TUE SOUTH AMEKICAN EARTHQUAKES. 1-17 



cannon to overcome the resistance of matter and bar- 

 barism. And at last, setting at lier head Christopher 

 Columbus, tliat inspired captain, as if to found tliere a 

 new mankind, he i)rought her to a new world. 



The two worlds had met. The two mankinds were 

 coming near each other — that which awaited, and that 

 wliich brought Jesus Christ. 



But, great God ! what do I behold? After premedi- 

 tated massacres to which the history of crime affords no 

 parallel, I behold .... but I cannot speak of it. Pools 

 of blood through Avhicli are crawling unarmed and de- 

 fenceless men ; depths of mire in which women — moth- 

 ers and maids alike — are groaning; deep mines down 

 which slaves descend, far from the light of that sun 

 which they love, farther still from that Christ which 

 they have been driven to hate! And above all these 

 horrors of carnage, debauchery, cupidity — abomina- 

 tion of desolation standing in the holy place ! — the cross 

 of Jesus Christ serving them as a pretext, and covering 

 them with its shadow I 



* * * ÏÎC * 



It is said that during the recent horrible catastrophe 

 which has fallen upon these countries, in the burying- 

 ground of one of those ruined cities,* men saw the 

 mummied corpses of the Indians torn from their graves 

 by the shocks of earthquake and the wash of the sea. 

 It seemed as if they had risen up with a sort of ghastly 

 joy to witness the just, though tardy vengeance that 

 had come upon the children of their oppressors I 

 ÎÏÎ * * ^ * 



Enough, brethren, enough. Let us speak no more 

 of vengeance ! If there be vengeance here, it is God's 

 vengeance, and we can but adore in silence. '' The 

 wrath of man worketli not the righteousness of God."t 



* The city of Iqmquc. t Jame?, i. 20. 



