nature? The vast cities of America, the fertile plains of Hindostan, the

crowded abodes of the Chinese, are menaced with utter ruin. Where late the

busy multitudes assembled for pleasure or profit, now only the sound of

wailing and misery is heard. The air is empoisoned, and each human being

inhales death, even while in youth and health, their hopes are in the

flower. We called to mind the plague of 1348, when it was calculated that a

third of mankind had been destroyed. As yet western Europe was uninfected;

would it always be so?

O, yes, it would--Countrymen, fear not! In the still uncultivated wilds

of America, what wonder that among its other giant destroyers, Plague

should be numbered! It is of old a native of the East, sister of the

tornado, the earthquake, and the simoon. Child of the sun, and nursling of

the tropics, it would expire in these climes. It drinks the dark blood of

the inhabitant of the south, but it never feasts on the pale-faced Celt. If

perchance some stricken Asiatic come among us, plague dies with him,

uncommunicated and innoxious. Let us weep for our brethren, though we can

never experience their reverse. Let us lament over and assist the children

of the garden of the earth. Late we envied their abodes, their spicy

groves, fertile plains, and abundant loveliness. But in this mortal life

extremes are always matched; the thorn grows with the rose, the poison tree

and the cinnamon mingle their boughs. Persia, with its cloth of gold,

marble halls, and infinite wealth, is now a tomb. The tent of the Arab is

fallen in the sands, and his horse spurns the ground unbridled and

unsaddled. The voice of lamentation fills the valley of Cashmere; its dells

and woods, its cool fountains, and gardens of roses, are polluted by the

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The Last Man