Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1881 — Mother Shipton’s Prophecies [ARTICLE]

Mother Shipton’s Prophecies

There has been a good deal of idle speculation of late concerning an alleged prediction or prophecy by one Mother Bhipton, to the effect that, the world would be destroyed in 1881. Had Mother Shipton made such a prophecy it probably would not have attracted much attention but for the fact that this wonderful personage is said to have made many other predictions concerning modern inventions, all of

wlijch hive been fulfilled. Now if, as alleged. Mother Shipton, living many generations ago, had foretold the invention of the steam engine, of gas street-lights, of balloons and several ether equally surprising matters, it certainly would have been justifiable to pay some attention to her other prophecy. But in all questions of this kind the mistake of the public consists in accepting the assertions which are put forward to • fortify the story, without investigation. The proper method of proceeding would have been to inquire first, whether a Mother Shipton bad lived as stated: second, whether she had prophesied as stated. Now, as a matter of fact, there dees appear to have been a Mother Shipton. She is said to have lived in England in the reign of King Henry VH., and all we know of her is from a pamphlet printed at London in the year 1641, entitled “The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth. Fore telling the death of Cardinal! Wolsey, the Lord Percy and others, as also what should “happen in insuing times.” The prophecy given in the pamphlet is in no respect different from the prophecies attributed to many other old women. It is vague, indefinite, and like the oracles of old, capable of several interpretations. But it contains no reference whatever to 1881, nor indeed to any date, and if it bears any general purport it is that of a denunciation of woe to England. It ends in this way: “There shall be a man sitting upon St. James church hill weeping his fill ; and after that a ship come sailing up the Thames till it come against London, and the master of the snip shall weep, and the mariners shall ask him why he weepeth, being he hath made so good a voyage, and he shall say: “An, what a goodly city this was, none in the world comparable to it, and now there is scarce left any house that can let us have drink for our money.” The truth is the so-called prophecy of Mother Shipton, which has been printed so often, recently, is spurious, and was written but a few years ago, and subsequently to all the inventions of which it speaks. Those, therefore, who. have been agitating themselves on account of this alleged prophecy may put away their apprehensions, and the credulous may assure themselves that all instances of alleged fulfilled prophecies are capable of a like rational and national explanation.