Part 5

I had now an opportunity to examine the books. Standing upon a bench, I took down a great volume, well printed in the German language, and entitled “The Bloody Theatre; or, The Martyr’s Mirror of the Baptists, or Defenceless Christians, who, on Account of the Testimony of Jesus, their Saviour, Suffered and were Put to Death, from the Time of Christ to the Year 1660. Lancaster, 1814.” This book was a version from the Dutch (_Holländisch_) of Thielem J. van Bracht, and it has also been rendered from German into English. I was not aware, at the time, that I had before me one of the principal sources whence the history of the Mennonites is to be drawn,—a history which is still unwritten.

The books were few in number, and I noticed no other so remarkable as this. Another German one, more modern in appearance, was entitled “Universal Cattle-Doctor Book; or, The Cures of the old Shepherd Thomas, of Bunzen, in Silesia, for Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Swine, and Goats.”

While I was looking over the volumes, a little circumstance occurred, which, although not flattering to myself, is perhaps too characteristic to be omitted. My “Dutch” neighbors are not great readers, and to read German is considered an accomplishment even among those who speak the dialect. To speak “Dutch” is very common, of course, but to read German is a considerable attainment. I have, therefore, sometimes surprised a neighbor by being able to read the language. I am naturally not unwilling to be admired, and, as two or three sisters were standing near while I examined the books, I endeavored in haste to give them a specimen of my attainments. I therefore took a passage quickly from the great “Martyr-Book,” and read aloud a sentence like this: “Grace, peace, and joy through God our Heavenly Father; wisdom, righteousness, and truth, through Jesus Christ his Son, together with the illumining of the Holy Spirit, be with you.” Glancing up to see the surprise which my proficiency must produce, I beheld a different expression of countenance, for the attention of some of the thoughtful sisters was attracted by the subject-matter, instead of the reader, and that aroused a sentiment of devotion beautifully expressed.

I asked our host, “Have you no history of your society?”

“No,” he answered; “we just hand it down.”

I have since heard, however, that there are papers or written records in charge of a person who lives at some distance from me. From certain printed records I have been able to trace a streamlet of history from its source in Switzerland, where the Anabaptists suffered persecution in Berne, Zurich, etc. I have read of their exile into Alsace and the Palatinate; of the aid afforded to them by their fellow-believers, the Mennonites of Holland; and of their final colonization in Pennsylvania, where they also are called Mennonites. The Amish, however, seem to have been a body of a more rigid rule, with a preacher named Amen, from whom they are called. It has been stated that they took their rise in Alsace in 1693.

Nearly all the congregation had departed when my driver at last arrived. I shook hands with those that were left, and kissed the pleasant mother of our host.

SWISS EXILES.

The plain people among whom I live, Quaker-like in appearance, and, like the Quakers, opposed to oaths and to war, are to a great extent descendants of Swiss Baptists or Anabaptists, who were banished from their country for refusing to conform to the established Reformed Church.[9]

Some of the early exiles took refuge in Alsace and the Palatinate, and afterwards came to Pennsylvania, settling in Lancaster County, under the kind patronage of our distinguished first proprietor. William Penn’s sympathy for them was doubtless increased by their resembling himself in so many important particulars. Mennonites from Holland were also among the early settlers at Germantown.

If any one inclines to investigate the traditions of these people, let him ask the plain old men of the county whence they originated. I think that a great part of the Amish and other Mennonites will tell him of their Swiss origin.

Nor are very important written records wanting upon the subject of the Swiss persecutions. Two volumes in use among our German Baptists narrate the story. The first is the great Martyr-book, called “The Bloody Theatre; or, Martyr’s Mirror of the Defenceless Christians,” by Thielem J. van Bracht, published in Dutch, about the year 1660; translated into German, and afterwards into English.

The second printed record, circulating in our county, and describing the sufferings of some of the Swiss Anabaptists, is a hymn-book formerly in use among our Old Mennists, but now, I think, employed only by the Amish. It is a collection of “several beautiful Christian songs,” composed in prison at Bassau, in the castle, by the Switzer Brethren, “and by other orthodox (_rechtglaubige_) Christians, here and there.”

