Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Legends -- England -- Yorkshire; Yorkshire (England) -- Miscellanea
Accordingly, Wroe attended a meeting of the Society at Bradford on
August 25th, 1822, and he announced: "You are expecting Shiloh to appear
and be amongst you on a certain day; but I tell you He will not; and
many of the believers will fall off, not merely one or two in a society,
but whole societies will fall away. Yet I do not doubt that the
visitation to George Turner is of God; and as a testimony of which, I
will give in my name among you."
On the following Sunday evening he had one of his epileptic fits in the
meeting, and lay as if dead. On recovering he announced that he had seen
an angel, who had commissioned him to act as prophet. But only two
persons at the meeting believed in him, and the whole of the Society at
Bradford never thoroughly accepted him. He then went to Almondbury,
where was a meeting of the Southcottites, where also he met with
indifferent success.
On Sunday evening he reappeared in Bradford, and adopted the following
extraordinary expedient to impress the congregation:--Unknown to the
members, he caused two men to stand, one on each side of the archway
leading into the second room of the meeting-house--the house being
divided into three parallel apartments, which opened into each other by
an archway in each partition, thus forming a sort of narthex, nave, and
chancel. Each man held a sword, and the swords were united at the
points, so that the Friends, to enter, had to pass under the swords.
Wroe entered last of all. Then the men pointed their swords at his
breast saying, "The sword of the Lord is against thee." Wroe instantly
fell on his knees, and prayed aloud that if his mission were not Divine,
the swords might fall and smite him asunder.
Wroe then stood up and walked to the second archway, the men with the
swords stepping backwards before him, still with their swords at his
breast. Thus he stood and preached on his mission to the congregation,
who were amazingly impressed at this solemn farce. When all was over, he
bade those of the Bradford Society who believed in him to pass under the
swords; and the great majority of the congregation did so. This
naturally created a schism in the body.
Letters were written by the Committee of the Society at Bradford, by
Wroe's direction, to the Societies at Ashton-under-Line, Stockport,
Sheffield, and Colne, to inform them of what had taken place, and
requesting them to delegate two men from each congregation to come to
Bradford and examine the truth concerning the mission of Wroe. The
Societies at Stockport and Sheffield declined the invitation, but in the
following year nearly the whole of the body at Sheffield accepted the
prophetic mission of Wroe, and some at Stockport believed.
It was time now for Wroe to begin his mission to the Jews. He had a
large following, and was provided liberally with money by his dupes,
which he was not, however, suffered to touch himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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