Ebook wait

The people were in great alarm. All the most
approved methods of procuring rain had been tried without effect.
Processions had traversed the streets and the fields. Men, women,
and children, telling their beads, had lain whole nights before the
holy images. Consecrated candles had burned day and night in the
churches. Palm branches, blessed on Palm Sunday, had been hung on
the trees. At Solaparuta, in accordance with a very old custom, the
dust swept from the churches on Palm Sunday had been spread on the
fields. In ordinary years these holy sweepings preserve the crops;
but that year, if you will believe me, they had no effect whatever.
At Nicosia the inhabitants, bare-headed and bare-foot, carried the
crucifixes through all the wards of the town and scourged each other
with iron whips. It was all in vain. Even the great St. Francis of
Paolo himself, who annually performs the miracle of rain and is
carried every spring through the market-gardens, either could not or
would not help. Masses, vespers, concerts, illuminations,
fire-works--nothing could move him.


Pages:
207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231