tering the
indignation of Heaven against our devoted people; and what rendered such
fearful manifestations ominous and alarming to the superstitious, was
the fact of their occurrence in the evening and at night--circumstances
which are always looked upon With unusual terror and dismay.

To any person passing through the country, such a combination of
startling and awful appearances was presented as has probably never been
witnessed since. Go where you might, every object reminded you of the
fearful desolation that was progressing around you. The features of the
people were gaunt, their eyes wild and hollow, and their gait feeble and
tottering. Pass through the fields, and you were met by little groups
bearing home on their shoulders, and that with difficulty, a coffin, or
perhaps two of them. The roads were literally black with funerals, and
as you passed along from parish to parish, the death-bells were pealing
forth, in slow but dismal tones, the gloomy triumph which pestilence
was achieving over the face of our devoted country--a country that each
successive day filled with darker desolation and deeper mourning.

Nor was this all. The people had an alarmed and unsettled aspect; and
whether you met them as individuals or crowds, they seemed, when closely
observed, to labor under some strong and insatiable want that rendered
them almost reckless. The number of those who were reduced to mendicancy
was incredible, and if it had not been for the extraordinary and
unparalleled exertions of the clergy of all creeds, medical, men,
and local committees, thousands upon thousands would have perished of
disease or hunger on the highways. Many, indeed, did so perish; and it
was no unusual sight to meet the father and mother, accompanied by their
children, going they knew not whither, and to witness one or other
of them lying down on the road side; and well were they off who could
succeed in obtaining a sheaf of straw, on which, as a luxury, to lay
down their aching head, that was never more to rise from it, until
borne, in a parish shell, to a shallow and hasty grave.

Temporary sheds were also erected on the road sides, or near them,
containing fever-stricken patients, who had no other-home; and when they
were released, at last, from their sorrows, nothing was more common than
to place the coffin on the road side also, with a plate on the lid of
it, in order to solicit, from those who passed, such aid as they could
afford to t