The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1886-09-25
FALSE PROPHETS
A Profession Very Popular Among the
Men and Women of the Last Century.

A Profession Very Popular Among the
Men and Women of the Last Century.
The last century was prolific of false
prophets. Jane Wardlaw, the wife of
tailor at Bolton lie Moors, Lancashire,
started the delusion that Christ's second
advent was at hand, and that He would
appear in the form of a woman.
Shortly afterward Ann Lee, wife of q
blacksmith, living in Toad lane, Man.
chester. adopted the views of Jane
Wardlaw, but went far beyond them,
and became known as the mother of
the sect who now began to be called
Shakers, because they made strange
kind of dancing one element of their
worship. Ann Lee (whose husbands
name was Stanley had been Quaker,
but her new doctrine had no connection
with her previous convictions. She
protested to see visions, and in ITO she
declared that the Lord Jesus had APP
peared to her one night and had be-
come one with her, so that whatever
she said or did was His saying or doing.
Her claim was to be the bride of the
Lamb, as seen by St. John, but her pre-
tensions met with little acceptance in
England, and she was inspired to seek
new home in America. To New York
she went in 1894, accompanied by seven
disciples and by her husband, who soon
separated from her, for now arose
new tenet-the necessity of celibacy.
This doctrine not commencing itself to
he nsft - II
went out into the wilderness of MIS-
kenna and founded the settlement of
Water Vilet, which still exists. She
made herself very obnoxious to the
American Government, was arrested
as British spy, and thrown into prison.
Persecution increased her notoriety,
and she became known as the '.female
Christ" She died in 1888. but her
followers protested that she was not
lead, only withdrawn from sight"
Joanna Southcott was born in Devon
shire about 1850. She spent her young
days as domestic servant, but in the
middle of life took to uttering proph-
ecies couched in coarse and uncouth
prose or verse. She found followers
in Exeter, but soon went up to London,
where she obtained wider field for
the exercise of her talents. She drew
her inspiration, like others of her kind,
from the Apocalypse, and made con-
siderable income by the sale of seals.
which were warranted to insure the
salvation of those who purchased them.
In the year of 1914, being then over
sixty years of age. she gave out that
she was the diyinely-appointed mother
of the Shiloh, and that his birth ON the
ensuing 14th of October would be the
second coming of Christ Her adherents
then numbered about 100, 900, and they
provideda magnificent cradle for the ex-
pected infant. A crowd assembled at
the predicted midnight, and only dis
persed when they were informed that
Mrs. Southcott had fallen into trance.
On the 9th of December following she
died. Her followers refused to believe
that she was dead, and would not allow
her to be buried; but hendescomposi-
ton began to set in they consented to
post-mortem examination. which re-
vealed dropsy as the cause of her death.
Robert Matthews. in America, at the
beginning of this century, took up the
profession of prophet, and entered on
an extraordinary career of imposture.
fraud and crime. He was arranged
for murder. but only convicted for as
sailing his daughter with whip. OF
his latter days we have no account, nor
are his blasphemous and nefarious
doings worth recording further
Quirer.