And gnashed their teeth and howled. . . .
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again--a meal was bought
With blood, and each sat sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom, . . . and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails;--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh
The meager by the meager were devoured,
Even dogs assailed their masters."

How graphic, how dramatic, how realistic is this picture! And how
true!

For the legends show us that when, at last, the stones and clay had
ceased to fall, and the fire had exhausted itself, and the remnant of
mankind were able to dig their way out, to what an awful wreck of
nature did they return.

{p . 227}

Instead of the fair face of the world, as they had known it, bright
with sunlight, green with the magnificent foliage of the forest, or
the gentle verdure of the plain, they go forth upon a wasted, an
unknown land, covered with oceans of mud and stones; the very face of
the country changed--lakes, rivers, hills, all swept away and lost.
They wander, breathing a foul and sickening atmosphere, under the
shadow of an awful darkness, a darkness which knows no morning, no
stars, no moon; a darkness palpable and visible, lighted only by
electrical discharges from the abyss of clouds, with such roars of
thunder as we, in this day of harmonious nature, can form no