The riotous pleasures of Charles II. and his favorites, naturally encouraged imitation among the citizens of London, and during the whole reign of Charles it was full of scenes of revelry. The excesses which had been restrained during the commonwealth, and the abandoned characters who, to escape the churchwardens and other censors of public morals, sought refuge in retired haunts of villany, now appeared in open day. The restoration had introduced a sort of saturnalia; and no wonder, then, that the event was annually celebrated by the lovers of frivolous pleasure in London, with the gayest rejoicings, in which the garland and the dance bore a conspicuous part. While habits of dissipation were too common among the inhabitants generally, vice and crime were encouraged among the abandoned classes, by the existence of privileged places, such as Whitefriars, the Savoy, Fuller's Rents, and the Minories, where men who had lost all character and credit took refuge, and carried on with impunity their nefarious practices. Other persons, also, who ranked with decent London tradesmen, would sometimes avail themselves of these spots; and we are informed that even late in the seventeenth century, men in full credit used to buy all the goods they could lay their hands on, and carry them directly to Whitefriars, and then sending for their creditors, insult them with the exhibition of their property, and the offer of some miserable composition in return. If they refused the compromise, they were set at defiance. The flood of licentiousness which rolled through the city in the time of Charles II. happily proved insufficient to break down the religious character of a large number of persons, who had been trained under the faithful evangelical ministry of earlier times, or had been impressed by the teaching of earnest-minded preachers and pastors who still remained. The fire, as well as the plague, in connection with the fidelity of some of God's servants, was, no doubt, instrumental, under the blessing of his Holy Spirit, in turning the hearts of many from darkness to light. The black cloud, as Janeway calls it, which no wind could blow over, till it fell in such scalding drops, also folded up in its skirts treasures of mercy for some, whose souls had been unimpressed by milder means.