There have been many uninspired prophets, but Joan of Arc was
the only one who ever ventured the daring detail of naming,
along with a foretold event, the event’s precise nature,
the special time-limit within which it would occur, and the
place--and scored fulfilment. At Vauchouleurs she said she must
go to the king and be made his general, and break the English
power, and crown her sovereign--at “Reims.” It all happened.
It was all to happen “next year”--and it did. She foretold her
first wound and its character and date a month in advance, and
the prophecy was recorded in a public record book three weeks
in advance. She repeated it the morning of the date named, and
it was fulfilled before night. At Tours she foretold the limit
of her military career--saying it would end in one year from
the time of its utterance--and she was right. She foretold her
martyrdom--using that word, and naming a time three months
away--and again she was right. At a time when France was
hopelessly and permanently in the hands of the English she twice
asserted in her prison before her judges that within seven years
the English would meet with a mightier disaster than had been
the fall of Orleans. It happened within five--the fall of Paris.
Other prophecies of hers came true, both as to the event named
and the time limit prescribed. (Text.)--MARK TWAIN,
_Harper’s Magazine_.
(2557)
* * * * *
In the “Autobiography” of Albert Pell, that fine old English gentleman
whose whole life was devoted to the reform of the English poor-laws
and to the general uplifting and improvement of the condition, moral,
social and political, of the English agricultural laborer, it is
related that one of the first well-known men whom he met as a small boy
was Wilberforce, who used to stay with his father, Sir Albert Pell, in
the country.
When one of Pell’s friends was an infant in arms, his nurse was
swept by an election mob to the very foot of the York hustings
at a famous contest for the county in which Wilberforce was
one of the principal actors. With all the earnestness and vigor
which distinguished him he was pressing his beneficent views on
the abolition of slavery.
Carried away by the depths of his convictions and enthusiastic
inspiration, he reached over the balcony, and snatching the baby
from the arms of its astonished nurse, held it up over his head
in the face of the people, exclaiming:
“See this and hear my prophecy! Before this child dies there
will not be a white man in the world owning a slave.”
My friend, adds Mr. Pell, survived the Civil War in the
United States, and virtually Wilberforce’s prophecy was
fulfilled.--_The Youth’s Companion._
(2558)
=Propitiation, Evil=--See SACRIFICE, PAGAN.