The first of these works, the Martyr-book, was translated into English by Daniel Rupp, the historian. I have seen no English version of the hymn-book. I met both these volumes in the Rhenish Palatinate in 1881. Bassau, mentioned in the hymn-book as the place where the brethren were imprisoned, I have supposed to be Passau, upon the Danube, in Bavaria. Is it not so written in the Martyr-book?

Near the close of the hymn-book is an account of the afflictions which were endured by the brethren in Switzerland, in the canton of Zurich, on account of the gospel (“_um des Evangeliums willen_”).

The first-mentioned work, the great Martyr-book, is a ponderous volume.

The author begins his martyrology with Jesus, John, and Stephen, whom he includes among the Baptist or the defenceless martyrs. I suppose that he includes them among the Baptists on the ground that they were not baptized in infancy, but upon faith. From these the great story comes down in one thousand octavo pages, describing the intense cruelties of the Roman emperors, telling of persecutions by the Saracens, persecutions of the Waldenses and Albigenses, and describing especially the sufferings which the Baptists (in common with other Protestants) endured in Holland under the reigns of Charles V. and Philip II.[10]

The narrative of the persecution of the Anabaptists of Switzerland by their fellow-Protestants is mostly found at the close of the volume. It comes down to the year 1672, and must therefore be, in part at least, an appendix to the original volume.

Allusions to the severe treatment of the Anabaptists of Switzerland may also be found in Herzog’s and Appleton’s Cyclopædias.

In the former work we read that Anabaptism, after a public theological disputation, was by the help of the authorities suppressed in Switzerland. And how thoroughly it was suppressed may be inferred from the statement in the latter of the population of Berne. In 1850 the population is given (in round numbers) as 458,000,—of which only 1000 are Baptists, 54,000 are Catholics, and the remainder of the Reformed Church.

In Appleton’s Cyclopædia (article Anabaptists), we read that Melanchthon and Zwingle were themselves troubled by questions respecting infant baptism, in connection with the personal faith required by Protestantism. Nevertheless, Zwingle himself is said to have pronounced sentence upon Mentz, who had been his friend and fellow-student, in these words: “Whosoever dips (or baptizes) a second time, let him be dipped.” “_Qui iterum mergit, mergatur._” This humorous saying seems to be explained in the Martyr-book, for we read that Felix Mentz was drowned at Zurich for the truth of the gospel in 1526. The persecution of such men is said to have shocked the moderate of all parties.

Upon the authority of Balthazar Hubmor (whom I suppose to be the Hubmeyer of the Cyclopædia), the Martyr-book states that Zwingle, etc., imprisoned at one time twenty persons of both sexes, in a dark tower, never more to see the light of the sun. This early Swiss Protestant persecution occurred, it will be observed, about 1526, and the latest recorded in the Martyr-book in or about 1672, covering a period of nearly one hundred and fifty years.[11]

At the same time that the Swiss Baptists were suffering at the hands of other Protestants, Anabaptists of the peaceful class were found in Holland in large numbers. The record of their sufferings and martyrs (says Appleton’s Cyclopædia) furnished a touching picture in human history. William of Orange, founder of the Dutch republic, was sustained in the gloomiest hours by their sympathy and aid.[12] That great prince, however importuned, steadily refused to persecute them.

