The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-30
DOOMSDAY PANICS.
WIDESPREAD TERROR CAUSED
BY MILLENNIUM PROPHECIES.
Lightly Received Now-France Was
Once Incumbered With Hundreds
of Useless Boats Built For
Deluge-A Fierce Demand For
Bibles.

Several prophets of the astrological
order have announced the coming Of
the millennium during the year 1884,
Their prophecies are based upon I'M
usual events in the planetary system,
but to the lay mind these adroitly ad-
duced reasons seem feeble causes for
such a momentous upheaval. To pre-
sent these reasons is not the object OF
this article, but to describe panics,
caused in ruder ages of world $
history, by similar announcements IT
the coming of doomsday.
In older times the dread caused by a
millennium prophet was worldwide, af-
fecting the rich and the educated as
well as the poor and the ignorant.
Nowadays the audience of the dooms-
day terror is very limited, comprising
the very ignorant, whose minds have
been perverted by fantastic religious
notions.
This was demonstrated most pecu-
liarly in Atlanta some three years ago,
when a negro evangelist, ignorant but
eloquent, announced that the godly
would be transported TO heaven at a
certain hour in the afternoon of a GER
tain day. For weeks before the date
set for this phenomenon he went
among the poorer negroes, exhorting
them to prepare go the celestial fight.
Hundreds of his followers were
worked up to a state of tremendous
enthusiasm and displayed implicit
faith in the truth OF the prophecy
They went among their less godly rel
atives, giving away all of their house
hold effects and clothing. The few
who had accumulated savings gave
these away, too.
On the day the great event was to
occur they mounted to the roofs of
their shanties and cabins in obedience
to the commands of the exhorter, who
had informed them that the angels
could see them more easily and get
them to heaven quicker.
Although the fight was not to take
place until o'clock in the afternoon,
all of them were up on the roofs before
daylight. They waited there patiently
in the heat of the broiling sun, anxious
but confident.
THOUGHT HE COULD FLY.
Two o'clock passed, but the angels
came not. One of the negroes, who
had become frenzied with excitement,
made q leap into the air as the bells
of nearby church tolled out the hour.
He expected TO be waited to heaven,
but he fell into the yard around his
house and broke his leg. When the
ambulance came to take him to the
hospital he fought the doctors, explain
ing that the angels would come and not
find him.
The others waited and waited, some
of them until midnight. Then they
became sleepy and hungry and began
to lose faith. First one and then an
other climbed down and the exhorter
disappeared. The next day there was
tremendous excitement among the
kindred of the godly ones. The latter
went about demanding the return of
household effects, clothing and money.
Most of the recipients refused to re-
turn the treasures, and the civil courts
were soon filled to overlooking with
litigation. Thus ended the prophesied
flight to heaven.
In 1924 an astronomer named Stoffer
announced that d peculiar conjunction
of the planets would cause a second
deluge, and though this was a distinct
contradiction of biblical teaching the
belief spread extensively through
France, thousands of converts prepar-
ing for the floods.
On all sides Noah's example was fol-
lowed. One Partisan sold all of his
effects and real estate to purchase the
timber for an immense raft which he
stocked with provisions sufficient TO
The inhabitants of little inland viii
lagos, so miles or more from any stream
of water, banded together and built
great arks. None but few hard
headed people had money to purchase
anything but vessels and the timber
to build them. AS a result scores of
rich estates were sold at ridiculouslv
low prices. Every one caught the fever
and the commoneSt food was boarded
like so much gold. When the appointed
time for the deluge passed and the
minds of the people were rid of the
frenzy, the country presented a curious
spectacle Much of the wealth of many
communities was tied up in great YES
sells which were absolutely useless, as
they had been built long distances from
navigable waterways. People who had
been rich before were practically pau
pers. The poor were poorer than ever,
while few controlled the landed
wealth of the nation.
The greatest fright took place in the
wear 1000, which had been marked for
centuries as the date of the millennium.
So strongly did the belief take hold of
the popular mind that it assumed the
confidence of a certainty. At this
period the gloom of the dark ages was
at it's deepest, and the state of tho
world tailed very well with the ex-
pected symptoms; fraud, violence,
cruelty, oppression, theft, were every
where rampant 1t was the reign of
brute force in all it's glory; might was
the only successful right. The men
were conscripted for marauding bands;
the women and children lived the lives
of slaves.
Famine and pest were the order of
the day; blood flowed freely as water.
Horrible epidemics, savoring of canni-
balism, appeared; persons smitten with
lycanthropy tore the bodies from grave
yards. There was a truth in the
legends of werewolf and vampire.
| Even the punishment of burning did
| not deter wretches from eating human
flesh.
Ia add to other terrors, wild beasts
so greatly multiplied that they came
into the towns even by daylight. and
carried off women and children Every
thing seemed to prove that the end OF
this dispensation was at hand, and q
passion for religion swept over Europe
Such a passion might be only skin
deep, but it was very powerful.
Churches were crowded with eager