_'And so His will is my peace.'--JAMES NAYLER._
Children--come close. Let us hold hands and gather round the fire. This story must be told in the twilight, while the room is all dark except for the dim glow of the coals. Then, if a few tears do run down our cheeks--no one will see them. And presently the lamp will come in, the darkness will vanish, and the story will end happily--as most stories do if we could only carry them on far enough. What makes the sadness to us, often, is that we only see such a little bit of the way.
This is the story of a man who made terrible mistakes, and suffered a terrible punishment. But, through his sufferings, and perhaps even through the great mistakes he made, he learned some lessons that he might never have learned in any other way. His name was James Nayler. He was born in 1616, and was the son of a well-to-do farmer in Yorkshire. He was 'educated in good English,' and learned to write and speak well. His early life seems to have been uneventful. At the age of 22 he married, and settled near Wakefield with his young wife, Anne. After a few years of happy married life, the long dispute between King Charles and his Parliament finally broke out into Civil War. The old peaceful life of the countryside was at an end. Everywhere men were called upon to take sides and to arm. James Nayler was one of the first to answer that call. He enlisted in the Parliamentary Army under Lord Fairfax, and spent the next nine or ten years as a soldier. Under General Lambert he rose to be quartermaster, and the prospect of attaining still higher military rank was before him when his health broke down and he was obliged to return home.
A little later he made a friend. One eventful Sunday in 1652 'the Man in Leather Breeches' visited Wakefield, and came to the 'Steeple-house' where Nayler had been accustomed to worship with his family. Directly the sermon was finished, all the people in the church pointed at the Stranger, and called him to come up to the priest. Fox rose, as his custom was, and began to 'declare the word of life.' He went on to say that he thought the priest who had been preaching had been deceiving his hearers in some parts of his sermon. Naturally the priest who had spoken did not like this, and although some of the congregation agreed with Fox, and felt that 'they could have listened to him for ever,' most of the people hated the Stranger for his words. They rushed at Fox, punching and beating him; then, crying, 'Let us have him in the stocks!' they thrust him out of the door of the church. Once in the cool fresh air, however, the crowd became less violent. Their mood changed. Instead of hustling their unresisting visitor through the town and clapping him into the stocks, they loosed their hold of him and suffered him to go quietly away.