Menno Symons, born at the close of the fifteenth or the commencement of the sixteenth century, educated for the priesthood of the Roman Catholic church, converted in manhood to the faith of the Anabaptists, became their chief leader. Mennonites and Anabaptists have from his time been interchangeable terms.[13]

It was about seventeen years after the drowning of Mentz in Switzerland, and while the Catholic persecution was raging in Holland, that in the year 1543 an imperial edict was issued against Menno; for both parties persecuted the Baptists,—the Catholics in the Low Countries, the Protestants in Switzerland. The Martyr-book tells us that a dreadful decree was proclaimed through all West Friesland, containing an offer of general pardon, the favor of the emperor, and a hundred carlgulden to all malefactors and murderers who would deliver Menno into the hands of the executioners. Under pain of death, it was forbidden to harbor him; but God preserved and protected him wonderfully, and he died a natural death, near Lubeck, in the open field, in 1559, aged sixty-six. It is further mentioned that he was buried in his own garden.[14]

About fourteen years after the death of Menno, or in the year 1573, we read in the Martyr-book that Dordrecht had submitted to the reigning prince, William of Orange, the first not to shed blood on account of faith or belief.

But the toleration which William extended to the Baptists was not imitated by his great compeer, Elizabeth of England. For the Martyr-book tells us that in 1575 “some friends,” who had fled to England, having met in the suburbs of London “to hear the word of God,” were spied out, and the constable took them to prison. Two of these were burnt at Smithfield, in the eighteenth year of Elizabeth. Jan Pieters was one of them, a poor man whose first wife had been burnt at Ghent; he then married a second, whose first husband had been burnt at the same place.

Thus it befell the unfortunate Jan that while his wife was burnt by Catholics, he himself suffered at the hands of English Protestants.[15]

The expression “sheep” or “lambs,” which is applied to some of the Baptist martyrs, alludes, I suppose, to their non-resistance. Thus, in 1576, Hans Bret, a servant, whose master was about to be apprehended, gave him warning, so that he escaped, but himself, “this innocent follower of Christ, fell into the paws of the wolves.... As he stood at the stake, they kindled the fire, and burnt this sheep alive.”

The next year after this, William of Orange had occasion to call to order, as it appears, some of his own subjects. The magistrates of Middelburg had announced to the Baptists that they must take an oath of fidelity and arm themselves, or give up their business and shut up their houses. The Baptists had recourse to William, promising to pay levies and taxes, and desiring to be believed on their yea and nay. William granted their request, their yea was to be taken in the place of an oath, and the delinquent was to be punished as for perjury.

In William Penn’s Treatise on Oaths it is stated that William of Orange said, “Those men’s yea must pass for an oath, and we must not urge this thing any further, or we must confess that the Papists had reason to force us to a religion that was against our conscience.”

About nine years after William had thus reproved the magistrates of Middelburg, or in the year 1586, the Baptists came to grief elsewhere. It is stated that those called Anabaptists, who had taken refuge in the Prussian dominions, were ordered by “the prince of the country” to depart from his entire duchy of Prussia, and in the next year from all his dominions. This was because they were said to speak scandalously of infant baptism.

About the close of the century, pleasanter times for the Baptists seem to have followed. “When the north wind of persecution became violent, there were intervals when the pleasant south wind of liberty and repose succeeded.”

“But now occurred the greatest mischief in Zurich and Berne, by those who styled themselves Reformed;” but others of the same name, “especially the excellent regents of the United Netherlands,” opposed such proceedings.

The Martyr-book says, in substance, “It is a lamentable case that those who boast that they are the followers of the defenceless Lamb do no longer possess the lamb’s disposition, but, on the contrary, have the nature of the wolf. It seems as if they could not bear it that any should travel towards heaven in any other way than that which they go themselves, as was exemplified in the case of Hans Landis, who was a minister and teacher of the gospel of Christ. Being taken to Zurich, he refused to desist from preaching and to deny his faith, and was sentenced to death,—the edict of eighty years before not having died of old age. They, however, persuaded the common people that he was not put to death for religion’s sake, but for disobedience to the authorities.”[16]

After the death of Hans Landis, persecution rested for twenty-one years, when the ancient hatred broke out afresh in Zurich.

The Baptists now asked permission to leave the country with their property, but this was not granted to them. “They might choose,” says the Martyrology, “to go with them [the Reformed] to church, or to die in prison. To the first they would not consent; therefore they might expect the second.”

