St. Columbcille

Hearken, thou, until I relate things that shall come to pass in the latter ages of the world. Great carnage shall be made, justice shall be outraged, multitudinous evils, great suffering shall prevail, and many unjust laws will be administered. The time shall come when they will not perform charitable acts, and truth shall not remain in them, and truth shall not remain in them. They will plunder the property of the church, they will be continually sneering at each other, they will employ them at reading and writing. They will scoff at acts of humility; there will come times of dark affliction, of scarcity, monarchs will be addicted to falsehood. Neither justice nor covenant will be observed by any one people of the race of Adam; they will become hard-hearted and penurious, and will be devoid of piety. The clergy will become fosterers, in consequence of the tidings of wretchedness; churches will be held in bondage by the all-powerful men of the day.

Young women will become unblushing, the aged people will be of irascible temper; the kine will seldom be productive, as of old; lords will become murderers. Young people will decline in vigor, they will despise those who have hoary (gray) hair; there will be no standard by which morals may be regulated, and marriages will be solemnized without witnesses. Troublous shall be the latter ages of the world, the dispositions of the generality of men I will point out, from the time they shall abandon hospitable habits -- with the view of winning honor for themselves, they will hold each other as objects for ridicule. The possessors of abundance shall fall through the multiplicity of their falsehoods; covetousness shall take possession of every glutton, and when satisfied their arrogance shall know no bounds. Between mother and daughter anger and bitter sarcasms shall continuously exist; neighbors will become treacherous, cold, and false-hearted towards each another. The gentry will become grudgeful, with respect to their trifling donations; and blood relations shall become cool towards each other; Church livings shall become lay property. Such is the description of the people who shall live in the ages to come; more unjust and iniquitous shall be very succeeding race of men. The trees shall not bear the usual quantity of fruit, fisheries shall become unproductive and the earth shall not yield its usual abundance. Inclement weather and famine shall come and fishes shall forsake the rivers. The people will be oppressed for lack of food, shall pine to death. Dreadful storms and hurricanes shall afflict them. Numberless diseases shall then prevail. Fortifications shall be built narrow during these times of dreadful danger.

Then a great event shall happen. I fail not to notice it: rectitude shall be its specious motive, and if ye be not truly holy, a more sorrowful event could not possibly happen.

Seven years before the last day, the sea shall submerge Eire (Ireland) by one inundation.