South Branch intelligencer. [volume] (Romney, Va. [W. Va.]) 1830-1896, 1837-03-25


finally wandering away in the deserts,
until lite went out, and disease could
STAY no more. 1t then crossed the At
lantlc again, and threw Europe into
new alarm at disease which thus see
med to be marked for the perennial
scourge OF the earth. But its visitation,
as 1t passed along, was now slight, until
1t reached the confines of Mahometan-
ism. There 1t swept all before it, as if
kindied from some new furnace of
wrath-lt devastated Egypt by thous-
ands and tens of thousands. From F.
gypt it assembled to Cohstantinople.
There it rivalled the plague. Multi
tudes persisted. 1t then partially re-
turned to Russia and Germany. In the
Polish War it fearfully increased the
miseries of that time of wretchedness
and blood. Constantine, the Arch
duke, closed his half insane and tyran-
zeal life by it; and Diebitsch, the fam
Gus passer ofthe Balkan, with a large
share of the Russian army, were carli-
ed to the grave along with him. Spain,
Portugal, and Italy still had escaped, &
the world was asking by what means
this singular preservation was effected,
when the cholera broke outin Lisbon
from Lisbon it passed to Madrid, s. from
Spain to Italy. In Italy it is now raging.
The east coast has been seized within
these few months, and Greece, the near
est shore, is tremblingly adopting mea-
sures Of precaution. BOSNIA, and the
wild country bordering ON the north of
her kingdom, is already seized, and
thousands are perishing day BY day.
When the science & comforts Of civ
illzed countries have been SO ineffectu-
al, what resistance can be made by the
ignorance and wretchedness of barba-
rism' The disease will take its way
through the wilderness, and cease only,
as it ceased in South America, by its
going beyond the confines of man.
In this sketch, which of course has
merely traced the leading lines of its
progress we have view of the most
extraordinary operation Of human NOR
tality within the history of our species.
The great plaques which have visited
Europe since the fall of the Roman en-
empire have all had nearly com
mon character. All have fallen, with
more or less violence, upon the extrem-
ity Of the continent, when it touched
upon the realms of Mahometanism al
ways the original soil of the disease land
have thence gone regularly on, cover
ing the earth with corpses, like the
march of a destroying army. In the
lesser plaguespeculiar cities were rava-
ged, as in the plague Of London, and
like the violence Of fever in sick
chamber, the disease terminated with
the death of those seized within the IL
NIT, and beyond was harmless. But
the cholera more resembled the floating
of a cloud charged with elements of
death-here scarcely shadowing the
atmosphere, there turning it into utter
darkness-in one region sweeping on
ward with an uncomfortable rapidity,
in the next lingering till it almost ceas-
ed to move. Carried, as if by the
chances Of the wind, passing by king
doms that lay directly in its path, hur-
rying to others across mountains and
plains; apparently emitting some whose
Poverty contained every predisposidon
for disease, and fixing on others where
every human power was ready to repel
Its devastation, yet finally shifting all.
tits not for us to weigh the wisdom
of Providence,nor to announce its mys-
ferrous will. But if it had been that
will to awake the mind of nations to
peculiar sense of a Supreme Being at
this time, or perhaps to prepare them for
some moral and physical trial speedily
demanding all their moral preparation,
could at least the wisdom of man con-
ceive more powerful teacher than the
progress of this strange and powerful
agent ofmortalitys A lesson, gradual
yet unremitting, individual yet nadon-
al, slow yet impressive, not destroying
with one wild burst of ruin, but sparing
even in the midst of destruction, and
giving its teaching successfully to ev-
ery people ofthe civilized globe--Can
such things be, and be for nothing? Or
does the declared course of Providence
entitle us to believe that they are? Or
is there not sudden, strange, q fierce
outburst of mingled unbelief, protliga-
CIV, and rebellion in the world OF our
day sufficient to more than vindicate
the Divine visitatl on?
| AN ANTIQUARIAN WONDER.
Ruins of the ancient city Of AStGI0"'
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