CHAPTER I.

LIFE OF JAMES PARNEL.

As the chronological order of my work, is regulated by the decease of the party, the first subject presented to my notice, is JAMES PARNEL, a young man who died in prison, when only 19 years of age; and who may be considered as the protomartyr of our Society, in support of its religious principles.

He was born at Retford, in the year 1636 or 7, and received a liberal education, probably at the Grammar School there. Of his parents I do not find any account, except that the father was a tradesman, which is incidentally noticed in one of the son's publications.

Whilst James was at school, and for a short time after he left it, he appears to have been of a wild disposition. His account of himself at this period is: "I may well say with Paul, 'Of sinners I was chief;' for according to my years,

I was as perfect in sin and iniquity, as any in the town where I lived; yea and exceeded many in the same." But his mind appears to have been very early visited with the manifestations of the Holy Spirit and Light of Christ; by yielding to which, he became sensible of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and of the vanity of many of the customs of the world. This produced a manifest change in his conduct and behaviour, in consequence of which, they who had loved him in his vain conversation, hated him so much the more in his conversion. Many of his own relations were also much dissatisfied, and he became an object of ridicule in the streets, so that he was accounted as one not worthy to live; and some were so violent as to say, that he who killed him would do God service.

These sufferings he was, however, enabled to bear with great firmness, and dependance on that Divine Power which had visited his young and tender mind. This he gratefully acknowledges in these words: "He that called me unto himself, that I might no longer follow the vain courses of the world, nor set my delight on things below, but that I might serve Him in newness of life, He by his power kept me, and gave me strength to bear his cross, and despise the shame; so that neither foul words, nor fair words, could

cause me to deny what God, by his grace, had wrought in my heart."

In this state of mind he became dissatisfied with the forms of worship then most prevalent, and was desirous of finding a people with whom he could cordially unite. This desire it seems was granted him, for a few miles from the place in which he lived, he met with some serious people, "whom," he says, "the Lord was gathering from the dark world, to sit down together and wait upon his name." To these he joined himself, and they became objects of reproach in the country where they lived-" counting it," as he observes, "greater riches to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season."

He was now only fifteen years of age. After writing these words, my pen was arrested in its, progress, while I contemplated this extraordinary instance of the operation of divine grace in so early a period of life. But all things are possible to him with whom we have to do; and truly He may still be thus addressed: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength."

About this time, which was the year 1653, he found his mind drawn to visit some Friends in