PROPHETS OF DOOM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20472, 28 July 1928, Page 4

PROPHETS OF DOOM.

GREAT PYRAMID’S INCHES. “As it was in the begining, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” And that is what I feel about the prophets of doom, so writes the Rev. Desmond Morse-Boycott, of Weymouth, in a London paper, in reference to the recent “ prophecies ” regarding Armageddon and other matters affecting the fate of the world. He proceeds:Weymouth goes on its way, and time and tide wait for no man. But man still waits for time and tide. At least, a section of mankind does. Never before has this section been so busy trying to make our flesh creep. Most of us listen with cheerful amusement, with perhaps a delicious tickle down our backs, for you never know, you know. Many are frightened. I know that. People seeing me with a clerical collar on, and supposing me to be an authority on the crack of doom, Heaven knows why, have crossed the road to ask me: “You’re a clergyman. Please tell me . . . will the world be ending soon? ” I answer; “ I don’t know. I hope not . . . but time will show. In the meantime, do your duty to God and man, and no terrors need appal you.” 1 The Book of Revelation used to be the happy hunting-ground for “ end-of-the-age ” students. When I read the Revelation I do not presume it to be a chart of the ages, though it may be; and I_ am too interested in its breathless description of the struggle ’twixt good and. evil to go out of my way to identify, in human history, the powers of evil. It’s an old game, not worth the candle. They did it in “ Boney’s ” time, and started again with the Kaiser, and rang the changes on Nero, the Pope, and Mahomet. But still the world whirls on. THE GREAT PYRAMID “STRING.” A second string to their _ bow is now the Great Pyramid. Pyramidology began in 1859 in London. AMr John Tailor 1 published a book called “ The Great Pyramid: Why was it built? and who built it? ” He had not visited the Pyramid, but for 30 years had been engaged in a consideration of its origin and measurements . What started him I do not know. The Great Pyramid, different in age, purpose and construction from the other pyramids, is not a tomb, as Egyptologists suppose, for a Pharoah, nor was it built by Egyptians. Though in Egypt it is not of Egypt. Built in the reign of King Cheops—most likely around the period 3378-3031 B.c. —it was constructed with a prophetical purpose by the descendants of Enoch, with King Cheops not quite “in the know.” Divine guidance so directed the builders that their work, according to the most amazing juggleration with measurements and dates, is calculated to drive a seeker after truth either to Bedlam or drugs. I have been imbibing large quantities of pyramidology of late, and • assure my readers that the process makes the world go round even if it doesn’t make it end! The measurements of the Great Pyramid are alleged to predict events which prelude the coming of the end, and most of these concern our own times. Out of a jungle of figures and prognastications I select one that is clearer than most. It is May 29, the day, you recall, when Weymouth was down for its doom. A low passage in the pyramid indicates, according to these measurements. May 29; 1928, as ushering in a final period of world-wide unrest and tribulation, leading toward Armageddon. “SPEAKING THROUGH HIS HAT.” That is a delightfully vague and safe prediction, things being as they are and as they always have been. “The final veil is completely rent by May 30, 1928, the pyramid’s date for the entrance on the last tribulation.” The last tribulation, apparently, comes to its climax in September,’' 1936, and between now and then we are to have a war, compared with which the last one was a skirmish. And what will earthquakes matter after that? We have not long to wait. Doom has begun to crack. But if Armageddon does not happen by 1936 what then? Will the pyramid bury its head in shame beneath the dust of Egypt? Not a bit of it. You can prove anything from anything. The measurement of a pyramidologiet’s hat, for instance, might conclusively prove that he was a mighty prophet. Or it might merely prove that he had bought a hat too big for him, and was speaking through it. . . . Some readjustment . . . and off we go again. There shall be wars and rumours of wars . . . earthquakes, tornadoes, shooting stars, falls of Government, shingle and jazz and monkey gland, and all the rest of it, so long as the old world runs on its grooves . . . for the human heart is ever the same. Intermingled with these prognostications is a mass of false Biblical exegetic, never sanctioned by the Churcb that owns the Bible as her heirloom, and wrote the last part of it, and, in these days, a strange unscientific and typically British belief that we belong to the House of Israel, and are the lost 10 tribes without their noses. THOSE TEN LOST TRIBES. Away back in history a conqueror of the Hebrews carried away 10 tribes, who, thereafter, were lost sight of. They now pop up in Great Britain, which alone, it is alleged, fulfils the prophecies of the Old Testament, and *liave a King whose descent can be traced to an Irish Zedekiah, who was brought by the prophet Jeremiah to the dear, distressful island. Incidentally, the United States, having 13 stripes on their emblem, are the thirteenth tribe of the Hebrews, Manassch. So, too, the lion and the unicorn . . . the Coronation Stone . . . and I know not what else . . . are dragged into the Cock-and-John-Bull story. Have you noticed how reverently reticent the Church is over the Second Coming of Christ, which these wild predictions purport to be upon us?_ No one who reverences Our Lord dare juggle fantastically with figures. Did He not say: “ Of that day and that hour knoweth no man. no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, nor the Father ” ? What was hidden from the human knowledge of Christ, to speak in very simple terms is scarcely likely to be worked out in so many inches in the