iately filled everybody's mouths with one preparation or
other, such as the old women directed, and some, perhaps, as physicians
directed, in order to prevent infection by the 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,[282] balsamics,[283] and a 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
meetinghouses 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[284] no longer than it[285] 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 mean time, 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