I thought not
of the pain, and terror, and death that reigned in the human
habitation upon which the bolt of destruction had fallen, but of the
sublime power displayed in the strife of the elements.
There was another change. I no longer stood on the mountain, with
the lightning and tempest around me; but was in the valley below,
down upon which the storm had swept with devastating fury. Fields of
grain were level with the earth; houses destroyed; and the trophies
of industry marred in a hundred ways.
"How sublime are the works of the tempest!" said a voice near me. I
turned, and the old man was again at my side.
But I did not respond to his words.
"What majesty! What awful sublimity and power!" continued the old
man. "But," he added, in a changed voice, "there is a higher power
in the gentle rain than lies in the rushing tempest. The power to
destroy is an evil power, and has bounds beyond which it cannot go.
But the gentle rain that falls noiselessly to the earth, is the
power of restoration and recreation. See!"
I looked, and a mall lay upon the ground apparently lifeless. He had
been struck down by the lightning.
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