Before us the brown and monstruous mass of the two still lavas, rises frightful and menacing. Terror seems now to take hold of peasants, gentlemen, indigens, Neapolitans, foreigners. A hush of tragedy is over that country of tragedy, with the hardly conjured danger of this night, and the imminent danger of to-morrow.
April 8 1906.
A PRAYER
Surely, there does not live a pious and tender soul who, in these days of anguish, has not pronounced with intimate ardour, with intimate impulse, some sacred words, imploring the mercy of God on a population struck by such terrible calamity.
There lives not a warm soul who, under the shock of this terrible pang, has not felt the need of appealing to a divine power of kindness and mercy. There lives not a cold soul who has not been moved and, has not silently asked for peace, in such a tragic misfortune.
Oh! yes. Let all tender and fervid hearts, all humble and brotherly spirits, all creatures strong with faith and hope, firm in an undoubtful promise, let them ask to the Lord, in every conceivable form, the end of this tremendous punishment.
It has fallen on too many people, it has devastated too many countries, it frightens now the most sceptic, and the most audacious. Let all those who know, who will, who can pray, in the secret of their consciences, of their houses, in the shadow of the churches, all, even those who never pray, those who will not pray, let them ask of God the end of this horrible calamity. It now weighs too heavily, with its terrible unforeseen, with its funestous surprises, with its more and more frightful forms, not only, on those picturesque and thriving villages, extending from the cone down to the sea, but it weighs on Naples, on its six hundred thousand inhabitants, and on all the southern region. All Italy is trembling with sorrow, listening to the fabulous and yet real story of such a great catastrophe. God of mercy listen, listen to the prayer of all those who pour out their soul to you, who raise their hands to you. Listen God of goodness, father of the unfortunate, of the miserable, of the poor, of those who are running away, grant the desolate, desperate, hopeful trusting prayers of those who ask of you the end of this terrible cataclysm. Sinners and innocents are begging you oh Lord of all Charities, children, women, old people, men who have lived too much, and young ones who have not lived enough, and together they implore you to let this tremendous sea of fire, stones, lapillus, and ashes be stopped. They implore you to let this lightning and thunder, these roars, these terrible convulsions of the mountain be ended, oh Lord, ended! Thousands, hundred of thousands of persons ask for the end of this dream of devastation and ruin! Cries, tears, sobs reach your throne oh! Lord, do grant the supreme grace, let this terrible destruction end. Man is only a poor being of flesh and blood, he is weak, and his mind wonders, and his conscience sinks. Oh Lord! oh Lord! what is happening is much stronger than our courage and patience so unexpected and unheard as it is, so monstrously sad, and irreparable, alas! If you don't help us, oh Lord, your children will perish of grief, or will end in untold anguish of despair while those who know, who want, who can pray implore your divine mercy on Naples on this splendid coast, and on this sublime gulf. Let all those who can think and act fight against this destruction, let them try to master it and to render it less terrible than it is, let the people go not only through frivolous curiosity to the places where the scenes of the Vesuvian catastrophe in all their horror are going on, but let them go with eyes of compassion, and earth souls full of charity.