It is impossible to exaggerate the firmness of their faith or the depth and tenacity of the affection of the Neapolitans for this _their_ miracle. Whatever else happens to their fair city, nothing must interfere with their devotion to St. Januarius and the proper celebration of these festivals--neither wars nor pestilence, nor eruptions nor earthquakes, nor change of rulers. Once a battle raging in the streets prevented an outdoor procession. But, within the cathedral, there was a procession through the aisles and nave, and all things else went on as usual. Oddly enough, the greatest disturber, to judge by the simple-minded writers of the diary, has been--rain. Not that the weather has any direct influence on the liquefaction or its circumstances. Quite the contrary. The blood liquefies all the same, and with as many attendant variations, whether the day be fair or rainy, whether the season be so dry that the farmers are complaining of drought, and prayers have been ordered for rain, or whether it has been raining incessantly for weeks and months, to the injury of the crops, and in the churches they are praying for fair weather; in summer, when the sun is pouring down his almost tropical beams; and in winter, when the procession is confined to the cathedral because it is too cold to go out into the streets, or because the ground is covered with snow. These meteorological changes have no apparent influence on the liquefaction or its characteristic circumstances. But at Naples they sometimes have terrible deluges of rain--steady downpourings such as one may witness only within or close to the tropics. Sometimes these have come on just at the hour to interfere with the grand afternoon procession of the vigil in May, forbidding it, or ludicrously disarranging it, and forcing monks, friars, priests, seminarians, canons, and people alike to break the ranks and seek immediate shelter in the neighboring shops and houses. However, come what might, at the worst, his eminence, or the highest ecclesiastical dignitary present, with a few attendants of waterproof hearts, would carry the relic, in a sedan chair or a carriage, it might be, to the appointed place. Is it not all punctually set down in the diary; at what corner, or in what street, the procession was broken up, and who then carried the relic on, and whether still on foot or in a carriage, and how many courageously accompanied him? We may be sure that on arriving at their destination they never failed to find the church, despite the rain, and despite the absence of fashionable ones, filled by devout souls, who loved their saint more than they feared even such weather.