The Southcotonians also still met and committed various extravagancies.
In 1817 a part of the disciples, conceiving themselves directed by God
to proclaim the coming of the Shiloh on earth, for this purpose marched
in procession through Temple Bar, when the leader sounded a brazen
trumpet, and declared the coming of Shiloh, the Prince of Peace; while
his wife shouted, "Wo! wo! to the inhabitants of the earth, because of
the coming of Shiloh!" The crowd pelted the fanatics with mud, some
disturbance ensued, and some of the disciples were taken into custody,
and had to answer for their conduct before a magistrate. A considerable
number of the sect appear to have remained in Devonshire, Joanna's
native county.
The whole affair was one of the most monstrous delusions of our time.
"It is not long since," says Sir Benjamin Brodie, in his _Psychological
Inquiries_, 3rd edition, "no small number of persons, and not merely
those belonging to the uneducated classes, were led to believe that a
dropsical old woman was about to be the mother of the real Shiloh." The
writer, however, adds that Joanna was "not altogether an impostor, but
in part the victim of her own imagination."
A small square volume of Southcotonian hymns was published, entitled,
"Hymns or Spiritual Songs," composed from the prophetical writings of
Joanna Southcote, by P. Pullen, and published by her order. "And I saw
an angel," &c.--Rev. xx. 1, 2. The "Little Flock" are thus addressed
by their "Poet Laureat:"--"By permission of our 'spiritual mother,
Johanna Southcote,' I have composed the following hymns from her
prophetic writings; and should you feel that pleasure in singing them
to the honour and glory of God, for the establishment of _her blessed
kingdom_, and the destruction of Satan's power, as I have felt in the
perusal of her writings, I am fully persuaded that they will ultimately
tend to your everlasting happiness, and I hope and trust to the speedy
completion of what we ardently long and daily pray for, namely, 'HIS
KINGDOM _to come, that_ HIS _will may be done on earth as it is in
heaven, and that we may be delivered from evil_;' that that blessed
prayer may be soon, very soon fulfilled, is the earnest desire of your
fellow labourer, Philip Pullen. London, 16th September, 1807."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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