Death burst over England, defying all human skill to stay its deadly onslaught. It was a "calamity which was the most stupendous that ever befell this island." Having carried off some five million Chinese, it crept over Asia, Africa, and Europe, depopulating each city it attacked. It varied in form, but rarely in its fatal results. In England it was characterised by large boils and black spots, known as "God's tokens," from which it took its name, and ended with violent inflammation of the lungs and death. It might last three days; more often death ensued in a few hours. It attacked all classes: from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the poorest labourer, none was safe; it spread like wildfire through every village and town in England; it carried off mother and child alike. Homes were left childless, children fatherless; churches were left without pastors, monasteries without priors, convents without abbess or nuns.
"So they died! The dead were slaying the dying.
And a famine of strivers silenced strife:
There were none to love and none to wed.
And pity and joy and hope had fled,
And grief had spent her passion in sighing;
And where was the Spirit of Life?"
At last the plague was stayed, but not till half
