Whose hosts recall the past,
And guide, at times, in robes of white,
Earth’s young through gloom and blast.
But leave the cause yet undivined,
When feelings freely well,
The young have claims no others find,
And with the young I dwell.
A TRANSLATION.
In 1864, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin was celebrated with unusual splendor in the Church de la Companiè of Santiago, Chili. In the midst of the ceremonies the draped image of the Virgin caught fire. Almost instantly the flames were communicated to ropes suspending along the ceiling upward of twenty thousand colored lamps. These fell in a rain of fire upon the audience below, burning with the church itself as many as two thousand persons, chiefly young ladies from the higher grades of society.
O’er Santiago’s happy homes