This brings us to the era of the persecution described in the hymn-book of which I formerly spoke,—the book now in use among the Amish of our county.

This little volume—little when compared to the ponderous Martyr-book—gives an account of the persecution in Zurich between the years 1635 and 1645. Many of the persons mentioned in the hymn-book as suffering at that time appear to be of families now found in Lancaster County,—not merely from the hymn-book’s being preserved here, but especially because some of the surnames are the same as are now found here, or only slightly different. Thus we have Landis, Meylin, Strickler, Bachmann; and Gut, now Good; Müller, now Miller; Baumann, now Bowman.

Mention is made of about eighteen persons who died in prison during this persecution, in the period of nine or ten years. Proclamation was made from the pulpits forbidding the people to afford shelter to the Baptists: even their own children who harbored them were liable to be fined,—as Hans Müller’s wife and children, who were fined forty pounds because “they showed mercy to their dear father.”

The hymn-book states that the _Gelehrte_ (the learned or the clergy?) accompanied the captors, running day and night with their servants. Many of the persecuted fell into the power of the authorities,—men and women, the pregnant, the nursing mother, the sick.

In the midst of this, the authorities of Amsterdam, themselves Calvinists or Reformed, being moved by the solicitations of the Baptists of Amsterdam, sent a respectful petition to the burgomaster and council of Zurich to mitigate the persecution; but the petition, it is said, excited an unfriendly and irritating answer.

It seems that some of the Baptists, harassed in Zurich, took refuge in Berne; and about the time that the persecution in Zurich came to a close, or about 1645, it is stated that “those of Berne” threatened the Baptists. About four years after, “those of Schaffhausen” issued an edict against the people called Anabaptists.[17]

Only a few years later, or in 1653, as we read in the Martyr-book, there was another persecution elsewhere. The record says, in substance, “As a lamb in making its escape from the wolf is eventually seized by the bear, so it obtained for several defenceless followers of the meek Jesus, who, persecuted in Switzerland by the Zwinglians, were permitted to live awhile in peace in the Alpine districts, under a Roman Catholic prince, Willem Wolfgang. About this year, however, this prince banished the Anabaptists, so called. But they were received in peace and with joy elsewhere, particularly in Cleves, under the Elector of Brandenburg, and in the Netherlands. ‘When they persecute you in one city,’ saith the Lord, ‘flee ye into another.’”[18]

About six years after, or in 1659, an edict was issued in Berne, from which extracts are given in the Martyr-book. If the edict in full brings no more serious charges against the Baptists than do these extracts, this paper itself may be regarded as a noble vindication of the Anabaptists of Switzerland at this era.

According to the substance of this Bernese edict the teachers of this people—_i.e._, the preachers—were to be seized wherever they could be sought out, “and brought to our orphan asylum to receive the treatment necessary to their conversion; or, if they persist in their obstinacy, they are to receive the punishment in such cases belonging. Meantime the officers are to seize their property, and present an inventory of the same.

“To the Baptists in general, who refuse to desist from their error, the punishment of exile shall be announced. It is our will and command that they be escorted to the borders, a solemn promise obtained from them, since they will not swear, and that they be banished entirely from our country till it be proved that they have been converted. Returning unconverted, and refusing to recant, they shall be whipped, branded, and again banished, which condign punishment is founded upon the following reasons and motives:

“1. All subjects should confirm with an oath the allegiance which they owe to the authorities ordained them of God. The Anabaptists, who refuse the oath, cannot be tolerated.

“2. Subjects should acknowledge that the magistracy is from God, and with God. But the Anabaptists, who declare that the magisterial office cannot exist in the Christian church, are not to be tolerated in the country.

“3. All subjects are bound to protect and defend their country. But the Anabaptists refuse to bear arms, and cannot be tolerated....

“5. The magistracy is ordained of God to punish evil-doers, especially murderers, etc. But the Anabaptists refuse to report these to the authorities, and therefore they cannot be tolerated.[19]

“6. Those who refuse to submit to the wholesome ordinances of the government, and who act in opposition to it, cannot be tolerated. Now the Anabaptists transgress in the following manner:

“They preach without the calling of the magistracy; baptize without the command of the authorities; ... and do not attend the meetings of the church.

