In a region where the molecular forces, those mighty slaves of a Divine Will, are working out of doors, so to speak; where from the summit of a volcanic peak one can count scores of others ranged on his right hand and on his left; where he can see, if he has opened the door for such vision, the cooling globe wrinkling with age, the force of contraction liquefying in fervent heat the solid materials of the earth’s crust and pouring out into daylight the molten rock, or puffing out the dust of stones ground to powder in the gigantic mill,—his heart, his brain, his very being, will be enlarged by the reflections that come to him in such moments. Not so the Indio who lazily cultivates his milpa on the lower slopes of this same volcano. His feet never seek the summit, where no maiz can grow. He knows that the ground is very fertile where his hut is placed; he has nothing that an earthquake can destroy, and the showers of ashes, while injuring his present crop, are a pledge of increased fertility in the future; then from the streams of lava he can run, should they come in his way. When a more terrible outbreak of the great mass above him disturbs his stolidity, he attributes it to some supernatural agency, and calls upon his especial saints for the protection due their votary. Have not the Central Americans baptized their volcanoes, and have not these huge Christians since that rite been quiescent and proper members of the Church? The people who live in the midst of this region of volcanic disturbances have not been elevated by communion with this manifestation of the agencies of Nature. Their religion is not autochthonic; their choicest traditions come from the non-volcanic lands to the eastward, and are not tinged with the lurid glow of the earth-fires. Even their hell is no fiery furnace, and the apostles of an Eastern religion introduced to their imagination that supposed element of future punishment. Where a suggestion of fire-worship appears, it is always called forth by the sun,—that source of life and warmth and growth. And yet, here is a country where volcanoes cluster,—their number reaching several hundred,—where hot-springs are more common than the cold-springs in most countries, and where earthquakes are very frequent and destructive. The volcanoes of the Hawaiian Archipelago are larger, those of Java more destructive, and the equatorial group of South America is loftier; but here between Popocatepetl and Istaccuahuatl, the giants of the plain of Anahuac, and the Costa Rican Turrialba extends an unbroken line of mighty cones and gaping craters. Somewhere on that line, smoke is ever rising; and at night the mariner along the Pacific coast sees the beacon-fires lighted by no mortal hand.