The plague epidemic reached Edinburgh in 1645.  At the end of 1644, before it reached the town, the blind minister Archibald Skeldie preached a sermon that still has many insights for facing pandemic diseases today. One of these lessons relates to the danger of excessive fear.

“A Christian, after death, will not much care what way he hath died; whether by fever or pestilence, by natural or violent death, seeing he is delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” (Archibald Skeldie)