“We have unanimously resolved that all should inflict banishment and the other penalties against all who belong to this corrupted and extremely dangerous and wicked sect, that they may make no further progress, but that the country may be freed from them; on which, in grace, we rely.

“As regards the estate of the disobedient exiles, or of those who have run away, it shall, after deducting costs, be divided among the wives and children who remain in obedience.

“We command that no person shall lodge nor give dwelling to a Baptist, whether related to him or not, nor afford him the necessaries of life. But every one of our persuasion should be exhorted to report whatever information he can obtain of them to the high bailiff.

“And an especial proclamation of this last article shall be made from the pulpit.”

This Bernese edict, being read in all parts, was a source of great distress, and it appeared to the Baptists as if “the beautiful flower of the orthodox Christian church” would be entirely extirpated in those parts.

It was therefore concluded to send certain persons from the cities of Dordrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, etc., to the Hague, where the puissant States-General were in session, to induce them to send petitions to Berne and Zurich for the relief of the people suffering oppression.

The States-General, as “kind fathers of the poor, the miserable, and the oppressed,” took immediate cognizance of the matter.

Letters were written “to the lords of Berne” for the liberation of prisoners, etc., and to the lords of Zurich for the restoration of the property of the imprisoned, deceased, and exiled Baptists. The letter to Berne narrates (in brief) that “the States-General have learned, from persons called in this country Mennonists, that their brethren called Anabaptists suffer great persecution at Berne, being forbidden to live in the country, but not allowed to remove with their families and property. We have likewise learned that some of them have been closely confined; which has moved us to Christian compassion.

“We request you, after the good example of the lords-regent of Schaffhausen, to grant the petitioners time to depart with their families and property wherever they choose. To this end we request you to consider that when, in 1655, the Waldenses were so virulently persecuted by the Romans for the confession of their Reformed religion, and the necessities of the dispersed people could not be relieved but by large collections raised in England, this country, etc., the churches of the Baptists, upon the simple recommendation of their governments, and in Christian love and compassion, contributed with so much benevolence that a remarkably large sum was raised.... Farewell, etc. At the Hague, 1660.”

The letter of the States-General to Zurich is similar to the foregoing abstract.

Besides these acts of the States-General, several cities of the United Netherlands, being entirely opposed to restraint of conscience, reproved “the members of their society in Switzerland,” and exhorted them to gentleness.

Thus, the burgomasters and lords of Rotterdam, speaking in behalf of the elders of the church called Mennonist, whose fellow-believers in Berne are called in derision Anabaptists: “As to ourselves, honorable lords, we are of opinion that these men can be safely tolerated in the commonwealth, and for this judgment we have to thank William, Prince of Orange, of blessed memory, who established, by his bravery, liberty of conscience for us, and could never be induced to deprive the Mennonites of citizenship.

“We have never repented of this, for we have never learned that these people have sought to excite sedition, but, on the contrary, they have cheerfully paid their taxes.

“Although they confess that Christians cannot conscientiously act as officers of government, and are opposed to swearing, yet they do not refuse obedience to the authorities, and, if they are convicted of a violation of truth, are willing to undergo the punishment due to perjury. We indulge the hope that your lordships will either repeal the onerous decree against the Mennonists or at least grant to the poor wanderers sufficient time to make their preparations, and procure residences in other places.

“When this is done, your lordships will have accomplished a measure well pleasing to God, advantageous to the name of the Reformed, and gratifying to us who are connected with your lordships in the close ties of religion. Rotterdam, 1660.”

These appeals of the States-General and of the cities of Holland seem to have had very little effect, at least upon the authorities of Berne, for there arose eleven years later, or in 1671, another severe persecution of the Baptists in that canton, which was so virulent that it seemed as if the authorities would not cease until they had expelled that people entirely.