THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

but wholly and alone for the sake of the Word of God which cannot be broken.’ After that she was led back to the prison where two monks visited her in order to induce her to repudiate her faith. Their attempts failed. The following morning she was killed. They had dragged this lamb to the Scheldt River, stuffed her in a sack and drowned her before the people arrived so that only a few saw what happened. But it was granted a few people to witness her death. She faced death courageously and, quite composed, said: ‘Father, into your hands I co mm end my spirit.’ Thus she was taken away, and to the honor of God it happened that, by God’s grace, many were gripped by the event. When the people streamed together and heard that she was already dead, it caused a great co mm otion among the masses; for it pained them as much as if she had been publicly executed. The people said: ‘Thieves and murderers are brought publicly before the people; but their [the judge’s] faithlessness is only the more apparent.’ ” q) ‘‘A huge book-burning ceremony was connected with the execution of Jorjan Simons and Klement Dirks in Haarlem in the year 1557. Jorjan was a book-hawker and had dispersed a great number of baptist 38 works. But when it became apparent that the books were beginning to burn, such a commotion arose among the people that the officials quickly withdrew. When they had left, the people threw the books into the crowd which eagerly picked them up. Thus it happened through God’s gracious providence that the truth, instead of being suppressed 39 as the officials had intended, was the more widely disseminated through the reading of so many books.” r) ‘‘Finally, even the officials and magistrates tired of the matter, for they disliked the cruelty of the bloodthirsty inquisitors.” 2. In the Grosse Geschichtsbuch unser Gemein (The Great History of our Church) of 1524 40 we read concerning the suffering of our martyr-fathers and the source of their power to endure all of this: a) These, who are a new cloud of witnesses for us and a pillar of fire that precedes us by night, these witnesses to the faith and Christian irgntro ORIGINS Old Evangelical Martyrs, before, during and after Menno's Time b) Martyrs in the Hague. c) Lysken Segeraon is drowned Persecutions 27 heroes of God’s truth, men and women, boys and girls, old and young, teachers and pupils,— in whose lives we see that God has poured out and imparted His grace and power in these end times as richly as was the case in early Christianity,— were executed through all kinds of torture and death. Some were stretched on the rack and torn apart so that they died from the torture; some were burned to ashes; some were roasted on pillars ; some were tom with red-hot tongs ; some were locked into houses and burned with them; some were hanged on trees, others, however, were executed with the sword, strangled and their bodies dismembered. Like lam