A PROPHETIC VISION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LI, Issue 9139, 11 July 1906, Page 6

A PROPHETIC VISION.

CURATE'S WARNING OF DEATH,

The Rev. Meredith Morris, curate of Garth Church, at Maesteg, South Wales, ;>tartled his congregation on Sunday evening, April 29th, by uttering a prophecy which had its fulfilment the following day in the death of a young man in a colliery .accident.

The curate has often decried emotionalism, his attitude being that of a scientific investigator. Departing from the subject of his sermon, he said : —

•Tn the past I have criticised adversely som© who have said they have seen visions. I retract those censorious words. What did I know then?

"We have !ha<3 out Easter communion, and there were some who were absent from it. There were some who told me they would come, but I saw in their eyes that they did not mean what they said. Afterwards I saw seven of them gambling under a tree, and one of them won eight shillings and twopence. There was one who saw me watching, and his accusing conscience made him run away.

"MESSAGE FROM GOD."

"Now I have a message. I must deliver it. I dare not keep it back — it is a message from God to all the young men and to all in this church.

"I have seen in a vision seven young men, and one of these seven will be called to his reckoning by his Maker, and that very shortly."

The congregation was deeply stirred, and the feeling of tension was heightened when, just as the curate began a fervent prayer for the young men, the lights went out, and the hissing of escaping gas could be heard just above the preacher's head.

A hymn was sung while the lights were being put in order, and then the curate went on with his sermon without making any further allusions to his vision.

On Monday afternoon one of the young men to whom ho referred was killed in a local cclliary.

WEEK OF PRAYER.

The curate told a press representative that he had been greatly distressed con cerning the state of several young men, and for nfcarly the whole of the last week in April he had spent his time in praying for them.

"I was still praying when Tmirsday afternoon came," he said. "I recall that I seemed to go off in a faint, and then a vision came clearly before me. I saw soveral young men, four of whom I recognised, and in the course of the vision I saw one of the young men lolled in a colliery.

"I was burdened with the message of warning. The message that came into my sermon, however, was ■unpremeditated, for I did not know until that moment which of the young men would be the victim of the colliery accident.

"Strange as it may seem, the news of the accident brought me a certain relief, as it cleared away all doubt and mystery."