his own lifeless body lying in his bed, and his friends weeping round it.
He next thought that he was rising in the air, through vast regions flooded by golden light. He was not alone. By his side, guiding and bearing him up, was one whom he knew not, except that he was a messenger of God, full of dignity and sweetness. He and his attendant rose until in the distance appeared the outline of a palace, more glorious than anything he had been able to imagine on earth. The angel told him that this was to be his home, his place of rest.
They entered it, and found a table laid with white linen, on which were grapes and a golden cup. “Rest here,” said his conductor. “The Lord of the mansion will soon be with you; meanwhile study the apartment.” The next moment Doddridge was alone; and on casting his eyes round the room, he saw that the walls were adorned with a series of pictures. To his great wonder, he found his own life given in these pictures. From the moment when he had entered the world a helpless infant, down to the recent hour when he had seemed to die, his whole life was marked down; every event shone brightly on the walls. Some he remembered as perfectly as though they had occurred but the day before; others had passed his memory. Things which in life had caused him doubt were rendered clear now. The perils of his life were there, the accidents which had overtaken him in his mortal state, all of which he had escaped from untouched, or but slightly hurt. One in particular caught his attention a fall from his horse, for he recollected the circumstance well. It had been a perilous fall, and his escape had been marvelous.
He saw angels there merciful, guiding, shielding angels who had been with him unsuspected throughout his life, never quitting him, always watching over him to guard him from danger. He saw that in that fall from his horse it was an angel who had stretched forth his hands to receive him, and so had broken the peril of his descent.
He continued in his dream to gaze at these wonderful pictures; and the more he gazed, the greater grew his awe, his reverence, his admiration of the unbounded goodness of God. Not a turn could his eye take, but it rested on some merciful act of interposition for him. Love, gratitude, joy filled his heart to overflowing; and yet he had been so negligent of these favors in life! so thankless to the Almighty Giver of all good! In the midst of this the door was thrown open, and One entered One of radiant mien, of all-perfect beauty; and Doddridge sank at his feet overwhelmed by the power of his majesty. It was the Lord of the mansion, his Saviour; and that kind, ever-loving Saviour deigned to stoop and gently raise him from the ground, and tell him not to fear, as he led him forward to the communion table. He himself pressed the juice of the grapes into the golden chalice, drank, and held it to the lips of him whom he had redeemed, saying, “This is the new wine in my Father’s kingdom.” As Doddridge drank, it seemed that he assumed a heavenly nature. “Perfect love had cast out fear,” and he rejoiced fully in the presence of his Redeemer, and conversed with him as a dear friend. Then fell from his lips these joyful tidings, “Thy labors are over, thy work is approved, great and glorious is thy reward”; and then the glories of Heaven began to burst upon him, one glory after another. It was too much: a finite mind may not on earth support such bliss. He awoke overwhelmed with rapture. Henceforth he was enabled to trace the hand of God in every event, and to leave his all to the safe and loving guidance of his heavenly Friend.