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A MODERN PHOPHECY.

421

On the 7th July, 1850, tlie railway was opened, and thiswas also the first Eisenbahn in connexion witli the Boden See.

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Religious Creed continued — A Modern Propliecy — CanonizedDolls — Pliarisaical Processions and Public Praying.

During our residence at Coblenz, too, a report was circu-lated that a prophecy had been made, which, with the usualand very convenient vagueness of such matters, foretold that onthe Ist of July, 1855, something dreadful was to happen some-where to somebody. At length the prophetic rumour took amore definite form, and resolved itself into a Statement thatsome one, whilst in a trance at Coblenz, had declared that theworld was to como to an end at the expiration of the month ofJune, at which period the Protestants, we were politely informed,were to be all destroyed, and the Catholics to live on. As thetime drew near for the fulfllment of the predicted catastrophe,the German Papists became more and more alarmed, and onthe morning of the Ist of July all were a-gog, wonderingin what manner, and at what moment, the dreadful eventwas to come to pass. At length an announcement was madeat one of the schools that a telegraphic message had beenreceived, stating that the Pope had been assassinated in hisbed early that morning; and immediately there was onegeneral exclamation of, " Das ist die Prophezei ! " uttered bythe great body of Catholics, who seemed to have wholly for-gotten that the prediction referred to a totally different circum-stance.

Nor should it be imagined that we here chronicle thesentiments of the mere vulgär upon the subject; for at the