60 



REV. JOHN URQUHART^ ON 



" The Chevalier de X . . . ," continues Madame de Boigne, 

 " attached no importance to these prognostications. However, 

 when in a few months he obtained two successive steps, due to 

 his brilliant conduct in the war, he recalled to his comrades 

 the words of the fortune-teller. They recurred to his memory 

 also when lie married, some years afterwards, a young lady, 

 rich and of good family. 



"His lady being near her confinement, he obtained leave of 

 absence to join her. The evening before he set out he said : 

 ' My faith ! All that the sorceress said is not true. I shall be 

 forty in five days. I leave to-morrow, and there is little likeli- 

 hood of a gunshot in perfect peace I ' 



He was detained on the way by an accident to the carriage in 

 which he was travelling. He was invited by the officers of the 

 garrison of the town, in which he was thus forced to remain a 

 few hours, to join a hunting party, and was shot by accident. 

 He was badly, though not mortally, wounded. While he lay 

 under the surgeon's care a letter came for him, saying that his 

 wife had been safely delivered of a boy. ' Ah,' he cried, ' the 

 cursed sorceress was right ! I shall not see my son ! ' He was 

 attacked with sudden convulsions. Tetanus followed ; and twelve 

 hours afterwards he expired in my father's arms." His friends 

 explained the end by the effect which the remembered predic- 

 tion had upon his mind. But no such explanation seems 

 possible of the other four predicted events — his rapid promotion 

 — his fortunate marriage — the birth of a son whom he did not 

 see — and his receiving the gunshot wound. 



In view of such cases the conviction seems to be forced upon 

 us that prediction is a fact. The theory that these have all been 

 lucky guesses will be found to labour under heavy — I believe 

 crushing — difficulties. There seems to be only one other 

 hypothesis possible — that some mind or minds possess a power, 

 limited or otherwise, of beholding events set forth upon the stage 

 of the future. How events can be so set forth, before they happen, 

 is a question which no man can answer. But that they have 

 been so set forth in the instances already mentioned is highly 

 probable ; and I think that the instances which I am now to 

 produce will show that true foresight and genuine prediction are 

 facts which cannot be successfully assailed. 



It seems to me that the predictions of the Scriptures have 

 never yet had their due acknowledgment even as psychical 

 phenomena. Pascal has said that in the Christian religion he 

 found genuine prophecy, and that he found it in no other. That 

 is one of those sayings which has ensured to Pascal the admira- 



