his tongue; he shall then throw him upon a cart, and twice tear his flesh with red-hot pincers; he shall then be brought to the city gate, and shall have his flesh five times torn in like manner." This fiendish sentence was executed, and the body was afterwards burnt to ashes. Satler's wife and several other females who were arrested at the same time were drowned. A number of brethren who shared the imprisonment with them were beheaded.* Rottenburg was celebrated for such scenes. In 1528, Leonard Schoener was beheaded and burnt there, and shortly afterwards about seventy more. Schoener had been six years a barefooted monk, but had left the convent through disgust at the wickedness of the order. He learnt the tailor's trade, and so gained his livelihood. After his conversion he joined the Baptists, and spent the remainder of his life in preaching the Gospel and baptizing throughout Bavaria.†

At Schwatz, eleven miles from Rottenburg, Hans Schlaffer, who had been a Romish priest, was beheaded. "He was put to the test by cruel tortures, and examined by the priests concerning infant-baptism; but he answered them from the Divine Scriptures, and showed, both by argument and by texts of Scripture, that it is commanded, and will be found throughout the New Testament, that men should first teach the Word of God, and they alone that hear, understand, believe, and receive it, should be baptized. This is the Christian baptism, and no re-baptism. The Lord has nowhere commanded children to be baptized. They are already the Lord's. So long as they are innocent and inoffensive, they are in nowise to be condemned. They also asked him on what foundation the sect of the Anabaptists properly rests. To which he answered, Our faith, actions, and baptism rest on nothing else than the commandment of Christ" (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19; Mark xvi. 15).‡ Baptist Martyrology, p. 27. + Ibid. p. 47. Ibid. p. 50.

Leopold Snyder was beheaded at Augsburg in the same "Not year. The sufferings in that city were very severe. only were they beaten with rods, but their backs were branded, and one had his tongue cut out for his so-called blasphemy. The few who recanted were adjudged to a yearly fine, and were forbidden for five years the exercise of civil rights."*

Eighteen persons were burnt in one day at Salzburg. Many more suffered in that city. Among them was a lovely young maiden of sixteen, who, refusing to recant, was taken in the arms of the executioner to the trough for watering horses, thrust under the water, and there held till life was extinct. The Baptists there "were called gardenbrethren, from their custom of meeting by night in the gardens and solitary places of the town, to escape the notice of their foes." †

Wolfgang Brand-Hueber and Hans Nidermair, both Baptist ministers, with about seventy others, were put to death at Lintz. "As to the said Wolfgang Brand-Hueber, there are still writings in the Church which show how faithfully he taught the Christian community; likewise, that obedience and submission should be rendered to magistrates, in all things not contrary to God. He held fast the true baptism of Christ, and the Supper of the Lord; rejecting the baptism of infants, the sacraments [that is, the Romish sacraments], and other anti-Christian abominations, as his writings (still extant) sufficiently declare."‡

Nearly three hundred and fifty persons suffered in various ways in the Palatinate, in the year 1529. The Burggraf of But his vicAlzey was particularly active on the occasion. tims were steadfast. "While some were being drowned, or about to be led to execution, the rest who were to follow, and were awaiting death, sang until the executioner came for + Ibid. p. 57. + Ibid. i. 103. Baptist Martyrology, P. 54.

them. They remained altogether steadfast in the truth they had embraced; and, secure in the faith they had received from God, they stood like valiant warriors. By them the nobles of this world and its princes were put to shame. On some, whom they would not altogether condemn to death, they inflicted bodily punishment; some they deprived of their fingers; others they branded with the cross on their forehead, and inflicted on them many cruelties; so that even the Burggraf said, 'What shall I do? the more I condemn, the more they increase.'

These persecutions were the fruits of royal and imperial edicts. Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, issued an edict in 1527, denouncing death to the Baptists. The priests were commanded to read it publicly in the churches four times a year for ten years. The Emperor Charles was equally embittered against them. The Edict of Worms, by which Luther was condemned, did not meet the case; but the deficiency was supplied at the Diet of Spires, in 1529. By the edict in which the decisions of the Diet were embodied, it was "clearly ordained that all and every Anabaptist, or rebaptized person, whether male or female, being of ripe years and understanding, should be deprived of life, and, according to the circumstances of the individual, be put to death by fire, sword, or otherwise; and whenever found should be brought to justice, indicted, and convicted; and be no otherwise judged, tried, or dealt with, under pain of heavy and severe punishment."†

At the time of the publication of this edict, a number of Baptists ("nine brethren and three sisters") were in prison at Alzey. "The mandate was then read to the prisoners, and, as they would not yield, they were, without further trial, in fulfilment of the Emperor's edict, led to execution; the brethren by the sword, but the sisters by being drowned in the horse-pond. While they were yet in confinement, a *Baptist Martyrology, 118. + Ibid. 116.

sister came to the prison to comfort the female prisoners. She said to them that they should valiantly and firmly cleave to the Lord, and not regard this suffering, for the sake of the everlasting joy that would follow. This visit becoming known, she also was speedily apprehended, and afterwards burned, because she had comforted and strengthened the other prisoners." *

"But," says Sebastian Franck, "the more severely they were punished, the more they multiplied. Peradventure many were moved by the steadfastness with which they died, or perhaps God marked the endeavours of rulers and tyrants to root out heresy with the sword." +

SECTION III.

Persecuting Tenets of the Reformers-German Diets-The Congregation at Steinborn-Leonard Bernkop-The Crown of Straw-Johannes Bair -Hans Pichner-Hans Breal-Baptists in Italy.

THE

HE Baptists continued to spread in Germany, notwithstanding the odium that was attached to them in consequence of the Munster business. They were plundered, thrust into dungeons, banished, numbers of them beheaded or burned alive, yet still they made head against all opposition, and multiplied everywhere. It is stated that "between the Eifel mountains on the Rhine [in Westphalia] and Moravia, not less than fifty churches are said to have been existing at this period [about the year 1557], some of them having from five to six hundred members. Fifty elders and ministers gathered at one time at Strasburg, from a district of about a hundred miles in circumference, to consult together on the interests of Christ's kingdom."‡ Baptist Martyrology, p. 117. + Ibid. p. 125. ‡ Ibid. ii. 125.