A BIG PROPHECY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4540, 16 May 1889, Page 4

A BIG PROPHECY.

The Bey. Mr Baxter, editor of the Cristian Herald, has been trying to terrify tho people of Birmingham. In the Grand Theatre, m ■which he lectured on a Sunday afternoon to a crowded audience of both sexes, the drop scene is stated to have been decorated with a painting of an enormous winged dragon, " with ten horns and many heads " In the centre was another picture pourtraying " the •woe of demon scorpion locusts stinging men for twice five months;" and adjoining this was a. representation of " the woe of two hundred million fire-breathiDg demon horsemen slaying n third part of mankind," while to the right appeared a picture showing the people of the earth worshipping images with a scaffold m the background, on which Christians were being guillotined. Besides these Btirring symbols, "horrible images of black horses spreading famine and desolation," and while hortes mounted by skeletons ornamented other portions of the houßo Uor did the discourse fall short of the rich promise of these displays. Mr Baiter made his hearers prepare for stupendous things preparatory to the millenium, which he wa3 good enough to fix at the conveniently early date of 1901. Tbe leading item m the fateful bill of fare appears to have been a " tremendous tragedy m Europe," m which Bismarck, Moltke, Boulangar, the King of Italy, and the Czar will be prime movers. All the European | nations are to be ultimately involved. Austria is to loee all her Danubiaa province3,and Great Britain will only be let off with tli9 loss of India and Ireland. At the Bame time Mr Baxter was careful to warn " Parnell, Tim Healey, acd Michael Davitt," that separation would not. be attributable to them, " but to ] tho fact that Iroland did not form part of Cffisar's Roman Empire." Up to this point tho lecturer's hearers appear to hivo been thrilled and attentive ; but unluckily Mr Baxter went on to describe, m rather minute detail, " the horrors that are about to overtake mankind," whereupon his hears are reported to have given vent to " loud expressions of disapprobation." The report concludes with the significant observation that " m the evening he continued his lecture before a very diminished audience."