THESE PROPHETS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16823, 13 April 1918, Page 1 (Supplement)

THESE PROPHETS.

FORETELLING THE END.

BY FRANK MORTON.

The modern prophet is saved from flat despair by tho fact that no failures discourage him. The ninety-nine predictions that go wrong are altogether taoned for by the one that seems to be in some part justified. And tho more dismal a prophet is, the more shall you find him vindictive and determined. When San Francisco was destroyed by earthquake and fire, scores of prophets arose all over the world and said that in their hearts they had been predicting this tiling for years, because of the wickedness of the city; but they didn't attempt to explain how it was that Berlin and some few other places had got off.

Just now the d.smal prophets are in tho clutch of a grim discretion. They cannot foretell the downfall of Great Britain, because that would bring them under suspicion of pro-Germanism, which is ju»t now unpopular; and there is nothing to be gained from foretelling the defeat of Germany, because that is a thing so many millions of people aro predicting. Here, then, you have your prophets in a quandary. They can only fall back on predicting the imminent end of the world, and that is a sort of prophecy that nobody takes any notice of nowadays. "On Tuesday, the 13th of October," Swift tells us, " Air. Wliiston held his lecture near tho Royal Exchange and, with great earnestness and vehemence ho spake as follows : 'Friends and fellow-citizens, all speculative science is at an end; the period of all things is at hand; on Friday next this world shall bo no more. Put not your confidence in me, brethren, for to-morrow morning five minutes after fivo the truth will be evident; in that instant the comet shall appear, of which I have heretofore warned you. As ye have heard, believe. Go hence, and prepare your wives, your families, and friends, for tho universal change." But the world kept going pretty much as usual. Such prophecies as that have become common. I remember Henry Varley making a statement to much tho same effect, albeit a trifle loss definitely as to time, in 1891; but tho life of the settlement went steadily on, and the sun continued shining. The fact is that every man thinks he has the g.ft of prophecy, just as every man thinks ho could odit a newspaper. Human Credulity.

In all ages human credulity has been such that there has been good scopo for tho activities of self-appointed prophets, and many of them have waxed fat in the business. There was a little work that had a great reputation in Paris during tho trench Revolution—"Mirabilis liber qui Prophetias rovelationesquo nee non res mirandas preteritas presenter et futures anerte demonstrat." Notorious charlatans who posed as prophets had great following*, notable among them Paracelsus and Nostradamus. Most of their predictions came to nothing, but on the one or two that wore fulfilled they reared enormous and most profitable reputations. As to oracles of one kind and another—you may count the still remembered ones' by the score. \\e had the "Oracles of the Sibyls" in 1607, and the " Diverting Oracles of the Sieur de la Colombiere," in 16-19 And there was tho " Book of Marvels," 1565 very famous. Still Englishing the titles' I may recall to you the enlivening " (.'row of the French Cock, to the King, in which are Collected tho Prophecies of a Hermit Gcrman'of his origin, who lived Six Hundred years ago, of which certain have been Fulfilled in tho Kingdom of Bohemia, in the Palatinate; and the others Predict that the King shall reunite all tho False Religions with the Catholic and become Emperor of tho Universe." This was given to the world in 1621. It makes curious reading still, but it was never more than that. And wo have, in Latin, 1528, tho " Prognostication" of Johannis Lichtenbcrge.rs, at once the rarest and the daintiest of all little books of this kind, with a frontispiece, fortyfour woodcuts, and many effective initial's, with a likeness of tho prophet at the end. It is written in fine prose, ard beautifully printed. " There is nothing easier," writes Charles Nodier, "than to understand the likings all pimples have for books of prophecy." This mania is tho natural result of the most natural of our inclinations, the love of curiosities and marvels. There are, otherwise, few kinds of charlatanism that have been oftener and more impudently exploited; but if one may count in this province an incalculable number of imposters, it is just to admit that it is not altogether the fault of tho philosophic writers, who have neglected nothing in their attempts to discredit such books.

Our master, Rabelais, satirised this mania magnificently in the " Prognostication Pantagruelino," which was published nearly fifty years before the Centuries" of Nostradamus. And them is, in pungent old French verse, the " Prognostication dos Prognostications," 1537. Tho author derides all the charlatan prophets as lunatics— worse. If wo turn to English prophecies, there is a wealth of store accessible for reference. There is ono away back in tho fourteenth century that I can leave it to each man's ingenuity to construe:—

Gwen fnvth fnyleys in prestes saiuiys, And larnis wyllis main ye lamiys, And Ivrlicri ya knllid roinmun sn'ays, And Kobbory ys kallytl end hays, Than shall ye land of Albyoun Turno al to ronlusjoun. Tho Prophets and Napoleon,

Rons of our Jeremiahs seem to think that this old prophecy is in danger of ful filmcnt; but you and I don't, so we'll leave that. I can for the moment only remember one modern prophecy that was strikingly and speedily fulfilled". In' 17H6 thero was published at Paris " La Samaritaine," with predictions for the year 1787. At that time Napoleon was completely unknown among personages. But in that book this note appeared; —

In the corner of the world there exists, without fortune or distinction of ancestry, a Personage who will win thu greatest fame by his extraordinary talents, and who, havinir occupied Ilia highest place in a superb Empire,, will finish his days in exile; and tins will be the effect of a powerful cabal that, will overthrow him, But his greatness will pass into History, and h's enemies will there appear so small that one wiil Uko them for I'ygmica.

That seems amazing enough, and is little discounted by the fact that there exists in French a treatise that seeks to show "commo quo il n'a jamais cxiste," that tho name Napoleon is a corruption of Apollo, and that Napoleon's twelve marshals are merely figurative of tho twelve hours of the day. Then, coming nearer home, there is for reference the " Historic Doubt*," in which Archbishop Whately demonstrates with remarkable logic that Napoleon is a purely mythical personage. If you are clever enough you can demonstrate anything, be you prophet or no prophet. But one might write a volume regarding Napoleonic prophecies. Then) is oven that rogue, Nostradamus himself:

From simple soldier ho will attain to empire, From short robe he v,ill reach to long, Valiant in arms, but something worso in church, Voxirnj tho priests as water vexes the sponge,

The last simile is flattering to Bonaparte, for water vexes the sponge by purifying it. Many yearn before 1837 there was a popular prophecy current regarding that year: —

By tho power to see through tho ways of heaven In one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven The year shall pass away, without any spring, And on England's throne shall not sit a king.

History will teach you that here again we have an astonishing instance of fulfilment.

Not, you will understand, that I am particularly enthusiastic about prophets myself.