The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[76] them away from worldly vanities to what they regarded as eternal realities, whose hand they imagined had for them swung back the pearl gates of the celestial city, and flooded their atmosphere with light from heaven; he, receiving their homage (not as offered to a poor, weak, sinful Yorkshire trooper, but rather to the hidden man of the-heart, the ‘Christ within’ him) with that self-deceiving humility which is but another name for spiritual pride. Mournful, yet natural; such as is still in greater or less degree manifested between the Catholic enthusiast and her confessor; such as the careful observer may at times take note of in our Protestant revivals and camp meetings.

How Nayler was released from Exeter jail does not appear, but the next we hear of him is at Bristol, in the fall of the year. His entrance into that city shows the progress which he and his followers had made in the interval. Let us look at Carlyle's description of it: ‘A procession of eight persons —one, a man on horseback riding single, the others, men and women partly riding double, partly on foot, in the muddiest highway in the wettest weather; singing, all but the single rider, at whose bridle walk and splash two women, “Hosannah! Holy, holy! Lord God of Sabaoth,” and other things, “in a buzzing tone,” which the impartial hearer could not make out. The single rider is a raw-boned male figure, “with lank hair reaching below his cheeks,” hat drawn close over his brows, “nose rising slightly in the middle,” of abstruse “down look,” and large dangerous jaws ’