FALSE PROPHETS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9372, 15 February 1909, Page 7

FALSE PROPHETS.

Three imposters in different parts of America recently loudly proclaimed that the end of the world W mid. come on December 37th, and announced that they wpuld accompany their flocks to the summits of lofty hills to meet the angels’gathered in the sky. The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent gives an account of the disappointment of the flock of cne Lee Spangler, of Nyack, known locally as “The Prophet,” whose predictions had been playing havoc with nervous people for several months. It is apparently very difficult to open the eyes of some Americans. Spangler had oome badly out of several pro* phecies in 1907. but Sunday, December 27th, 1908, was in one of his phrases, “one best bet,” and his flock believed in him implicitly. Some of his followers did not go to bed on the Saturday night and all of them at dawn put on specially made white garments, and repaired to the rendezvous. Spangler was to meet them and go up to Heaven like Elijah, hut no Spangler appeared. It transpired that the police on the Saturday hunted for him with a warrant, accusing him of causing a public nuisance, Spangler was at the time visiting the home of a disciple and when he saw the police arriving ho jumped up, saying; “I have just a revelation, and must be off at once to receive the faithful.” He slipped out by the back door, scrambled over a fence and escaped in a carriage. His followers, still faithful, climbed the snow-covered slopes of a mountain in the vicinity to wait for the crack of doom in a cemetery. On the way a stout woman fainted from exhaustion, and, on being revived, refused to tramp any further, saying, “If I can’t make an ascension from here. Heaven must count me out.” Eleven o’clock, the time fixed for the end by the prophet, passed, and nothing happened. The afternoon wore on, and the Spanglerites were glad to share beef sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs with some'of the on-lookers. Finally a number of dogs began to fight among the graves and the police cleared the cemetery, and the dejected “saints” went home, let us hope, wiser people.