The record-union., 1897-03-08

supernatural operation; but the ordi-
nary course IF things appears suffi-
GENTLY armed and made capable of all
the effects that heaven usually directs
by a contagion. Among these causes
and effects, this of the secret convey
ance of infection, iInperceptible and un-
avoidable, is more than sufficient to
execute the fierceness of divine ven
geance, without putting it upon super
naturalS and miracles. The acute,
penetrating nature of the disease itself
was such, and the infection was re-
ceived so imperceptibly, that the most
exact caution could not secure US while
in the place; but | must be allowed to
believe-and I have so many examples
fresh in my memory to convince me of
it that think none can resist their evil
dence--I say 1 must be allowed to be-
lieve that no one in this whole nation
ever received the sickness or infection
but who received it in the ordinary way
of infection from somebody, or the
clothes or touch, or stencil of some
body, that was infected before.
HOW THE PLAGUE CAME TO
LONDON.
The manner if its first coming to Lon
don proves this also, viz, by goods
brought over from Holland and
brought thither from the Levant: the
first breaking Of it out in a house in
Longacre where these goods We're car
ried and first opened; its spreading
from that house to other houses by the
visible unwary ccnversing with those
who were sick, and the injecting the
parish officers who We're employed
about persons dead; and the like. These
are known authorities for this great
foundation point, that 1t went on and
proceeded from person to person, and
from house to house, and not otherwise.
In the first house that was infected
there died four persons. A neighbor,
hearing the mistress of the first house
was sick, went to visit her and went
home and gave the distemper to her
family and died. and all her house
hold. minister called to pray with
the first sick person in the second house
was said to sicken Immediately, and
die, with several more in his house
Then the physicians began to consider,
for they did not at first dream of a
general contagion; but the physicians
being sent to inspect the bodies, they
more or less than the plague, with all
its terrifying particulars, and that it
threatened a universal Infection; so
many people having already conversed
with the sick or distempered, and hay
ing, as might be supposed, received in
fection from them, that it would be i'm
possible to put a stop to it.
Here the opinion of the physicians
agreed with my observation afterWard.
namely, that the danger was spread
ing insensibly; for the sick could infect
none but those that came within reach
of the sick person; but that one man.
who may have really received the in
fection, and knows it not, but goes
abroad and about as a sound person.
may give the plague to thousand peo-
pie, and they to greater numbers in
proportion, and neither the person Civ
ing the infection nor the persons re-
ceiving it know anything of it, and per
haps not feel the effects of it for several
days after.
EXAGGERATED REPORTS.
The plague was itself very terrible.
and the distress of the people very
great, as you may observe Of what
have said but the rumor was infinitely
greater; and it must not be wondered
that our friends abroad. as nv broth
er's correspondents in particular. were
told there (namely, in Portugal and It
ally, where he chiefly traded, that in
London there died 10000 in a week;
that the dead bodies lay unburied by
heaps; that the living were not suffi-
cient to bury the dead, or the sound to
look after the sick; that all the king
dom was, infected likewise, so that it
was universal malady such as was
never heard of in those parts of the