n the Gospel story. He tried to fast as Christ had done,
'He ate no bread but one little bit for a whole month, and there was
about a fortnight ... he took no manner of food, but some days a pint
of white wine, and some days a gill mingled with water.' This was when
he was imprisoned in Exeter Gaol with many other Quakers. One woman
among them fainted and became unconscious, and she believed she had
been brought back to life by Nayler's laying his hand on her head and
saying, 'Dorcas, arise.'

Some of his friends and the other women in the prison were foolish and
silly. Instead of helping Nayler to serve God in lowliness and
humility, they flattered his vanity, and encouraged him to become yet
more vain and presumptuous. They even knelt before him in the prison,
bowing and singing, 'Holy, holy, holy.' Some one wrote him a wicked
letter saying, 'Thy name shall be no more James Nayler, but Jesus'!

Nayler confessed afterwards that 'a fear struck him' when he received
that letter. He put it in his pocket, meaning that no one should see
it. But though Nayler did not himself encourage his friends in their
wicked folly, still he did not check them as he should have done. He
thought that he was meant to be a 'sign of Christ' for the world. He
was weak in health at the time, and had suffered much from
imprisonment and long fasting; so it can be said in excuse that his
mind may have been clouded, and that perhaps he did not altogether
understand what was being done.

The real sadness of this story is that we cannot excuse him
altogether. Some of the blame for the silly and foolish and wicked
things that were done around him does, and must, belong to him too. He
ought to have known and to have forbidden it all from the beginning.
George Fox and the other steady Friends of course did not approve of
these wild doings of James Nayler and his friends. George Fox came to
see James Nayler in prison at Exeter, and reproved him for his errors.
James Nayler was proud and would not listen to rebukes, though he
offered to kiss George Fox at parting. But Fox, who was 'stiff as a
tree and pure as a bell,' would not kiss any man, however much he
loved him, who persisted in such wrong notions. The two friends parted
very sorrowfully, and with a sad heart Fox returned to the inn on
Exeter Bridge. Not all the 'Seven Stars' on its signboard could shine
through this cloud.

After this, things grew worse. Nayler persisted in his idea that he
wa