CURE BY Y E TOUCH. 417 



soldiers. Upon which he making several exclamations of 

 'God save the King!' it reached his Majesty's sacred ears; 

 when our dread sovereign gave the weak and despairing man 

 his blessing, in the like words to these : 



<I see thou art not permitted to come near me, and I 

 cannot tell what thou wouldst have; but God bless thee, 

 and grant thy desire.' ' After which, and without the king's 

 stroking, the diseased man returned to the liquor he had for- 

 merly washed his sores with ; upon which the water wasted 

 until it was quite dried up. Still more wonderful to relate, 

 scales began to cover the bottle on its outside, and as they 

 did increase on the bottle, so did they diminish on the body 

 of the aforesaid Robert Cole. One day a lady, moved by 

 curiosity, to which the sex is prone, did essay to remove these 

 scales from the bottle. Robert Cole was distant at the time ; 

 nevertheless, as every scale was plucked from the bottle, so 

 was he filled with agonies even unto y e marrow. Now I 

 challenge all y e sceptics upon y 6 earth to produce an in- 

 stance more astonishing than this,' exclaims my authority. 

 Well he might ! 



The result will, I think, demonstrate beyond cavil that 

 his dread Majesty, the royal martyr, could cure not only with- 

 out aid of gold, but even without imposition of hands, so lively 

 was the divine power of healing in that royal person. 



Divers ill-disposed subjects, revilers of the divine power, 

 sought to make it appear that the sole efficacy of the process 

 was referable to the sign of the cross wherewith it was ac- 

 companied. Herein, however, the same do egregiously err, 

 as the following testimony shall prove : the virgin Queen, of 

 blessed memory, never used the sign of the cross, nor was 

 that popish emblem again used until the reign of James II. 

 Nevertheless, the divine power of cure never streamed so 

 prodigally from the fingers' ends of British sovereigns, as 

 when the sign of the cross was no longer used ; notably from 

 the hands of his Majesty Charles II. 



EE 



