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.
Do not let this visit to the squalid and deserted villages, to the
places where the black mountain of lava is advancing in waves of stone,
and in waves of fire, be a sport. Don't let it be a diversion or a
pastime to relate among friends the sensational scenes which have been
witnessed. Men of good will, women of good will, each as one may, as
one knows, as one must, put your energy, your patience and all your
virtues in a sublime effort to mitigate this calamity, to fight it,
and, at last, with the help of God and that of men, to conquer it. Let
every man find all his strength, forgetting himself and his own small,
and perhaps miserable interests, and let the sense of charity become
heroic in all those who have some will, strength, courage, and valor.
Let everybody do his own duty and even beyond his duty, and to this
terrible catastrophe will then be opposed another amount of will,
of thinking and reasoning will. Let this panic of the more cultured
classes be conquered by influential words, and by the example of all
the directing classes; let everybody sacrifice himself, from the
prince to the civil functioneer, and let each of them perform those
acts of abnegation which are the seal of human fraternity. Let cold
blood and the stubborn decision to fight the conflagration triumph,
and victory will be man's. Let this folly of lies, inventions, and
exaggerations end, and with it, this infamy of false news printed in
some papers with the sole intent to sell them. Let those who have some
heart show it by advising others to be calm, by consoling the afflicted
and the poor, and providing to their material and moral needs! Let this
heart be demonstrated by all the civic virtue which are necessary in
these terrible crisis, and this will be another way to show that they
are men, christians, and that they are all bound in a same part of joy
and sorrow.
9th April 1906.