On a black marble tablet, let into the wall opposite to the above spot, is the following inscription, in gilt letters:—
"Behold the time shall come, that these Tokens which I have told Thee, shall come to pass, and the Bride shall Appear, and She coming forth, shall be seen, that now is withdrawn from the Earth."
2nd of Esdras, chap. 7, verse 26.
"For the Vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and Not Lie, though it tarry, Wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry."
Habakkuk, chap. ii. ver. 3d.
"And whosoever is delivered from the Foresaid evils, shall see My Wonders."
2nd of Esdras, chap. 7th, ver. 27th.
(See her writings.)
This Tablet was Erected,
By the sincere friends of the above,
Anno Domini, 1828.
The number of Joanna's followers continued to be very great for many years after her death: they believed that there would be a resurrection of her body, and that she was still to be the mother of the promised Shiloh.
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."
"The reader of these Hymns," says a Correspondent of Notes and Queries, "will not feel the spiritual elevation spoken of by Mr. Pullen, unless, perhaps, he has, like him, drunk at that fountain-head, i.e. studied the 'prophetic writings:' the songs for the now 'scattered sheep' being rhapsodical to a degree, and intelligible only to such an audience as that some of your sexagenarian readers may have found assembled under the roof of the 'House of God.' The leading titles to these Hymns are, 'True Explanations of the Bible,' 'Strange Effects of Faith,' 'Words in Season,' 'Communications and Visions,' not published, 'Cautions to the Sealed,' 'Answers to the Books of Garrett and Brothers,' 'Rival Enthusiasts,' and such like. Pullen, their poet, was formerly a schoolmaster, and afterwards an accountant in London, and is called by Upcott, in his Dictionary of Living Authors, 1816, an empiric.
"A couplet in the first hymn bears an asterisk, intimating that it is published at the particular request of Johanna Southcote; it is short, and will afford at once a specimen of the poetical calibre of the volume, and the pith of the 'Spiritual Mother's' views:—
"To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
One God in power THREE,
Bring back the ancient world that's lost
To all mankind—and me."