THE WORLD’S END

Evening Star, Issue 22448, 19 September 1936, Page 21

THE WORLD’S END

FORETOLD MAHY TIMES Panics relating to the end of the world have always been, shall we say, popular, notwithstanding the fact that great misery has resulted from them. Epidemics of terror from this cause were by no means uncommon, for tradition refers to many and history gives particulars of not a few. Perhaps the most disastrous was that in the tenth century. It spread throughout the Christian nations merely because fanatics, appearing in several European countries, preached that the thousand years prophesied in the Apocalypse as the term of the duration of the world were about to expire. The scene of the last judgment was to he at Jerusalem. In the year 999 people sold all their possessions and repaired to the Holy City. Everything was allowed to deteriorate. It was thought useless to do anything, because the end of the year was so near. During the I.oooth year the pilgrims increased—most of them terror-stricken. Every phenomenon was matter for alarm. A thunderstorm sent all to their homes, and every meteor brought the whole Christian population into the streets to weep and pray; yet through this time of mental anguish the people, with fearful eyes, looked to see the heavens open to allow the Son of God to descend in glory. Then came the aftermath—starvation and pestilence. IMPLICIT BELIEF. A most amazing faith in predictions was witnessed in 1524, when it was said that the Thames would burst its banks and wash away 10,000 houses. This prophecy met with implicit belief, and thousands left their homes to the mercy of the rabble. Perhaps the most absurd instance of panic was that which seized upon the people of Leeds and its environs "in the year 1806. It arose in the following circumstance;—A hen, in a village close by the city, laid eggs on which were inscribed in legible letters the words “ Christ is coming.” Numbers visited the place, inspected the eggs, and came to the conclusion that the Day of Judgment was near at hand. People became religious, prayed violently, and convinced themselves that they repented their evil courses and would be saved. It was unfortunate in a sense, that some, more curious than the rest, caught the hen in the act of laying one of the miraculous eggs, and they found, beyond doubt, that the egg had been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly had been forced up again into the bird’s body. When this Became known, those who had '.prayed laughed loud at the “ joke ” land the world wagged as merrily as before. FUTILE PERTURBATIONS. Seasons of great pestilence have 'brought forth many crazed fanatics, and all seemed imbued with the one idea—to prophecy the end of the world. It was so during the great •plague which ravaged all Europe in the years 1345-50. No little consteriiation was caused in London in 1730 •by the prophecy of the famous Whiston that the end of the world would •take place in that year, on October 13. In 1767 two shocks of earthquake in London and the prophecy of a third on April 5, which would destroy London, caused many thousands to leave that city. • It was a panic similar to that which arose in the time of Henry VIII. From the same cause as then, people packed their goods_ and chattels and lied, and on April 4 and 5 everyone thought to see St. Paul’s totter and the towers of Westminster to rock in the wind and fall in a cloud of dust. After a week the people returned, and the lunatic who caused the panic was confined in an asylum. The plague of Milan in 1630 was predicted a year before it arrived. In 1628 a large comet appeared. Some astrologers insisted that it portended a bloody war: others that famine was indicated; still others, noting the pale colour, said that plague would be the outcome. This brought these latter great repute while the plague was raging. A curious thing about this visitation, apart from the comet and the disputation of the astrologers, was the prediction contained in an ancient couplet, preserved for ages by tradi tion, which foretold that in 1630 the devil would poison Milan. When the plague appeared this tradition was the cause of much evil, and many strangers were sacrificed to the popular fury. Mother Shipton may be classed among those singular people who took upon themselves to end the world by a given date; but in selecting the year 1881 for its accomplishment she took a long shot, which, although it precluded a panic, was woefully astray. Her predictions are quoted to-day, and after the great lapse of time since they were uttered one can read into many of them an uncanny fulfilment. Somi> of her predictions, it may bo mentioned, were so unintelligible that they have never been understood, and therefore no one knows to what they refer, or whether fulfilment can be claimed for them. HUMAN NATURE UNCHANGED. To-day the prophet of evil has had to give place to scientific instruments, and, though these have recorded disasters, the event is past and over before there is any chance of working up a panic, as was the case in the years gone by. Yet human nature has not changed, and if a prophet rose up to-morrow and predicted the end oi the world, he would have thousands ot followers who would believe implicitly his prediction.