n at last: but no, there it stopped, and cooled, and hardened, and
left the town unhurt. All the inhabitants said, of course, that St.
Agatha had done it: but learned men found out that, as usual Madam How
had done it, by making it do itself. The lava was so full of gas, which
was continually blowing out in little jets, that when it reached the
wall, it actually blew itself back from the wall; and, as the wall was
luckily strong enough not to be blown down, the lava kept blowing itself
back till it had time to cool. And so, my dear child, there was no
miracle at all in the matter; and the poor people of Catania had to thank
not St. Agatha, and any interference of hers, but simply Him who can
preserve, just as He can destroy, by those laws of nature which are the
breath of His mouth and the servants of His will.

But in many a case the lava does not stop. It rolls on and on over the
downs and through the valleys, till it reaches the sea-shore, as it did
in Hawaii in the Sandwich Islands this very year. And then it cools, of
course; but often not before it has killed the fish by its sulphurous
gases and heat, perhaps for miles around. And there is good reason to
believe that the fossil fish which we so often find in rocks, perfect in
every bone, lying sometimes in heaps, and twisted (as I have seen them)
as if they had died suddenly and violently, were killed in this very way,
either by heat from lava streams, or else by the bursting up of gases
poisoning the water, in earthquakes and eruptions in the bottom of the
sea. I could tell you many stories of fish being killed in thousands by
earthquakes and volcanos during the last few years. But we have not time
to tell about everything.

And now you will ask me, with more astonishment than ever, what possible
use can there be in these destroying streams of fire? And certainly, if
you had ever seen a lava stream even when cool, and looked down, as I
have done, at the great river of rough black blocks streaming away far
and wide over the land, you would think it the most hideous and the most
useless thing you ever saw. And yet, my dear child, there is One who
told men to judge not according to the appearance, but to judge righteous
judgment. He said that about matters spiritual and human: but it is
quite as true about matters natural, which also are His work, and all
obey His will.

Now if you had seen, as I have seen, close round the edges of these lava
streams, a