58 



REV. JOHN URQUHART^ ON 



That is the testimony of one of the first men of his time, who 

 lived in days so full of change and peril that almost no price 

 would have been reckoned too great for light upon the then 

 future. That light was professedly given ; and it was 

 worthless. But, on the other hand, it seems to be unquestion- 

 able that the pretension to superhuman insight and foresight 

 has been occasionally better supported. We read (Acts xvi, 

 16) of a damsel who was " possessed with a spirit of divination " 

 who " brought her masters much gain by soothsaying." It 

 seems that in this case the claim was well founded. For, after 

 the spirit was cast out of her by Paul, " her masters saw that 

 the hope of their gains was gone." Had her claim been 

 another instance of imposture, there was no reason why it 

 should have been dropped at that juncture. 



There are other instances which have been placed on record 

 both in ancient and in modern times. One or two of the 

 latter will be sufficient. Dr. Wolff, the Eastern traveller, 

 records that, when he was at the house of the British Consul- 

 General in Aleppo, in 1822, his host read a letter in his presence 

 and in that of M. Lesseps, M. Derche, his interpreter, and 

 M. Maseyk, the Dutch Consul. It was from Lady Esther 

 Stanhope, and was dated April, 1821. It begged him, the 

 British Consul (John Barker, Esq.), not to go to Aleppo or to 

 Antioch, as M. Lustenau, a friend of hers, had predicted that 

 both these places would be destroyed by an earthquake in about 

 a year. The communication excited extreme merriment among 

 the Consul's guests. Dr. Wolff has told at length how the 

 prediction found a terrible fulfilment a few days afterwards. 

 The whole of Aleppo and of Antioch and of the villages within 

 a circuit of twenty miles was destroyed by a frightful earth- 

 quake, and 60,000 people perished. 



That instance seems to admit of no doubt that the prediction 

 preceded the event. The following rests upon the testimony of 

 the late Colonel Meadows Taylor, and is given in his book — 

 The Story of My Life.'^ The narrative occupies the whole 

 fifteenth chapter of the Colonel's book, and concerns the Kajah 

 of Shorapoor. Briefly it is as follows : The Kanee, the Rajah's 

 mother, had her child's horoscope made out by native astrologers. 

 It declared that he would not survive his twenty-fourth year 

 and that he would lose his country. Great efforts were made by 

 the Ranee to secure a different finding. These were in vain, 

 and the prediction was everywhere confirmed. The knowledge 



* pp. 391-411. 



