The Inquisitors.—"We declare you to be heretics, worthy of being burnt alive, and we give you over to the secular arm."
Lambert kept silence; the prospect of death terrified him; distress and doubt tormented his soul. "I beg four days," said he with a stifled voice. He was led back to prison. As soon as this delay had expired, Esch and Voes were solemnly deprived of their sacerdotal character, and given over to the council of the governor of the Low Countries. The council delivered them, fettered, to the executioner. Hochstraten and three other inquisitors accompanied them to the stake.[314]
When they came near the scaffold, the youthful martyrs looked at it calmly; their firmness, their piety, their age,[315] drew tears even from the inquisitors. When they were bound, the confessors approached them: "Once more we ask you if you will receive the christian faith."
The Martyrs.—"We believe in the Christian Church, but not in your Church."
Half an hour elapsed: the inquisitors hesitated, and hoped that the prospect of so terrible a death would intimidate these youths. But alone tranquil in the midst of the turbulent crowd in the square, they sang psalms, stopping from time to time to declare boldly: "We will die for the name of Jesus Christ."
"Be converted—be converted," cried the inquisitors, "or you will die in the name of the devil."—"No," replied the martyrs, "we will die like Christians, and for the truth of the Gospel."
MARTYRDOM.
The pile was lighted. While the flames were ascending slowly, a heavenly peace filled their hearts, and one of them went so far as to say: "I seem to be lying on a bed of roses."[316] The solemn hour was come; death was near: the two martyrs cried with a loud voice: "O Domine Jesu! Fili David! miserere nostri! O Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!" They then began solemnly to repeat the Apostle's Creed.[317] At last the flames reached them, burning the cords that fastened them to the stake, before their breath was gone. One of them, taking advantage of this liberty, fell on his knees in the midst of the fire,[318] and thus worshipping his Master, exclaimed, clasping his hands: "Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!" The flames now surrounded their bodies: they sang the Te Deum; soon their voices were stifled, and nothing but their ashes remained.
This execution had lasted four hours. It was on the 1st of July 1523 that the first martyrs of the Reformation thus laid down their lives for the Gospel.
All good men shuddered when they heard of it. The future filled them with the keenest apprehension. "The executions have begun," said Erasmus.[319]—"At last," exclaimed Luther, "Christ is gathering some fruits of our preaching, and has created new martyrs."