pi.AOUEs. 285 



another Seminary of learning, that, in proportion to the number educated, 

 has sent forth so many ambassadors of the Most High? Has not the 

 Institution already contributed to impart an impulse, which may yet move 

 millions of hearts towards God r 



PLAGUES. NO. II. 



The occurrence of what has been termed "bloody rain," "showers 

 of blood," &c., has been recorded by a number of historians and is inci- 

 dental to great elemental commotions in nearly every age of history. Al- 

 lowing much for the influence of superstition and terrified imagination 

 in observing and recording such events in the earlier histories, there is 

 still much, that challenges the careful observation of those who live in 

 this day of "enlarged opportunities and increased light." A few allu- 

 sions shall suflice. 



In the year 1693 of the Christian era, history informs us that nearly 

 cotemporaneous with a violent earthquake in Sicily and Naples, while 

 a malignant plague was ravaging the people, a fountain sent forth its 

 streams "as red as blood." In the year 225 B. C. the Roman army, then 

 marching into Gaul, was infected with a deadly plague and a river 

 in Picenum was so changed in the colour of its water that it pre- 

 sented every appearance of blood. These are confessedly rare pheno- 

 mena, and to this day the learned are not unanimous in their philosophi- 

 cal explanations of the circumstance. The most plausible, perhaps, as- 

 cribe them to subterraneous combustion attended by peculiar electric 

 states of the atmosphere. Showers of blood are more frequently men- 

 tioned in connection with highly distempered states of the seasons. — 

 Livy bears decided testimony to the fact, that at particular times "it rained 

 blood," and Homer speaks confidently of showers of blood, which fell 

 before his time, and also of a similar occurrence, that happened in his 

 own day. It is said too that during the reign of Octavius, Egypt was 

 visited with a shower of blood. The historian of England also fur- 

 nishes accounts of these bloody rains in the fifth century and also in 

 the sixteenth, which the credulous and superstitious afterwards interpreted 

 as the harbinger of the death of the two Dukes of Brunswick. Whilst 

 the profligate Nero swayed the empire of Rome, showers of blood are 

 said to have fallen in such copious streams as to tinge the water of rivers 

 ■with a crimson hue. It is a difficult matter to explain this phenomenon. 

 From observing the coincidence of bloody rain with the existence of 

 plague in some form or other, it was soon regarded as prognostic of 

 some dire visitation from heaven, and the affrighted beholders were awed 

 37 



