Mountebank 'Prophets'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 38, 21 September 1905, Page 2

Mountebank ' Prophets '

' Since knowledge is <but sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.' For our benefit God has hidden the future from our eyes, lie can lift tho veil, for all things past and present and to come are open and naked to His eyes. But we must not suppose that He is going to do so by means of tealeaves or packs- of playing-cards, or glass balls, oi the other paraphernalia of the fortune-teller or ' futurist ' vi Wa (plies <her (or his) trade at as much per head as the credulous are prepared to parb with. We in New Zealand could afford to export a big brigade of those professional charlatans. India is apparently not so heavily infested by them. But it has some ' famous ' seers, all its very own, whose ' forecasts ' add to the gaiety of life in that) land of temple and jungle. One of these is Pandit Ramnarayan Yogshaslri. Thus far all his predictions fofl 1905 have failed to ' materialise.' Here isone of them, taken from a list of fourteen published early in the year in the "Bombay Gazette ' :— ' From tlie 17th March next Russia will begir to achieve victory over the Japanese, ancl from the 25th March next Russia will obtain decisive \ictories. Within Juno Manchuria and Port Arthur will be in full possession of Russia. Russia will be victorious in land and sea fighting within the above-mentioned period.' This is a good average sample of tho work of the self-styled ' prophets ' who (for a consideration) 1 Make fools believe in their foreseeing Of things before they are in being, To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched, And count their chickens ere they're hatched.' But your profes-sion-al seer seldom commits herself (or himself) to definite statements regarding future events. TheiD oracles more frequently relate to a ' dark man ' and a ' fair woman,' and a ' letter from over tho sea,' or to s<uch homely platitudes as that which Madame Crompton addressed with ungrammatical lips to Artennus Ward • 'If you ain't keerfml when you git your money, you'll lose it, but which otherwise you will not.'