Chosen

Orders shouted in a strange guttural tongue resounded along the walls of the houses, which seemed dead and deserted, while, behind the closed shutters, eyes watched the conquerors, who, by right of war, were now masters of the city and of the lives and fortunes of its people.

In their darkened ruins the inhabitants have given way to the same feeling of panic which is aroused by natural cataclysms - those devastating upheavals of the Earth, against which wisdom and strength alike are of no avail.

Though the same feeling is experienced wherever the established order of things is upset, when security ceases to exist, when all that was previously protected by the laws of man and nature is suddenly placed at the mercy of brutal, unreasoning force.

The earthquake, burying a whole people beneath the ruins of their houses; the river in spate, sweeping away the bodies of drowned peasants, together with the carcasses of cattle and rafters torn from roofs; and the victorious army slaughtering all who resist, making prisoners of the rest, looting by right of the sword, and thanking their god to the sound of cannon.

All these are terrifying scourges which undermine all our belief in eternal justice and all the trust we have been taught to place in divine protection and human reason.