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e these obtained a second touch, and new gold, but their diseases have been seen to vanish, as being afraid of his majesties presence; wherein also have been cured many without gold; and this may contradict such who must needs have the king give them gold as well as his touch, supposing one invalid without the gift of both. Others seem also as ready for a second change of gold as a second touch, whereas their first being newly strung upon white riband, may work as well (by their favour). The tying the Almighty to set times and particular days is also another great fault of those who can by no means be brought to believe but at Good Friday and the like seasons this healing faculty is of more vigour and efficacy than at any other time, although performed by the same hand. As to the giving of gold, this only shows his majesties royal well-wishes towards the recovery of those who come thus to be healed."[175] He refers to some "Atheists, Sadducees, and ill-conditioned Pharisees" who disbelieved, and he gives the letter of one who went, a complete sceptic, to satisfy his friends, and came away cured and converted. Browne includes the following case which seems to him conclusive: "A Nonconformist child, in Norfolk, being troubled with scrofulous swellings, the late deceased Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich, being consulted about the same, his majesty being then at Breda or Bruges, he advised the parents of the child to have it carried over to the king (his own method being used ineffectively); the father seemed very strange at this advice, and utterly denied it, saying the touch of the king was of no greater efficacy than any other man's. The mother of the child, adhering to the doctor's advice, studied all imaginable means to have it over, and at last prevailed with her husband to let it change the air for three weeks or a month; this being granted, the friends of the child that went with it, unknown to the father, carried it to Breda, where the king touched it, and she returned home perfectly healed. The child being come to its father's house, and he finding so great an alteration, inquires how his daughter arrived at this health. The friends thereof assured him, that if he would not be angry with them, they would relate the whole truth; they, having his promise for the same, assured him they had the child to be touched at Breda, whereby they apparently let him see the great benefit his child received thereby. Hereupon the f
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