DR CUMMING'S PROPHECIES.

Southland Times, Issue 947, 8 May 1868, Page 3

DR CUMMING'S PROPHECIES.

(Prom the "Morning Star," Feb., 1.) To be Ihe successful interpreter of unfulfilled prophecy, requires an amount of prescient wisdon which Dr. Cumming does not possess ; and his latest deliverances on this subject are more than usually incoherent, perplexing, and unsatisfactory. Dr. Cumming, in reality, imparts additional obscurity to the mysteries which he professes to unravel, and makes the most majestic passages of Holy Writ grotesque by his ridiculous efforts to forecast the future. If the inability of the loftiest intellects to penetrate the hidden meaning of the Apocalyptic visions did not teach him a lesson or humility, we should still have . thought that the repeated failure of his own dogmatic readings of the prophetic page would have sobered his imagination and made him distrustful of his judgment. Although his prognostications have again and again been falsified by the event, and his figures have often needed careful revision, Dr Cumming himself is as unabashed and selfconfident as ever ; while his admirers, with the infatuation of credulity, do not abate one jot or title of their faith in his powers to divine events that have not taken place, and to foreshadow the future woes and troubles of mankind. "We doubt not that the congregation which assembled on Thursday evening in the Scotch kirk, somewhere in -the Commercial Eoad, jlistenad to Dr Cumming with feelings akin to those they would have experi- | enced if John of Patmos himself had ascended the pulpit to explain the symbolic and figurative language of his grandly poetic " Revelation." .' The oracle of Crown-court bids us pre_pare for a war compared with which all other wars will be as those of pigmies. He repeats the list of the great wars which have raged since the revolutions of 1848, but, oddiy enough, omits the most vast and destructive of all — that which for four years convulsed the great Republic of the United States. We shrewdly suspect that the American continent is a stumbling-block in Dr Cumming's path. America is comparatively a modern discovery. It has little to do with the march of European politics, and is not at all likely to take part in the battle of Armageddon. Even the conflict for the possession of Palestine — " the key to the whole of Asia "-rr-which Dr Cumming says is impending, is not. of a character to attract the martial zeal of General Grant and Admiral Faragut. America is an important part of the modern world, and yet Dr Cumming can find for it no place in- his prophetic programme. His difficulty has been, great, and therefore, .with the characteristic prudence of his countrymen, ho has ignored the western hemisphere altogether. One remarkable feature of Dr Cumming's lecture is the I nature of th 6 authorities which he quotes in support of his rendering of the pro-

phecies of St. John, " The politicians * are made to think that "the enormous military preparations of the present daj must result in a war " that shall shake the whole earth,"4>ecause Lord Frederick Cavendish has expressed an opinion tc that effect. What arm is to hur] these thunderbolts of war tc the uttermost ends of the earth Dr Cumming entertains no doubt as tc the man. " Who is master of the situation in Europe? At whose word dc nations tremble and rejoice ? Who has it in his power to send a word on the wind that shall echo in crashes and reverberations of ruin ? It is that marvellous man the Emperor of the French?" He might 3 perhaps, have modified this passage, or substituted the name of Bismarck for that of Napoleon, but that it was necessary to his argument to show that France is identical with " the three unclean spirits like frogs that came out of the mouth of the dragon." And how does he prove this ? He has discovered, or rather the late Bishop Villiers and the present Bishop of Ripon have discovered that the arms of France in the days of Charlemague and Clovis were "three frogs." Even the respectable authority of two estimable prelates of medi-. ocre abilities fails to establish any connection between "the three frogs" which figured on the banners of Frankish sovereigns who lived centuries before the Norman Conquest, and the French Empire of to-day. Besides, it is a poor compliment to Clovis, who was the first Christian king of France, and to the great Charlemagne, who was distinguished by so many illustrious qualities. Then as to " the drying up of the Euphrates." This means the death of "the sick man." The old Turks are dying out, or emigrating to Asia. There are more deaths than births in Constantinople. Twice the Doctor had the honor of meeting the Sultan and the Viceroy of Egypt, and both these Mahomedans walked among ladies "without appearing strange." The prince of Wales expressed a hope that the. Sultan would protect the Christians in his dominions ; and his Majesty, in a well-turned sentence* which would not have done discredit to so practised a courier as Fuad Pasha, and Fuad Pasha, we may rest well assured, was at his Majesty's elbow — answered, "Yes, when I go back to Constantinople I will protect Christianity as well as the Christians." After huddling together this medley of gossip, Dr Cumming triumphantly points the moral. " These, then," he says, " are proofs that the great river Euphrates is being dried np," and the result will be the national cry of " Judea for the Jews." We confess that we do not see that his facts prove anything of the kind. If the Turkr were leaving the Asiastic Provinces of their Empire, then there might be some force in his application of. the simile about " the drying up of the Euphrates," but, according to his own account, a converse movement ia taking place. The Jews are all to go back to Palestine, but not before there is a horrible war between Russia and France for supremacy in the East. Europe is to be divided between Russia, Germany, and France. Dr Cumming does not say which of the spoilers is destined to wax fat on the riches of England.