202 LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. Partly because they were then in the way of their calling, in which they could suffer with the greater peace ; and partly because they might so do some good before they suffered; andpartlybecause the people much desired it, and also were readier to relieve one that labored for them, than one that did nothing but hide himself; and partly because, when they lay in prison for preaching the gospel, both they and their wives and children were like to find more pity and reliefthan if they should forsake their people and their work." "And yet, when they had so chosen, their straits were great ; for the country was so impoverished, that those of the people who were willing to relieve the ministers were not able. And most that were able, were partly their adversaries, and partly worldly- minded, and strait-handed, and unwilling. And, alas ! it is not now and then a shilling, or a crown given very rarely, which will pay house-rent, and maintain a family. Thoseministers that were ùn- married did easilier bear their poverty; but it pierceth a man's heart to have children crying, and sickness come upon them, for want of wholesome food, and to have nothing to relieve them." "I heard but lately of a good man that was fain to spin, as women do, to get something towards his family's relief, (which could be but little,) and being melancholy and diseased, it was but part of the day that he was able to do that. Another, for a long time, had but little but brown rye bread and water, for himself, his wife, and many children, and when his wife was ready to lie in, was to be turned out of door, for not paying his house-rent. Yet God did mercifully provide some supplies, that few ofthem either perished or were exposed to sordid unseemly begging."* Baxter, notwithstanding the severity of this law, returned to Acton, just before it was to takeeffect. He found the church-yard like a ploughed field with graves, and many of his neighbors dead ; but his own house, near the church-yard, uninfected, and that part of his family which he left there, all safe. Just six months after his return, London was visited with another great calamity. On the third ofSept. 1666, commenced the "great fire." "The best, and one of the fairest cities in the world, was turned into ashes and ruins in three days' space, with many score churches and the wealthand necessaries of the inhabitants. It was a sight that might have given any man a lively sense of the vanity of this world, and all the wealth and glory of it, and of.the future conflagration of all the world ;to see the flames mount up towards heaven, and proceed so furiously without restraint ; to see the streets filled with people astonished, that had scarce sense left them to lament their own calamity ; to see the fields filled with heaps * Narrative, Part III. p. 4.
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