By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 375 



And first I would call attention to the wonderful preservation of 

 life, both of man and beast, for which the infidel with his maxims 

 of chance, would find it difficult to account, but wherein God's 

 Providential care for His creatures has been most signally dis- 

 played. For though the storm passed through three villages in 

 its course ; though it occurred in the very middle of the day ; and 

 though it extended for no less than eleven miles in length by 

 nearly a quarter of a mile in breadth; and though hundreds of 

 trees were in an instant thrown down, across the roads s and over 

 the gardens, and in several cases upon the cottages themselves, yet 

 most mercifully not a single life was lost, nor did any serious ac- 

 cident occur to either man or beast. Hair-breadth escapes indeed 

 there were in abundance: for instance, several men and boys were 

 buried under the ruins of fallen barns both at Yatesbury and Monk- 

 ton, and how they all escaped the heavy beams and rafters which 

 fell around them, seems perfectly miraculous, but they were all 

 extricated from their perilous position with no worse result than 

 sundry bruises and an exceeding terror. Again, on the north side 

 of the road nearly opposite Blacklands a tree fell across a shed, into 

 which an old man had run for shelter, but while the shed was 

 crushed to the earth, the man escaped unhurt : and again, at Yates- 

 bury, Mr. Pontin, the relieving officer of the Calne Union, was in 

 imminent danger, from the falling of two large trees, close to him. 

 Still more remarkable are some of the instances of narrow escape 

 of destruction among the cattle. At the extreme west of Cherhill, 

 near Mr. Maundrell's farm, lies a narrow strip of meadow of about 

 half an acre in extent, surrounded with elms, no less than twenty- 

 three of which were swept down in an instant, and appeared com- 

 pletely to choke up the field ; yet it will hardly be believed that a 

 donkey belonging to the carpenter, Charles Aland, who dwells 

 hard by, and which had been turned into this meadow, was found 

 unhurt amidst the prostrate timber, though there appeared scarcely 

 a vacant space wherein it could stand. Nor was this the only ani- 

 mal bearing a charmed life which the worthy carpenter possessed, 

 for a large tree fell across his pig-sty, crushing it to the earth, but 

 the pig crept out uninjured, and was found standing by its ruined 



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