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

bs they were led in droves to the slaughter and murdered, as is the devil’s manner, who has been a murderer from the very beginning. Many women were submerged in water, brought up again and asked if they wanted to recant; when they refused, they were submerged once more and drowned. Others were left to die of hunger in dark towers where they were robbed of the light of day. Still others were forced to experience the agony of lying tightly bound in deep caves among bats and vermin, where they rotted and were eventually destroyed. Many were starved for long periods before they were put to death. Some, who were deemed too young to be tried in court, were bound and horribly whipped. Many were treated with ingenious and unheard of cunning and roguery, with many sweet and polished words by priests, monks and doctors of the Scriptures, and with all kinds of false doctrine in order to win them; then again harsh threats, lies and terrible blasphemies were used to try to frighten them, all of which did not make them despair, however. Many, who suffered such severe imprisonment, sang songs of praise to their God, as though they were the happiest of people. Some, when they were led to their death, sang with a joyous and exalted voice as though they were on their way to a wedding and a meeting with the bridegroom. Many earnestly and sincerely admonished the watching crowd to repent and reform its ways. The rest, who escaped such treatment, were driven away and expelled from one country to another, from one place to another. They had to be like the owl and the night-raven, who dare not travel by day, and often they had stealthily to hide themselves and dwell amongst rocks and chasms, in the wild forests, or in ditches and the hollows of the earth. They were hunted down with dogs and hangmen’s assistants, and pursued, like the birds in the sky, in order to catch them. When our Lord Jesus Christ will come to hold judgment with his many thousands of angels on His great Judgment Day, the earth will not be able to hide all the blood it has swallowed ; when the sea will return again the dead which are in it, and those who have been burned to ashes will arise and come forth,— that will be a judgment different from the one now practiced by the world. Then the enemies will begin to confess and complain: “Oh, how foolish have we been! See how these people are counted among the children of God and share in the joys of the blessed. . . .” 28 ORIGINS b) “To the question of the persecutors, whence these people received the power to approach death with the joy of a bride meeting the bridegroom, the ‘brothers and sisters’ answered: They have drunk from the water which flowed from the sanctuary of God, from the fountain of life, and thereby acquired a heart which cannot be understood by the human mind. They have experienced that God helps them to carry the cross and have overcome the bitterness of death. The fire of God burned