Church became infuriated and alarmed at this heretical 

 barbarian, who taught the pernicious doctrines of emana- 

 tion and absorption, and steps were immediately taken 

 to suppress him. 



During the period of quiet which followed a certain 

 priest of Thuringia, Bernhardt by name, created a great 

 sensation in central Europe by declaring that the end of 

 the world was fast approaching ; that the prophecy con- 

 tained in the twentieth chapter of Revelation would be 

 fulfilled on December 3ist, in the year 1000 or possibly 

 immediately before that time when the devil would be 

 unbound ; and that unutterable calamity or annihilation 

 would come upon the world. The clergy quickly followed 

 suit, and as the fearful day approached every church and 

 cloister in Europe resounded with the frantic appeals of 

 the monks and priests for their flocks to prepare for the 

 awful doom. Europe was turned upside down ; business 

 was suspended; kings, princes, senators, nobles, and 

 peasants all alike left their occupations to seek refuge in 

 some holy sanctuary against the coming event. As the 

 dread moment approached there was not a church or 

 convent in Europe that was not crowded to suffocation, 

 the people imagining that, if they were found at the last 

 moment in some consecrated place, their chances of 

 being saved would be better. Hundreds and thousands 

 of these poor wretches never had opportunity of obtain- 

 ing the coveted shelter, having been bereft of their reason 

 under the awful excitement of the hour. Amid prayer, 

 faintings, hysterical screaming, and chanting of choirs 

 priests, monarchs, and beggars all huddled together any- 

 how the clock struck twelve, and dead silence prevailed. 

 Gradually the people roused themselves from their stupor 

 to find themselves the victims of a cruel hoax. Strange 

 to say, not any attempt was made to punish those who 

 had produced such a melancholy state of things. Kings 

 and nobles had endowed monasteries and churches with 

 lands and wealth, which they believed would soon be of so 

 little use to them, and became suddenly penitent, assum- 

 ing the monk's shirt of hair, and otherwise showing 

 evidence of their piety and humility. William of the 

 Long Sword, Duke of Normandy, Hugh Duke of Bur- 

 gundy, Hugh Count of Aries, the Emperor Henry II., 



