The Three Dreams

The Three Dreams by Elizabeth Rundle Charles

The Three Dreams** by Elizabeth Rundle Charles is a short allegorical narrative in which the unnamed narrator recounts three dreams experienced in close succession, each deepening the meaning of the last, together forming a meditation on divine grace and the way of salvation. In the first dream, the narrator sees a magnificent walled palace—a self-contained city of gardens, towers, minarets, and campaniles, radiant with light and fragrance, especially at night when it appears in perpetual festival. Outside its walls lie the squalid lanes of the surrounding city, populated by starving, ragged, sorrow-marked people who linger near the palace gates. Though the gates are massive, black, and impenetrable—allowing no glimpse inside—they bear a golden inscription: "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." A golden knocker hangs low enough for even the youngest child to reach, and it is the children who use it most freely. Whenever anyone knocks, however faintly, the gates swing open with music-like sound and draw the petitioner inside, revealing a fleeting glimpse of pearl-lined interior before closing again. The dream represents grace as formally accessible but still mediated by a barrier—an invitation that requires the initiative of knocking. The narrator wakes, then falls asleep again into a second dream. The same palace appears, but now the massive doors themselves are gone. In their place stands a figure the narrator has never seen yet recognizes instantly from description—Christ. The same wretched, suffering people still huddle nearby, but now the barrier is replaced by a living presence who declares, "I am the Door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." A destitute, sorrow-worn woman looks into His face and, drawn by the tenderness of His voice, approaches to kiss the hem of His garment. Rather than merely permitting her entry, He stoops, takes her hand, and personally leads her in. The narrator understands this as the deeper meaning of Christ's words: there is no impersonal gate at all, only Christ Himself standing where the door had been, actively welcoming and aiding those who come, in contrast to the earlier dream's passive knocker. Waking again, the narrator soon drifts into a third dream, in which the palace reappears with its portals flung wide open—but Christ is no longer standing within the doorway. Instead, He has gone out among the most wretched of the crowd: the maimed, the halt, and the blind. These people are so consumed by their own sordid struggles—haggling desperately with a rag merchant over worthless wares, fighting over their pitiful purchases, bartering rags for intoxicating drink that has degraded them further—that many scarcely notice Him. Everything among them has a price, often one that costs them dearly, even life itself. Yet Christ moves patiently among them, offering the palace freely, absorbing their rough words and blows without resentment, repeating, "I come to seek and to save that which was lost." Some of even the most degraded listen, turn, and return with Him to be welcomed inside. The narrative closes by drawing out the escalating meaning of the three visions: if the invitation "Knock, and it shall be opened" was already generous, it was surpassed by the second dream's image of gates thrown fully open with a living, outstretched hand replacing the door itself. And that in turn is surpassed by the third dream's deeper truth—rather than merely saying "Come to me," Christ Himself goes out to where the lost are, seeking them in their degradation rather than waiting for them to approach. Structurally, the piece uses the progressive logic of dream-vision literature (echoing Bunyan's allegorical tradition) to move the reader through three escalating pictures of grace: grace as a formally open door requiring human initiative (knocking), grace as a personal Savior standing in the doorway to welcome and assist those who approach, and finally grace as an active, seeking love that goes out into the world's poverty and vice to find and rescue those who would never approach on their own. The palace consistently symbolizes heaven or the divine kingdom; the surrounding poverty and squalor represent fallen humanity in its suffering and sin; and the transformation of the barrier—from lifeless golden knocker, to welcoming personal figure, to itinerant seeker among the lost—traces a theological argument about the nature of Christ's saving initiative, moving from formal accessibility to incarnate welcome to active, self-giving pursuit of the lost, illustrating the Gospel text underlying the whole piece: "I come to seek and to save that which was lost."

By Elizabeth Rundle Charles · First published 1894 · Genre: Religious Allegory, Christian Fiction, Visionary/Dream Literature · 1,221 words

First lines

I HAD once three dreams in close succession, which I will relate to you.

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The Three Dreams is listed on Textopian as a short story by Elizabeth Rundle Charles, dated 1894 CE.

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Tags

allegory · parable · Victorian literature · spiritual · moral fiction · 19th century · dream narrative · religious allegory · philosophical · British literature · classic literature · moral lessons

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