y one, especially if they live in a
part of the world in which we have not been ourselves. But I think that
we know, and that they ought to have known, enough about earthquakes to
have been more prudent than they have been for many a year. At least we
will hope that, though they would not learn their lesson till this year,
they will learn it now, and will listen to the message which I think
Madam How has brought them, spoken in a voice of thunder, and written in
letters of flame.

And what is that?

My dear child, if the landlord of our house was in the habit of pulling
the roof down upon our heads, and putting gunpowder under the foundations
to blow us up, do you not think we should know what he meant, even though
he never spoke a word? He would be very wrong in behaving so, of course:
but one thing would be certain,--that he did not intend us to live in his
house any longer if he could help it; and was giving us, in a very rough
fashion, notice to quit. And so it seems to me that these poor Spanish
Americans have received from the Landlord of all landlords, who can do no
wrong, such a notice to quit as perhaps no people ever had before; which
says to them in unmistakable words, "You must leave this country: or
perish." And I believe that that message, like all Lady Why's messages,
is at heart a merciful and loving one; that if these Spaniards would
leave the western coast of Peru, and cross the Andes into the green
forests of the eastern side of their own land, they might not only live
free from earthquakes, but (if they would only be good and industrious)
become a great, rich, and happy nation, instead of the idle, and useless,
and I am afraid not over good, people which they have been. For in that
eastern part of their own land God's gifts are waiting for them, in a
paradise such as I can neither describe nor you conceive;--precious
woods, fruits, drugs, and what not--boundless wealth, in one word--waiting
for them to send it all down the waters of the mighty river Amazon,
enriching us here in the Old World, and enriching themselves there in the
New. If they would only go and use these gifts of God, instead of
neglecting them as they have been doing for now three hundred years, they
would be a blessing to the earth, instead of being--that which they have
been.

God grant, my dear child, that these poor people may take the warning
that has been sent to them; "The voice of God revealed in facts," as the
grea