THE SOUTH AMERICAN EARTHQUAKES. 155 



Xcvcrthclcss, lot mo add, sinco I am si)eakinf;: as a 

 Fronclnnan to Fiviiclimon, tliat tlio populations of Ecua- 

 dor ami Poru liavo more special claims on our 8ymi)a- 

 thy and assistance. Like us, they are both by blood 

 and by language of the Latin stock. Like us, they 

 belong to the Catholic church. Amid the mingling of 

 races, their blood, like ours, has been kept 'vvith a purer 

 pedigree. Our languages grow together out of the illus- 

 trious stock of ancient Rome, and are derived through 

 That from the speech of Homer and Plato, the finest, 

 2)erhaps, the most philosophical and melodious, that 

 ever ennobled human lips. They have abode -with us 

 in the old religious ediilce, in that Catholic church 

 ■which guards amid its ruins, with the grandest tradi- 

 tions of the past, the grandest hopes of the future. Ah, 

 well I know — and many a time have I groaned within 

 myself to think of it — these nations of the Latin race 

 and of the Catholic religion have been of late the most 

 grievously tried of all! Kot only l)y intestine fires, by 

 the quaking of the earth, by the inrushing of the sea. 

 Look with impartial eye,with the fearless serenity of truth, 

 with that assurance of faith which fears not to accept the 

 revelations of experience, and then tell me — where is it 

 that the moral foundations qnake most violently ? Where 

 does the current of a formidable electricity give the 

 severest, the most incessant shocks to republics as well 

 as monarchies ? Among the Latin races ; among the 

 Catholic nations. Yes, by some inscrutable design of 

 Providence, they, more than others, have had to ''drink 

 of the cup deep and large;"* they have wet their lips 

 more deeply in the chalice in which are mingled ''the 

 wine, the lightning, and the spirit of the storm;'' and 

 they have become possessed with the madness of the 



* Ezekiel. ixiii. 32. 



