Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-13
Tho Special Providence There Was in the Lisbon Earthquake.
 From the TanNIe Rar1

Every one has read of the great earthquake at Lisbon how, on the clear brisk morning of All Saints day, when the brightly -illumin- ated churches were crowded with wo1shipers, without any warning, in the twinkling of an eye, churches, palaces and houses were torn from their foundations, and thousands of hu- man beings were involved in their destruction. Immense numbers were swept of from the quays by the rising of the Tagus, and the fire which followed the earthquake caused great CT destruction than the earthquake itself. But the earthquake was important not only as a physical but as an intellectual convulsion, for the immensity and suddenness of the calamity shook mems faith, if not in Providence altogether, at least in benevolent one, and gave emphasis to the theory of blind cos mica2 mechanism. Goethe, then only boy of six, speaks thus of it's effect on him: "God. the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, whom the first article of our creed de- clared to be so wise and good, had not shown paternal care in consigning both just and un- just to the same destruction" He strove ill vain to resist these impressions, for even the wise and religious could not agree in their explanation of the phenomenon. Yet the earthquake at Lisbon was only one among other countless proofs, such as the destruction of Pompeii, the cyclones in India, the rav- ages of the tiger or the pestilence, that the power whom we conceive to have appointed the course of nature never allows her to dew fate one jot from the eternal laws assigned to her from the creation of the world. There was, however, another interpretation, Gan in- depreciation such as Christ himself had de- precated in the case of the fall of the tower of Siloam), namely, that the event came as judgment from Heaven for the sins of the sufferers. It was in vain for Voltaire to ask what had been the crimes of children crush ed upon their mothers breast, or why Paris and London had been spared the fate Of Lis bon. A special cause was assignable for the destruction of Lisbon, and that was the war against the Jesuits in Paraguay, and the tole- ration that had been then lately shown to Jews and heretics. From pulpit and from printing-press the Jesuits thundered this ex- planation, seeking to incite disafection against minister who had, practically, been the author of so signal 8 visitation. From the clergy of the University of Coimbra came the recommendation of an ''auto da fe'' as the only means to avert it's repetition, while, so positive had been the predictions of the Jesuits of second visitation on the next anniversary, that Pombal had to place cavalry all round the city to restrain the thousands who, with bag and baggage, were anxious to depart. Probably, indeed, Pombal only owed the con- hnuance of his ministry to the adroitness with which he availed himself of the remarkable coincidence, that while the palace of the pa- triarch, the royal palace, and nearly every convent and church in the city had been overthrown, his own house had remained un- touched, and in the universal bereavement not single member of his family had met with an injury. The King saw in this fact 8 mark of the divine favor vouchsafed to his minister, notwithstanding the observation of 8 court wit that the same favor had been shown to the yilest quarter of the town. Thus, Pombal was enabled to imprison or to exile several noblemen who secretly petitioned the King for his dismissal as being the evident cause of all the recent evils.