Five months after this Act had passed, Archbishop Sheldon issued orders and instructions to the Bishops of his province, concerning ordinations, pluralists and their curates, lectures and lecturers, schoolmasters and instructors of youth, practisers of physic, and Nonconformist ministers. He complained of divers unworthy persons, of late crept into the ministry, to the scandal of the Church, and the dissatisfaction of good men; and to remedy these evils, Bishops were ordered to be very careful what persons they received for ordination. Inquiries were made touching pluralities, and whether pluralists kept able, orthodox, and comformable curates upon the benefices where they did not themselves reside. The word curates, it may be remarked in passing, had now changed from its ancient to its modern meaning; and having been applied generally to all pastors, it was introduced by the Archbishop as the title of distinct and subordinate officers.[460] These orders may be divided into two parts—those which relate to the internal government of the Church; and those which relate to Nonconformists. The second part will be noticed in the next Chapter.
CHAPTER XVII.
1665.
THE PLAGUE.
This year appears as a terrible one in the annals of London.[461] Two men in Drury Lane had sickened in the previous December. Upon inquiry, headache, fever, burning sensations, dimness of sight, and livid spots had indicated that the Plague was in the capital of England. The intelligence soon spread. The weekly bills of mortality, for the next four months, exhibited an increase of deaths. The month of May showed that the disease was extending; and in the first week of July, 1006 persons fell victims to the destroyer. Men fled in terror; vehicles of all kinds thronged the highways, filled with those whose circumstances enabled them to change their abode; but multitudes, especially of the poorer class, remained, and, being crowded together in narrow streets and alleys, they were soon marked by the Angel of Death. The mortality reported from week to week rose from hundreds to thousands, until during the month of September, the terrific number of 10,000 occurred in one week. In one night, it is said, 4,000 expired. Shop after shop, and house after house was closed. The long red cross, with the words, "Lord, have mercy upon us" inscribed upon the door, indicated what was going on within. Watchmen stood armed with halberds, to prevent communication between the inmates and their neighbours. Instead of the crowds which once lined the thoroughfares, only a few persons crept cautiously in the middle of the road, fearful of contact with each other. "The highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by-ways." A coach was rarely seen, save when, with curtains drawn, it conveyed some Plague-stricken mortal to the pest-house. Wagons, laden with timber or stone, had disappeared, for men had no heart to build; and the half-finished structure sunk into premature decay. Carts, bringing provision, were not suffered within the gates; markets were held in the outskirts, where the seller would not touch the buyer's money, until it had been purified by passing through a vessel of vinegar. Similar precautions were used at the post office, which was so fumed morning and evening,—whilst "letters were aired over vinegar,"—that the people employed in it could hardly see each other; but, says the writer, who mentions that fact, "had the contagion been catching by letters, they had been dead long ago."[462] Grass sprung up in the streets, and a fearful silence brooded over the wide desolation. London cries, sounds of music, the murmur of cheerful groups, and the din of business had ceased. The lonely passenger, as he walked along, shuddered at the shrieks of miserable beings tortured by disease, or at the still more awful silence. Doors and windows were left open—houses were empty—the inmates gone.
Some dropped in the streets; others had time to go to the next stall or porch, "and just sit down and die." Men, who drove the death-carts, perished on their way to the pit, or fell dead upon the corpses, which were tumbled into the place of burial. A person went home, hale and strong—at eventide there was trouble, and before the morning, he was not. As the mother nursed the babe, a purple spot appeared on her breast, and, in a short time, the helpless little one was clinging to its lifeless parent.
The real horrors of the Plague-year were augmented by imagination. Men saw in the heavens portentous forms, blazing stars, and angels with flaming swords; on the earth they discerned spectres in menacing attitudes. Some fancied themselves inspired. One of these fanatics made the streets ring with his cry, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." Another, with nothing but a girdle round his loins, and bearing a vessel of burning coals upon his head, appeared by night and by day, exclaiming, "Oh, the great and dreadful God!" There were individuals, as amidst the plague of Athens, "who spent their days in merriment and folly—who feared neither the displeasure of God, nor the laws of men—not the former, because they deemed it the same thing whether they worshipped or neglected to do so, seeing that all in common perished—not the latter, because no one expected his life would last till he received the punishment of his crimes;"[463] but the greater part of the population looked upon the calamity in the light of a Divine judgment, and trembled, with inexpressible fear, at the signs of God's displeasure.
1665.