the time, of a weaver named Thomas
Shortland, who, with his wife Ann, had been convinced shortly before,
by their guest's ministry. In adversity also they were soon to prove
themselves tried and faithful friends.

Later, that same Sunday morning (4th July 1655), James went down the
High Street to Saint Nicholas' Church, and, when the sermon was ended,
preached to the people in his turn.

In the afternoon 'he addressed a very great meeting of about a
thousand people, in John Furly's yard, he being mounted above the
crowd and speaking out of a hay-chamber window.' Still later, that
same day, he not only carried on a discussion with 'the town-lecturer
and another priest,' he, the boy of eighteen, but also 'appeared in
the evening at a previously advertised meeting held in the schoolroom
for the children of the French and Flemish weaver refugees in
Colchester, who were being at this time hospitably entertained in John
Furly's house.'[28]

George Fox says, 'many hundreds of people were convinced by the words
and labours of this young minister.' But, far better than preaching to
other people, he had by this time learned to rule his own spirit.
Once, as he was coming out of the 'Steeple-house of Colchester, called
Nicholas,' one person in particular struck him with a great staff and
said to him, 'Take that for Jesus Christ's sake,' to whom James
Parnell meekly replied, 'Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's
sake.'

The journey his soul had travelled from the time, only three short
years before, when he had described his neighbours as 'the heathen
round about,' until the day that he could give such an answer was
perhaps a longer one really than all the weary miles he had traversed
between Retford and far Carlisle.

The two friends, George and James, had one short happy time of service
together, both of them free. After that they parted. Then, all too
soon it was George's turn to visit James, now himself in prison at
Colchester Castle, an even more terrible prison than Carlisle, where
only death could open the doors and set the weary prisoner free.
George's record of his visit to his friend is short and grim. 'As I
went through Colchester,' he says, 'I went to visit James Parnell in
prison, but the cruel gaoler would hardly let us come in or stay with
him, and there the gaoler's wife threatened to have his blood, and
there they did destroy him.'

An account, written by his Colchester friends, expands the terrible,