t, that nothing might be plundered; and
accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found in the house but that
young woman, who having been infected and past recovery, the rest had
left her to die by herself, and every one gone, having found some way to
delude the watchman and to get open the door, or get out at some back
door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew nothing of it; and
as to those cries and shrieks which he heard, it was supposed they were
the passionate cries of the family at this bitter parting, which to be
sure it was to them all, this being the sister to the mistress of the
family. The man of the house, his wife, several children and servants,
being all gone and fled; whether sick or sound, that I could never
learn, nor indeed did I make much inquiry after it.

MORAL EFFECTS OF THE PLAGUE

Here we may observe, and I hope it will not be amiss to take notice of
it, that a near view of death would soon reconcile men of good
principles one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy
situation in life, and our putting these things far from us, that our
breaches are fomented, ill blood continued, prejudices, breach of
charity and of Christian union so much kept and so far carried on among
us as it is: another plague year would reconcile all these differences;
a close conversing with death or with diseases that threaten death would
scum off the gall from our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and
bring us to see with differing eyes than those which we looked on things
before; as the people who had been used to join with the church were
reconciled at this time with the admitting the Dissenters, who with an
uncommon prejudice had broken off from the communion of the Church of
England, were now content to come to their parish churches, and to
conform to the worship which they did not approve of before; but as the
terror of the infection abated, those things all returned again to their
less desirable channel, and to the course they were in before.

I mention this but historically. I have no mind to enter into arguments
to move either or both sides to a more charitable compliance one with
another; I do not see that it is probable such a discourse would be
either suitable or successful; the breaches seem rather to widen, and
tend to a widening farther than to closing; and who am I that I should
think myself able to influence either one side or the other? But this I
may repeat again,