Here's a precursor to King Moonracer, ruler of the Island of Misfit Toys in the Rankin/Bass television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  From Thoughts on the Prophecies of Daniel by Uriah Smith, 1899.

Here are collected the best lions I've encountered in my research to date.

On the Writing of the Insane by G. Mackenzie Bacon, 1870.

From the University of Maryland's Bones, Molars and Briefs, 1904.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

From the University of Maryland's Bones, Molars and Briefs, 1904.  Also very much of interest: The Young Wizard's Hexopedia and How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

Q: Why, in the apparition at Fátima in 1917, did the Virgin Mary predict a war with Russia, when such information implanted that idea on a mass scale, with tremendous authority behind it, and went on to foster a World War?  Why didn't she predict world peace for thousands of years into the future? —Jim

A: The philosophy of Humanitism, outlined in Machado de Assis' novel Epitaph of a Small Winner, suggests that every man is Humanity in miniature, so no man can fundamentally be opposed to another, however much appearances may suggest the contrary.  "Envy is nothing but a fighting admiration, and, as fighting or struggle is the great function of the human race, all bellicose feelings tend toward its welfare.  ...  [W]ar, which to many persons seems to be a calamity, is really a desirable activity—a snap of Humanity's fingers, so to speak.  ...  The main thing is to fight.  Life is a struggle.  A life without fighting is a dead sea in the universal organism."

"A model hieroglyphic with sure prophecies for the next hundred years": from Punch, 1848.

An illustration from a 1912 issue of Hampton's magazine.  The caption reads: "Are the dim shades of night full of prophecy?"