MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 60, 24 February 1843, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

THE DOOM OF EUROPE, Our lovers of the marvellous, and good folks who believe in dreams, predictions, celestial signs, and the lucky or fatal concordances of

the stars (and the numbers of such credulous people are as great here as elsewhere), are much occupied with the predictions of a monk whom the Emperor lately ordered to be imprisoned in expiation of the rashness of one of his oracles. “The monk comes from Jerusalem. He is an old man, who is said to be a Russian, and who represents himself to have reached an age which renders his existence a prodigy. On his return from the Holy Land, he obtained, it is affirmed, an audience of the Czar, when he predicted to his Imperial Majesty an inundation and a sedition over the bargain. This was twice as much as was needed to render the hoary Cenobite suspicious, and the consequence is that he has been deemed mad, and shut up in the fortress. But solitude and the frugal diet of his new abode, have not tended to restore him to his senses, for since he has been in durance, he has uttered two other awful predictions. One is, that in 1542 England will disappear from the globe by submersion ; the other, that in the same year, France will fare like a ship tossed about by contrary winds. This monk, in whom the gift of second sight is but the terrible faculty of seeing fearful things, is, if we believe him, the. very same who, from Catherine to Alexander, always warned our Sovereigns of the fatal catastrophies which have befallen them. It would appear, that tired of drawing the horoscope of his brethren of the convent, wherein his profound ignorance issued its oracles in obscurity, he felt anxious to shine on a more conspicuous stage. Deeming himself, perhaps, commissioned by Heaven to give wholesome warning to the powers of the earth, he came to St. Petersburgh, asked to speak to the Empress Catherine, and was repulsed by the palace people. He persisted in his application, but was again rejected. Unable to obtain access to the Empress, he stationed himself on a road through which he knew she sometimes passed, and watched an opportunity of addressing her. When he saw her he approached her, and extended his hand to her, to prevent her Majesty’s suite from driving away a religious mendicant. The Empress gave him some money, and he, after thanking her, said to the wife of Peter 111., “ Madam, never go alone to any place, for a misfortune will befall you” The Empress looked at the bold beggar, and taking his simple looks for a sign of mental derangement, ordered him to be conveyed to a state prison. Three months after Catherine was found dead of apoplexy, in a place which M. de Chateaubriand lias ventured to name aloud in the French Academy. Whilst dwelling on the history of one of the Emperors of Rome, but which we cannot designate, all that we can say is, that she had been to it alone, in despite of the wizard’s warning. On the demise of the Empress, Paul 1., remembering the monk who had foreseen the death of Catherine, sent for him, and told him that he might come to the palace whenever he had occasion to speak to the Emperor. “ I have nothing to say to him just now,” replied the necromancer, “ but I may have something later.” He returned to his convent, and was not heard of four years after. He then made his appearance again at the palace, solicited an audience, in compliance with the Emperor’s former promise, and when he was in the presence of Paul 1., said to him, “ Your subjects are discontented, and God tells me, that if you do not alter your conduct you will be strangled.” The prophet’s audacity irritated the Emperor to such a degree, that by his commands the monk was once more thrown into a dungeon. The wizard had been clear-sighted enough; in 1801, Paul I. was strangled.

This is not all. Alexander succeeded Paul I. Struck at the coincidence of the death of Catherine and his father with the monk’s predictions, he restored him to his convent. After a lapse of two years the prophet again made his appearance at the Imperial Palace. When his arrival was announced to Alexander, the latter ordered him to be brought in. “ What hast thou to predict to me ?” asked the Emperor. “Is it another violent death ?” “It is not the death of a man, Sir, replied his inauspicious visitor, “ it is that of a great city—yes, one of the most splendid and richest cities of the empire will shortly perish. The French will penetrate into Moscow, and Moscow will vanish in smoke, like a handful of straw or dry leaves .” “ Madman,” exclaimed Alexander, “ go thou and pray God to cure thy poor head. Begone to Archangel, its air is wholesome to the insane !”

A convent of Archangel did therefore receive the monk, whose strange fate was to quit a convent for a prison, and a prison for a convent. The year 1812 beheld the accomplishment of his prophecy, when Alexander recalled the diviner, to whom he offered a compensation for his captivities. The monk only asked for a sum of money to enable him to proceed to Jerusalem, where he wished to visit the holy places. The money was given, and he took his departure; and at this moment there is in the fortress a monk who has come back from Palestine, and who states himself to be the prophet of 1796.

The Wandering Jew. —This is a vulgar error of considerable antiquity. Dr. Percy tells

us that it obtained full credit in this part of the world before the year 1228, as we learn from Matthew Paris. In that year it seems there came an Armenian archbishop into England to visit the shrines and reliques preserved in our churches, who, being entertained at the monastery of St. Alban’s, was asked several questions relating to his country. Among the rest, a monk, who sat near him, inquired “ if he had ever seen or heard of the famous person named Joseph, who was so much talked of, who was present at our Lord’s crucifixion, and conversed with him, and who was still alive in confirmation of the Christian faith.” The Archbishop answered that the fact was true; and afterwards one of his train, who was well known to a servant of the Abbot’s, interpreting his master’s words, told them in French that his lord knew the person they spoke of very well, that he dined at his table "but a little while before he left the East; that he had been Pontius Pilate’s porter, by name Cartaphilua, who, when they were dragging Jesus from the judgment-hall, struck him on the back, saying, “Go faster, Jesus; go faster; why dost thou linger ?” Upon which Jesus looked at him with a frown, and said, “I indeed am going, but thou shalt tarry till I come.” Soon after, he was converted, and baptized by the name of Joseph. He lives for ever; but at the end of every hundred years falls into an illness, and at length into a fit of ecstacy, out of which when he recovers he returns to the same state of youth he was in when Jesus suffered, being then about thirty years of age. He remembers all the circumstances of the death and resurrection of Christ, the saints that arose with him, the composing of the Apostles creed, their preaching and dispersion, and is himself a very grave and holy person. This is the substance of Matthew Paris’s account, who was himself a monk of St. Alban’s, and was living at the time when this Armenian Archbishop made the above relation. Since this time several imposters have appeared at intervals under the name and character of the wandering Jew.