on. 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