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A mediæval Japanese hero, Yoshitsune, is generally allowed to be held in religious reverence by them. The idea of earthquakes being caused by the wriggling of a gigantic fish under the earth is shared by the Ainos with the Japanese and with several other races.

On many of the islands the years of the great earthquakes form the chronological epochs of the native inhabitants, by the aid of which the ages of their children are remembered, and the dates of many important events are determined. I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have taken place in this region.

It was heaven just to lie there, drinking in the beauty of her eyes and breathing the fragrance of her hair when she bent over to adjust his pillow. "And we shall soon have bidden good-bye to Earthquake Island!" Ruth exclaimed gaily. "Is that what you've dubbed it?" he asked, smiling. "It couldn't be better christened. Earthquakes seem to be its chief stock in trade."

But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the conclusion is not immediately. Then saith he unto them, Nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and great earthquakes shall be in different places, and famines, and pestilences; and in the heaven shall be frightful appearances, and mighty signs.

Physical evil is commonly regarded as a punishment for sin. Diseases, famines, wars, earthquakes, are means which God uses to chastise wicked men. Thus, they make no scruple of attributing these evils to the severity of a just and good God. But, do not these scourges fall indiscriminately upon the good and bad, upon the impious and devout, upon the innocent and guilty?

The Madonna picture preserved within the sanctuary has performed so many miracles in ages past that I despair of giving any account of them. It is high time, none the less, for a new sign from Heaven. Shattered by earthquakes, the chapel is in a dis-ruptured and even menacing condition. Will some returned emigrant from America come forward with the necessary funds?

There had been earthquakes around the mountain, and one of the cities had been nearly destroyed; but no one was prepared for what occurred seven years after the defeat of Spartacus.

In the very centre or focus of the great curve of volcanoes is placed the large island of Borneo, in which no sign of recent volcanic action has yet been observed, and where earthquakes, so characteristic of the surrounding regions, are entirely unknown. The equally large island of New Guinea occupies another quiescent area, on which no sign of volcanic action has yet been discovered.

One unmasked himself as a profligate; another was free from such tastes, but developed great talent for being slave and despot in the same person; and even if an omnibus numeris salutus was found, he showed, when the last subject his opinion of Christianity was introduced, like all the rest, that it was his conviction that the Christian religion was nothing more than a sect which denied the gods and, by withdrawing from the popular pleasures, games, and combats in the arena, embittered every joy by their obdurate melancholy and in their stead celebrated horrible rites in gloomy caverns, compelled their followers to pierce with their knives the heart of an infant rolled in flour, and to drink its blood; till the gods, in their wrath, visited the earth with floods, pestilences, earthquakes, and barbarians, and that consequently there could not be enough of these people boiled in oil, burned in pitch, torn by wild beasts, and buried alive to avert from the land the severe punishments sent by the wrathful gods.

In Italy for instance, the sirocco and earthquakes are suspected to have some connection; and in London, the frequency of falling-stars, and those southern lights which have since been often observed by Mr. Dalton, were considered as the forerunners of those shocks which were felt from 1748 to 1756.