conduct in this emergency is not without interest: "Aware that any assemblage of people breathing the same air under a confined roof, and coming into immediate contact with each other, must be highly dangerous, he closed the door of the church, availing himself of a nobler substitute "not made with hands,"--a rock that projected from the side of a steep hill, near the village, in a deep and narrow dingle. This rock is excavated through in different directions, the arches being from 12 to 19 feet high. In the middle of this romantic dell, from one of these natural porticoes, three times a week did he read prayers, and twice on Sundays did he address to his death-stricken congregation, the words of eternal life. By his own immediate directions, they arranged themselves on the declivity near the bottom, at the distance of a yard asunder. This spot is deservedly still held sacred, and known by the name of _Cucklet church_." The following letter from this worthy clergyman, dated 20th November, 1666, energetically describes the calamity: "The condition of this place has been so sad, that I persuaded myself it did exceed all history and example. I may truly say that our place has become a Golgotha--the place of a skull; and had there not been a small remnant of us left, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrha; my ears never heard, my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. Now, blessed be God, all our fears are over, for none have died of the infection since the 11th of October, and all the pesthouses have been long empty. I meant, God willing, to spend most of this week in seeing all woollen clothes fumed and purified, as well for the satisfaction as the safety of the country. "Here has been such burning of goods, that the like I think was never known. I have scarcely left myself apparel to shelter my body from the cold, and have wasted more than needed, merely for example. As for my part, I cannot say that I had ever been in better health than during the time of this dreadful visitation, neither can I say that I have had any symptoms of the disease." During a considerable time the benevolent man and his wife had escaped the malady, but at last his excellent wife was smitten, and died in his arms at the age of 27--far from her children, who had been sent away at the commencement of the invasion. In 1813, Malta was visited with this fatal malady; when the scenes of the plague that desolated the island in the sixteenth century were renewed, notwithstanding all the sanitary precautions adopted by various governments since that period.