The king of terrors sweeping into the eternal world so many thousands, is a picture which must excite in the mind of the Christian solemn emotions. It is pleasing, however, to learn from Vincent how tranquilly God's people departed in that season of Divine judgment. "They died with such comfort as Christians do not ordinarily arrive unto, except when they are called forth to suffer martyrdom for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Some who have been full of doubts, and fears, and complaints, whilst they have lived and been well, have been filled with assurance, and comfort, and praise, and joyful expectations of glory, when they have been laid on their death-beds by this disease; and not only more growing Christians, who have been more ripe for glory, have had their comforts, but also some younger Christians, whose acquaintance with the Lord hath been of no long standing." There were persons, however, who had lived through a course of profligacy, who, so far from being led to repentance by the awful dispensation they witnessed, only plunged into deeper excesses, driving away care by riot and intemperance, or availing themselves of the confusion of the times to commit robbery. The immorality, daring presumption, and reckless wickedness of a portion of the people during the London plague, as in the plague at Florence in 1348, and the plague at Athens, described by Thucydides, prove the depravity of the human heart, and the inefficacy of afflictions or judgments, if unaccompanied by Divine grace, to melt or change it. We learn, however, that by the preaching of the gospel some were graciously renewed and saved. Baxter informs us, that "abundance were converted from their carelessness, impenitency, and youthful lusts and vanities, and religion took such a hold on many hearts as could never afterwards be loosed." The parish churches were in several instances forsaken by their occupants, but many godly men who had been ejected by the Uniformity Act, now came forward, with their characteristic disinterestedness and zeal, to supply their brethren's lack of service. Vincent, already mentioned, with Clarkson, Cradock, and Terry, distinguished themselves by holy efforts for the conversion of sinners at that dreadful time. A broad sheet exists in the British Museum, containing "short instructions for the sick, especially those who, by contagion, or otherwise, are deprived of the presence of a faithful pastor, by Richard Baxter, written in the great plague year, 1665." Preaching was the principal method of doing good. Large congregations assembled to hear the man of God faithfully proclaim his message. The imagination readily restores the timeworn Gothic structure in the narrow street--the people coming along in groups--the crowded church doors, and the broad aisles, as well as the oaken pews and benches, filled with one dense mass--the anxious countenances looking up at the pulpit--the divine, in his plain black