BUT IT HAS A HAPPY END
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.
As he departed, George Fox came upon another group of people assembled at a little distance. These were the men and women who had listened to him gladly in church, who now wished to hear more of the new truths he had been declaring. Among them was James Nayler, a man older than Fox, who had been convinced by him a year earlier. This second visit, however, clinched Nayler's allegiance to his new friend. Possibly, having been a soldier himself, he began by admiring Fox's courage. Here was a man who refused to strike a single blow in self-defence. He was apparently quite ready to let the angry mob do what they would, and yet in the end he managed to quell their rage by the force of his own spiritual power. The Journal simply says that a great many people were convinced that day of the truth of the Quaker preaching, and that 'they were directed to the Lord's teaching in themselves.'
Hereupon the priest of the church became very angry. He spread abroad many untrue stories about Fox, saying that he 'carried bottles with him, and made people drink of them and so made them follow him and become Quakers.'
At Wakefield, also, in those days, as well as farther North, 'enchantment' was the first and simplest explanation of anything unusual. This same priest also said that Fox rode upon a great black horse, and was seen riding upon it in one county at a certain time, and was also seen on the same horse and at the very same time in another county sixty miles away.
'With these lies,' says Fox, 'he fed his people, to make them think evil of the truth which I had declared amongst them. But by those lies he preached many of his hearers away from him, for I was travelling on foot and had no horse; which the people generally knew.'
James Nayler at any rate decided to become one of Fox's followers, and let the priest do his worst. It may have been at his house that George Fox lodged that night, thankful for its shelter, having slept under a hedge the night before. When Fox left, Nayler did not go with him, but remained quietly at home. Having been a farmer's son before he became a soldier, he quietly returned to his farming when he left the army. One day in early spring, a few months after Fox's visit, as James Nayler was driving the plough and thinking of the things of God, he heard a Voice calling to him through the silence, telling him to leave his home and his relations, for God would be with him. At first James Nayler rejoiced exceedingly because he had heard the Voice of God, but when he considered how much he would have to give up if he left home, he tried to put the command aside. Nothing that he undertook prospered with him after this; he fell ill and nearly died, till at last he was made willing to surrender his own will utterly and go out, ready to do God's will, day by day and hour by hour, as it should be revealed to him. 'And so he continued, not knowing one day what he was to do the next; and the promise of God that He would be with him, he found made good to him every day.' These are his own words. His inward guidance led him into the west of England, and there he found George Fox.
After this Nayler and Fox were often together. Sometimes Nayler would take a long journey to see Fox when he was staying with his dear friends at Swarthmoor. Sometimes they wrote beautiful letters to each other. Here is one from Nayler to Fox that might have been written to us to-day: