the work.

Nor was this charity so extraordinary eminent only in a few, but (for I
cannot lightly quit this point) the charity of the rich, as well in the
city and suburbs as from the country, was so great that, in a word, a
prodigious number of people who must otherwise inevitably have perished
for want as well as sickness were supported and subsisted by it;
and though I could never, nor I believe any one else, come to a full
knowledge of what was so contributed, yet I do believe that, as I heard
one say that was a critical observer of that part, there was not only
many thousand pounds contributed, but many hundred thousand pounds, to
the relief of the poor of this distressed, afflicted city; nay, one man
affirmed to me that he could reckon up above one hundred thousand pounds
a week, which was distributed by the churchwardens at the several
parish vestries by the Lord Mayor and aldermen in the several wards
and precincts, and by the particular direction of the court and of the
justices respectively in the parts where they resided, over and above
the private charity distributed by pious bands in the manner I speak of;
and this continued for many weeks together.

I confess this is a very great sum; but if it be true that there was
distributed in the parish of Cripplegate only, 17,800 in one week to the
relief of the poor, as I heard reported, and which I really believe was
true, the other may not be improbable.

It was doubtless to be reckoned among the many signal good providences
which attended this great city, and of which there were many other worth
recording,--I say, this was a very remarkable one, that it pleased God
thus to move the hearts of the people in all parts of the kingdom
so cheerfully to contribute to the relief and support of the poor
at London, the good consequences of which were felt many ways, and
particularly in preserving the lives and recovering the health of so
many thousands, and keeping so many thousands of families from perishing
and starving.

And now I am talking of the merciful disposition of Providence in this
time of calamity, I cannot but mention again, though I have spoken
several times of it already on other accounts, I mean that of the
progression of the distemper; how it began at one end of the town, and
proceeded gradually and slowly from one part to another, and like a dark
cloud that passes over our heads, which, as it thickens and overcasts
the air at one end, dears up at t