thousand, Prince of Peace, King of Israel, the Son of God. Their husbands shared in their infatuation, John Stranger writing to him, “Thy name is no more to be called James, but Jesus." To excited imaginations there was a recognizable likeness between the features of Nayler and the portrait of the Saviour, said to have been sent to Rome in the days of Tiberius Cæsar; and in the account of his trial Nayler is accused of studying to increase the resemblance by his manner of wearing his hair and beard. Unable to face the censure of his brother preachers, Nayler travelled westward, followed by a little band. He was imprisoned at Exeter, where these women knelt before him, and kissed his feet. Dorcas Erbury asserted in her evidence at the trial, that she died in Exeter prison, was dead two days, and that Nayler raised her from the dead; and she said that her mother was witness of the miracle. Fox coming to Exeter, visited Nayler and the other Quakers in the prison, and laboured for three days to convince him and his followers of their delusions, but in vain. In the end Fox refused to acknowledge brotherhood with the schismatics, and left them with something like an excommunication. Yet it does not appear that George Fox fully realised the pitch of insanity of which they were about to give startling evidence. When Nayler was released from the gaol, he journeyed by Glastonbury and Wells, attended by six of his followers. On the way the fanatics spread some of their garments in the road before him. Drawing nigh to Bristol one of these Quakers, who would not doff their hats to the Lord High Protector nor to the Chief Justice on the bench, walked bareheaded in the roadway before James Nayler. Another of them led Nayler's horse by

the bridle; two of the women splashed and waded knee deep in mud, one on each side of his horse; the others followed on the footpath; and so through the falling rain on that autumn day, the crazy company entered the city, chanting as they tramped through the mire," Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Hosannah in the highest." In the city they were immediately arrested, and the gravity of the offence led the magistrates to send them up to be tried by the Parliament. Their case occupied the House for about twelve days. In his examination Nayler answered ambiguously, and sometimes refused to answer at all. Asked "Art thou the Everlasting Son of God?" he replied, "Where God is manifest in the flesh, there is the Everlasting Son of God ; and I do witness God in the flesh. I am the Son of God, and the Son of God is but one." To a previous question, "Art thou the only Son of God?" he answered, "I am the Son of God, but I have many brethren;" yet he was not prepared to admit that the others were sent from God as he was sent. After his recovery he tried to think that his fault was limited to not refusing the divine honours paid to him by the women, and that he had not positively accepted and claimed the dignity they ascribed to him.

The sentences passed upon the women are not recorded, but they were imprisoned, probably also whipped. As for Nayler his sentence was severe enough, although many of his judges no doubt thought they were erring on the side of leniency in not sentencing him to be burnt for blasphemy. He was pilloried at Westminster, scourged to the centre of London, pilloried there, his tongue was bored with a hot iron, he was taken to

Bristol, whipped there, and then brought back to London to be imprisoned at hard labour during the pleasure of Parliament. His first whipping was so severe, that the tongue-boring had to be postponed for a week. Meantime the severity of the sentence moved public compassion, and petitions were sent both to Parliament and to the Protector for a partial remission. Cromwell sent five eminent ministers to visit him the day before Christmas, but Nayler was stubborn, and their report of the interview decided Cromwell not to interfere.

Shut up in Bridewell, after a time the unhappy man's sanity returned; and he heartily repented the scandal he had caused. Reproaching himself for lack of watchfulness, and for weak yielding to others, acknowledging that darkness came over him, and that he was under the power of the adversary, he does not excuse himself on the ground of insanity; and it is not easy to pronounce an opinion as to the exact nature of his mental disturbance. But no doubt hangs over the thoroughness of his repentance. How he got out of prison we do not know; but he was released before 1659, and obtained reconciliation with his brethren. He resumed his labours with his old earnestness and something of his former power, but his sufferings seem to have undermined his constitution, and in 1660 he died, while on the road journeying to his home in the north.

CHAPTER VIII.

MIRACLES AND PROPHECIES.

A DIVINE message to men may conceivably be accredited by external signs, or rely solely upon its internal evidence appealing to the witness in every man's conscience. The early Quakers, while fully accepting the common belief of their age in the miracles and predictions recorded in the Scriptures, founded their own claims to be received as the messengers of God entirely upon the character of their message. Isaac Penington says, "It is likewise excepted against us that we do not work miracles;" and replies that it was enough for them to feel and live in the moving of the power of God's Spirit. In a great dispute at Amsterdam between. the famous Baptist, Dr. Galenus Abrahams, on the one side, and Penn, Barclay, and Fox on the other, Abrahams laid it down as incontrovertible that miracles are required to accredit a messenger from God. Penn argued that the Christian religion having been once already confirmed by miracles, a repetition of the proof was unnecessary. On quaker principles, indeed, it is easier to see that miracles are unnecessary now than that they were necessary at any time. The child of the Light was convinced by the Light, which was for him a perfect proof; and he believed that a spark of the same divine Light was shining in every human heart, only

requiring to be attended to and obeyed, in order to increase to the same clear and convincing Light as he himself enjoyed. When this attention and obedience were given, miracles were not needed: if the divine Light were neglected and disobeyed, the plainest miracles would not convince.

Quakerism being thus on its own showing independent of external evidence, one would not expect to meet with miraculous events in its history. But the Children of the Light were greatly influenced by Scripture precedent. They believed without question the inspiration of the Bible; they believed that prophets and apostles healed the sick, raised the dead, foretold the future; they believed that God had given to them the same Spirit; naturally the occurrence of similar signs in connection with their ministry could not seem incredible to them. Their detractors accused them of expecting and attempting miracles;1 and the crazy women who buzzed around Nayler gave some countenance to the charge; but these were disavowed by the Quakers, and must not be taken as representative. The great majority of their leaders, either by direct statements, such as those of Penington and Penn just quoted, or by refraining from laying claim to miraculous powers in their Church, accepted the fact that miracles did not occur within their knowledge. George Fox, however, held a somewhat different position. He did not strain after miracles; he did not appeal to them as evidences; he rarely, if ever, mentioned them in his discourses or in the writings published during his life; but in his

1 The Fanatick History: or an Exact Relation and Account of the Old Anabaptists and New Quakers. London, 1660. Chap. v.