426 CURE BY Y E TOUCH. 



* 



of contemporary records, that these private manipulators were 

 considered by some to trench upon the kingly prerogative. 

 Thus Dr. Thomas Allen* dissuades persons from applying 

 themselves to seventh sons of those strokers ; but these seem 

 .to have found much favour nevertheless. Some quality in 

 their times seemed to favour the transmission of influence 

 through manipulation. Nor was this manipulation peculiar 

 to the Old World, according to Dr. Cotton Mather, who, in 

 his Magnolia Christi Americana, states it was no rare thing 

 for the old set of Quakers to proselyte people merely by 

 * stroking them, or breathing upon them.' 



Properly investigated, a complete distinction is established 

 between these cures by private individuals and the cures 

 effected by sovereigns. In the former case the cure was 

 exhausting always needing effort, expenditure of vital force ; 

 in the latter case otherwise. On this point accept the testi- 

 mony of Leverett the gardener : < I am more exhausted by 

 stroking thirty or forty people, than by digging eight roods 

 of ground,' said he; whereas the circumstance has already 

 been noted, that Charles II. stroked, on an average, twelve 

 per diem for twenty years, thus making up a sum-total of 

 ninety-two thousand one hundred and seven a sufficient 

 proof that the kingly operation of stroking could not have 

 been exhausting. 



As lamps burn brightest just before their lights expire, so 

 was it thought by divers learned men, witnesses of the ex- 

 ceeding power of the divine gift as manifested by Charles II., 

 that with him that power would end. Guided by the doc- 

 trine of type and antitype, Dr. John Birdf was led to this 

 conclusion through Scripture analogy. 'Now, according to 

 Scripture and reason,' writes he, * as the precious oil ceased 



* ' The Excellency ; or, the Handywork of the Royal Hand : dedicated 

 to the Duke of York.' By Dr. Thomas Allen, sometime of Caius College, 

 Camb., afterwards physician to Charles II. 



f Ostcnta Carolina. 



