Broadside entitled 'Wonderful Prophecies of John Leckie'

Transcription

Wonderful Prophecies of JOHN LECKIE,                                                      

Who died on the 6th August, 1820, at Cramond, at the age of 105,
with an account of the Wonderful Changes that would take place
in the year 1822, in England, Ireland, and especially in Scotland.

At the conclusion of a long life, and which to the young reader, may appear a great
blessing, as it falls to the lot of few ; yet, to me, whose sand-glass is nearly run, it appears
but as a tale, and as a vision of the night. In the course of my journeyings through the
wilderness of time what scenes have I witnessed, what prosperity have I enjoyed, what re-
verses of fortune have I suffered; I have had friends who enjoyed with me all the blessings
which a kind Providence could bestow; acquaintances with whom I spent the giddy hour,
and whose conversation gilded the morning of life; youths, who were my school-fellows,
and whose happiness was my own, and who accompanied me in almost all the walks of life.
But more mature thoughts hang heavy on my heart, and I begin to ask where are they now ?
No one answers, and I am obliged to solve the question myself. Those with whom I lived;
those who reared me up from infancy to manhood; those who sported with me in all the
playfulness of youth, are gone! have shut their eyes for ever on all beneath the sun, and I
am left alone, a burden to myself, a burden to strangers, and a burden to society, with-
out one earthly ray of hope to shine upon the evening of my days. But there is one hope,
of which no one can deprive me, (even in this second state of childhood), the hope of a
more blessed and lasting state, which can support beggars, as well as kings, at the solemn hour
of death.

The revolution of seasons ; the rise and fall of Kings ; the prosperity and adversity of
Empires ; the feuds of party, and the ravages of war, which have been carried on, with
little intermission, in almost every country in the habitable globe, from my earliest years,
all these have I witnessed, and have no more than outlived them.

I here paused and went to bed, and in the midst of my Contemplation, I was weighing
in my own mind, who was the cause of all these wars, of all these party broils, and the nu-
merous evils which embitter the lot of man, when I had recourse to my Bible, where I
found all these things as plainly told, as if they had taken place at the time when the writ-
ers were penning them. I now closed my eyes for sleep, when lo ! a vision appeared and
addressed me thus:?Far greater things than those you have been Contemplating will take
place in the year 1822; England, after having lavished her millions upon surrounding na-
tions, will herself be forced, to seek relief, and no power will be found hospitable enough
to satisfy her request; her manufactures shall fail, there being no demand for them, and
the seat of commerce shall be removed beyond the Atlantic sea; divisions will take place
in the Councils of the Nation, us to the best mode of saving it from bankruptcy , and a bill
will be passed to abolish all credit; after this, a new system of things will take place, and
England will again shine forth in all the splendour of noon-day.

Ireland, long the seat of disaffection, shall be relived from its present distresses, and be
enabled, by the cultivation of its soil, to maintain its own peasantry, without being obliged
to allow her sons to emigrate to other countries to take the employment from those who
have not enough for themselves, and eat the bread of others which their own country is so
amply fitted to produce; her long-sought-for claims will be restored, and her sons enjoy
all the privileges which Protestants at present receive; she will not be allowed to merge
back into her former superstitions, but will be brought under the glorious Dispensation
which is so near at hand, when all sects shall be united in one great body.

Scotland, the cradle of industry, whose mechanics can-challenge Europe for their equal ;
whose scholars can match the once-fam'd Greeks, and whose orators can compete with the
once eloquent sons of Rome, thou must also undergo a change ; darkness must hover round
thee for a season ; thy sons shall be driven from their present employ, and be obliged to
work for a scanty pittance, at labour which they are unaccustomed to ; thy women and
children shall be clothed in humble attire, and their food shall be but small; they shall cry,
but there shall be none to pity, and society shall be, in some degree, dissolved. All this
shall come upon thee for thy abuse of former mercies ; for thy numerous transgressions
shalt thou meet this punishment. But this shall continue only for a short time, and thou
shalt come out of these afflictions, and be again reinstated in thy former greatness, and
be a pattern to the surrounding nations. The vision immediately fled, and a cold sweat
covered my emaciated body while it was speaking. This may appear wonderful, now that
prophets have ceased, and may be considered by the learned as a fit of delirium or a dream,
or some ventriloquist displaying his magic powers; but the reader may rely that neither of
these circumstances deceived me, as these events will take place in your own day, and in
your own experience.                                                       Glasgow, printed by W. Carse.

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