he is in the mood to sweep us like leaves from her
path? It must seem the latter to many of the inhabitants of the earth,
especially to the dwellers in certain ill-conditioned regions. For all
the beneficent powers above named may at a moment's notice change to
destructive ones.

THE WIND IS A DEMON IN CHAINS

The wind, for instance, is a demon in chains. At times it breaks its
fetters and rushes on in mad fury, rending and destroying, and sweeping
such trifles as cities and those who dwell therein to common ruin.
Sunshine and rain are subject to like wild caprices. The sun may pour
down burning rays for weeks and months together, scorching the fertile
fields, drying up the life-giving streams, bringing famine and misery
to lands of plenty and comfort, almost making the blood to boil in our
veins. Its antithesis, the rainstorm, is at times a still more terrible
visitant. From the dense clouds pour frightful floods, rushing down
the lofty hills, sweeping over fertile plains, overflowing broad river
valleys, and, wherever they go, leaving terror and death in their path.
We may say the same of the alternation of the seasons. Summer, while
looked forward to with joyous anticipation, may bring us only
suffering by its too ardent grasp; and winter, often welcomed with like
pleasurable anticipations, may prove a period of terror from cold and
destitution.

Such is the make-up of the world in which we live, such the vagaries of
the forces which surround us. But those enumerated are not the whole.
Can we say, with a stamp of the foot upon the solid earth, "Here at
least I have something I can trust; let the winds blow and the rains
descend, let the summer scorch and the winter chill, the good earth
still stands firm beneath me, and of it at least I am sure?"

Who says so speaks hastily and heedlessly, for the earth can show itself
as unstable as the air, and our solid footing become as insecure as the
deck of a ship laboring in a storm at sea. The powers of the atmosphere,
great as they are and mighty for destruction as they may become, are at
times surpassed by those which abide within the earth, deep laid in the
so-called everlasting rocks, slumbering often through generations, but
at any time likely to awaken in wrath, to lift the earth into quaking
billows like those of the sea, or pour forth torrents of liquid fire
that flow in glowing and burning rivers over leagues of ruined land.
Such is the earth with which we h