They had been ready for a great adventure. Then something had happened. They had slipped between the wall and the ship. And they had been obliged to strike out for themselves and keep above water as best they could.
They were in a terrible position. They had left the old church. Their conscience did not allow them to join the new faith. Officially they had, therefore, ceased to exist. And yet they lived. They breathed. They were sure that they were God’s beloved children. As such it was their duty to keep on living and breathing, that they might save a wicked world from its own folly.
Eventually they survived, but do not ask how!
Deprived of their old associations, they were forced to form groups of their own, to look for a new leadership.
But what man in his senses would take up with these poor fanatics?
As a result, shoemakers with second sight and hysterical midwives with visions and hallucinations assumed the rôle of prophets and prophetesses and they prayed and preached and raved until the rafters of their dingy meeting places shook with the hosannas of the faithful and the tip-staffs of the village were forced to take notice of the unseemly disturbance.
Then half a dozen men and women were sent to jail and their High and Mightinesses, the town councilors, began what was good-naturedly called “an investigation.”
These people did not go to the Catholic Church. They did not worship in the Protestant kirk. Then would they please explain who they were and what they believed?
To give the poor councilors their due, they were in a difficult predicament. For their prisoners were the most uncomfortable of all heretics, people who took their religious convictions absolutely seriously. Many of the most respectable reformers were of this earth earthy and willingly made such small compromises as were absolutely necessary, if one hoped to lead an agreeable and respectable existence.
Your true Anabaptist was of a different caliber. He frowned upon all half-way measures. Jesus had told his followers to turn the other cheek when smitten by an enemy, and had taught that all those who take the sword shall perish by the sword. To the Anabaptists this meant a positive ordinance to use no violence. They did not care to dilly-dally with words and murmur that circumstances alter cases, that, of course, they were against war, but that this was a different kind of a war and that therefore they felt that for this once God would not mind if they threw a few bombs or fired an occasional torpedo.