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

‘There is a spirit which I feel which delights to do no evil, nor to avenge any wrong; but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end; its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exultation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations; as it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other: if it be betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercy and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness; its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth with none to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings, for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who through death obtained resurrection and eternal Holy Life.’

So died James Nayler. He was buried in ‘Thomas Parnell's burying-ground, at King's Rippon,’ in a green nook of rural England. Wrong and violence, and temptation and sorrow, and evilspeaking, could reach him no more. And in taking leave of him, let us say, with old Joseph Wyeth, where he touches upon this case in his Anguis Flagellatus: ‘Let none insult, but take heed lest they also, in the hour of their temptation, do fall away.’