JOANNA SOUTHCOTT

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 36, 11 August 1927, Page 4

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT

A "PROPHETESS"

STORY OF HER BOX

Cable advice received recently stated that one of Joanua Southcott's famous boxes had been opened in the presence of a Bishop and others. Followers of Joanna Southeott, however, declare that it is not the box which she left with the instruction that it should be opened in the presence of a number of Bishops and only when England was in great danger. The London "Daflv Telegraph," referring to the "prophetess," recently said editorially "In the last days of 1814 there died in Manchester street Joanna Southeott who was, as she said, the woman clothed with the sue and the moon under her feet in the Book of Revelation, the woman who was-to bring forth a man child destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron. But Joanna- died without bearing a child. Upon her death-bed, it is reported, she gave to a companion a sealed box with the injunction that it was only to be opened in a time of dire national, need,and the presenco of a number of Bishops: under these conditions it woujd reveal au unexpected means of saving the country. What is certified to be this very bos has now been submitted to the investigation of a spiritualist seance and photography by X-rays. The spiritualistic account of. the contents appears to be indefinite, but the X-ray pictures display what is certainly a horse-pistol, some things thought to be coins, ear-rings, and a beaded bag, and what is alternatively catalogued as a dice-box or a roll of manuscript. It appears to bo felt that tins. statement lacks precision, and arrangements are therefore being made for a public meeting, with or without Bishops, at which the box shall be opened. The country is, no doubt as much in need of salvation as can reasonably be expected. But we like Joanna's bos very well as it is. 'With the unimnginative minds who ask what Joanna Southeott had to do with a horse-pistol, or how a pair of ear-rings should save the country, we have no sympathy. This box seems to us just what Joanna's box ought to be. Consider her story. She was born in 1750 to feel the force of the religious revival in the last half of that century. She had little education. She reached the mature age of 42, working in domestic service and shops, without showing any abnormal qualities, except that she went to church and chapel with impartial assiduity. But at 42 she began to prophesy, and her sister told her she was going mad.- The prophecies, which announced the imminence of the Millennium and the downfall of neighbouring countries, seem not to have differed much from many others in many different centuries. But the convulsive changes in Europe which the French Revolution was producing could oe interpreted as harmonising with almost any sufficiently wild and vague prediction. Apart from her prophetic pretences, Joanna was at first almost entirely orthodox. She disliked eccentricities of doctrine. She used the Prayer Book. But she developed. Sho discovered that the faithful who were to enjoy the millennium were precisely 144,000, and she began to issue them certificates of ■ their appointment to felicity. That she sold these diplomas seems to be a libel. But one of the recipients was certainly hanged for murder. She was 52 when she announced that she w.as "bringing forth to the world" a second Eedeemer. It is. conjectured that she first meant this spiritually or metaphorically, and was persuaded by the enthusiasm of her followers (she had thousands) to take it literally. She was 63 when she announced that she was to become the mother of Shiloh the Prince of Peace. In October, 1813, she shut herself up with two women. Shiloh was to bo born a year later. A cot was made to order at a cost of £.200. One hundred pounds was spent on pap spoons. But in November Joanna told her doctor' that she was gradually dying, and on 27th December she died. . For four days, as she had ordered, her body was kept warm, then there was an autopsy. The doctors found no functional disorder ov organic disease, and thought that "all the mischief lay in the brain.' 3 People who are well read in history, secular and religious, will find Joanna's case very difficult to understand, except for the recurring marvel of the human mind that such as she find thousands and tens of thousands of faithful believers."