Both these schemes were so sound and rational, that the chief authorities, unwilling to shew an undue partiality to either, wisely determined to combine them into one great _lustration_. A day was, accordingly, fixed for a solemn procession to conduct the crucifix from the convent to the cathedral, and to ascend the tower for the purpose of _blessing_ the four cardinal winds with the _Lignum Crucis_. On that day, the chapter of the cathedral, attended by the civil governor, the judges, the inquisitors, and the town corporation, repaired to the convent of Saint Augustin, and, having placed the crucifix upon a moveable stage covered with a magnificent canopy, walked before it with lighted candles in their hands, while the singers, in a mournful strain, repeated the names of the saints contained in the Catholic litany, innumerable voices joining, after every invocation in the accustomed response--_Ora pro nobis_. Arrived at the cathedral, the image was exposed to public adoration within the presbytery, or space reserved for the ministering clergy, near the high altar. After this the dean, attended by the chapter, the inferior ministers of the church, and the singers, moved in solemn procession towards the entrance of the tower, and, in the same order ascended the five-and-twenty inclined planes, which afford a broad and commodious access to the open belfry of that magnificent structure. The worship paid to any fragment of the true Cross is next in degree to that which is due to the consecrated host. On the view of the priest in his robes at one of the four central arches of the majestic steeple, the multitude, who had crowded to the neighbourhood of the cathedral from all parts of the city, fell upon their knees, their eyes streaming with tears: tears, indeed, which that unusual sight would have drawn from the weak and superstitious on any other occasion, but which, in the present affliction, the stoutest heart could hardly repress. An accidental circumstance heightened the impressiveness of the scene. The day, one of the hottest of an Andalusian summer, had been overcast with electric clouds. The priest had scarcely begun to make the sign of the cross with the golden vase which contains the _Lignum Crucis_, when one of the tremendous thunderstorms, so awful in southern climates, burst upon the trembling multitude. A few considered this phenomenon as a proof that the public prayers were heard, and looked upon the lightning as the instrument which was to disperse the cause of the infection. But the greatest number read in the frowns of the sky the unappeased anger of Heaven, which doomed them to drain the bitter cup that was already at their lips. Alas! they were not deceived. That doom had been sealed when Providence allowed ignorance and superstition to fix their dwelling among us; and the evils which my countrymen feared from a preternatural interposition of the avenging powers above,