THE END OF THE WORLD.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3199, 29 September 1881, Page 4

THE END OF THE WORLD.

Tn phenomenal years like the present some foolish folk are always ready to predict all manner of woes, ''wo comets— rare, almost unprecedented summer heats — a rapidly - approaching, widely - devasting plague, the murder of princes, and the awful dangers with which dynamite threatens the whole social fabric—these are so many portents which have been interpreted as betokening the proximate end of the world. The credulity of mankind has ever been agnpe to swallow the dire forebodings of self-constituted prophets. Seasons like the present make the fortune of the Zadkiels, and, in a higher sense, play into the hands of well-meaning divines. The late Dr. Gumming, however, overshot ihe mark, and lived to survive the year in which he had foretold 'the general cataclysm which was to precede the millenium. Just now a host of secondclass prophets are once more announcing the immediate dissolution of the world. Tn Paris prophecy has been reduced to p l \i":p]pt form, nnd n. Tiroclnire which give.c the most 'ifii'rowipi* detail* of the whole c ln= is being hawkpd <)Vii* i y --r*i)niilfnt>nrfls f' l tevrifr or delishf the ff -barnnilclti'a nnil thp flaneurs There i° nnthins? very new in this Inst dodge to pick up pence. The same prophecy has been repented at intervals and in much the same language for the last two thousand years, more particularly when the tenth century was approaching its completion. The fears of a. dark age were natxirally easily excited, and the epoch, like tho present, was full of Btr&nge poi'tents. But the world still wags ; and it wdl take something more than statement, to persuade prosnic people in the nineteenth century to surrender their faith in modern science and the general stability of the universe.

Timid people who tremble fearfully at the present, prediction of imminent dissolution may take heart of grace by considering how often this terrible catastrophe has been foretold already. The firet great scare mentioned above, when in 999 thousands of persons sold all their effects and betook them3elvea as pilgrims to Palestine, was perhaps the worst known. But there have been others nearer our times. In every season of pestilence, or of a-tronomical wonders, the end of the world has been deemed nigh. Even within the last century all London was driven into a paroxysm of terror. The famous Whiston foretold the destruction of the world on October 13, 1736, and crowds went out to the suburbs of Islington and Hametead to witness the first act, the demolition of London. Again, in 1761. following three shocks of an earthquake, a fresh alarm became general. It was originated by a Life Q-uardsman, who fixed on April sas the dread day. Crowds flocked again to all the open spaces, and the Thames was filled with boat loads of fugitives from the impending doom. All, however, returned on the sth. and 7th, looking very foolish, although safe. Still later, barely fifty years ago, the whole continent of Europe, Germany especially, was grievously concerned lest a comet-just then expected should dash the world into atoms with its tail. The alarm in 1881 has hardly risen to a panic, but it will no doubt be recorded with the rest in the history of such scares.