James' parents were well-to-do people, and wisely determined to give their only son a good education. They sent him, therefore, as soon as he was old enough, to the Retford Grammar School, to be 'trained up in the Schools of Literature.' James tells us that he was 'as wild as others during the time he was at school, and that he was perfect in sin and iniquity as any in the town where he lived, yea and exceeded many in the wickedness of his life,' until something or other happened to sober the wild boy. He does not say what it was. Perhaps it may have been the news that reached Retford during his school days, that the King of England had been executed at Whitehall, one cold January morning. Or it may have been something quite different. Anyhow, before he left school, he was already anxious and troubled about his soul.
School days finished, he sought for help in his difficulties from 'priests and professors.' But, like George Fox, a few years earlier, James Parnell got small help from them. Some of the priests told him that he was deluded. Others, whose words sounded better, did not practise what they preached. He says, they 'preached down with their tongues what they upheld in their lives.' Therefore he decided, out of his scanty experience, that they all were 'hollow Professors,' and could be of no use to him. A very hasty judgment! But little James was tremendously sure of himself at this time, quite certain that he knew more than most of the people he met, feeling entirely able to set his neighbours to rights, and yet with a real wish to learn, if only he could find a true teacher.
He says, 'I was the first in all that town of Retford which the Lord was pleased to make known His power in, and turn my heart towards Him and truly to seek Him, so that I became a wonder to the world and an astonishment to the heathen round about.'
He adds that, at this time or a little later, even 'his own relations became his enemies.' This is not surprising. A young man of fifteen who described his neighbours and friends as 'the heathen round about' must have been a distinctly trying companion to the aforesaid 'heathen.'
Possibly there was more than one sigh of relief heaved in East Retford when the first of little James's journeys began. It was to be only a short one, to 'a people with whom I found union a few miles out of the town where I lived. The Lord was a-gathering them out of the dark world to sit down together and to wait upon His name.'
These people were either a little group of Friends already gathered at Balby, or they may have been 'Seekers' meeting together here in Nottinghamshire, as they did in the North, at Sedbergh and Preston Patrick and many another place, 'not celebrating Baptism or the Holy Communion,' but 'waiting together in silence to be instruments in the hand of the Lord.' Truly helpful 'instruments' they proved to little James, for they sent him straight on to Nottingham, where a company of 'Children of Light' was already gathered, to worship God. 'Children of Light' is the first, and the most beautiful, name given to the Society of Friends in England.
When these Nottingham Friends saw the vehement, impulsive boy, his thin frame trembling, his eyes glowing, as he poured forth his difficulties, naturally their thoughts went back to the other lad who had also passed through severe soul struggles in this same neighbourhood, some ten or twelve years earlier.
They all said to him, one after the other, 'James Parnell, thou must see George Fox.'
'George Fox!' cried little James eagerly, 'I have never even heard his name. Who is he? Where is he? I will go and find him this very moment, if he can help me.'
At these words, all the Nottingham Friends shook their heads very solemnly and sadly and said, 'That is impossible, James, for our Friend languisheth in Carlisle Gaol. But we can tell thee of him.'