breath of others;
insomuch that if we came to go into a church when it was anything full
of people, there would be such a mixture of smells at the entrance that
it was much more strong, though perhaps not so wholesome, than if you
were going into an apothecary's or druggist's shop. In a word, the whole
church was like a smelling-bottle; in one corner it was all perfumes;
in another, aromatics, balsamics, and variety of drugs and herbs; in
another, salts and spirits, as every one was furnished for their own
preservation. Yet I observed that after people were possessed, as I have
said, with the belief, or rather assurance, of the infection being
thus carried on by persons apparently in health, the churches and
meeting-houses were much thinner of people than at other times before
that they used to be. For this is to be said of the people of London,
that during the whole time of the pestilence the churches or meetings
were never wholly shut up, nor did the people decline coming out to the
public worship of God, except only in some parishes when the violence
of the distemper was more particularly in that parish at that time, and
even then no longer than it continued to be so.

Indeed nothing was more strange than to see with what courage the people
went to the public service of God, even at that time when they were
afraid to stir out of their own houses upon any other occasion; this,
I mean, before the time of desperation, which I have mentioned already.
This was a proof of the exceeding populousness of the city at the time
of the infection, notwithstanding the great numbers that were gone into
the country at the first alarm, and that fled out into the forests and
woods when they were further terrified with the extraordinary increase
of it. For when we came to see the crowds and throngs of people which
appeared on the Sabbath-days at the churches, and especially in those
parts of the town where the plague was abated, or where it was not yet
come to its height, it was amazing. But of this I shall speak again
presently. I return in the meantime to the article of infecting one
another at first, before people came to right notions of the infection,
and of infecting one another. People were only shy of those that were
really sick, a man with a cap upon his head, or with clothes round his
neck, which was the case of those that had swellings there. Such was
indeed frightful; but when we saw a gentleman dressed, with his band on
and