She therefore set Annie to washing clothes, and, turning her back upon her, gave her opportunity to escape.
Annie’s husband was not a Baptist; nevertheless, he was so friendly as to prepare a hiding-place for her, into which she could go down, if the persecutors came, by means of a trap-door; and she was never taken prisoner again.
[40] The Herald of Truth, a Mennonite paper of this country, under the date of July, 1873, contains a “Letter of Authority,” beginning, “We, the Bishops and Directors of the entire body of the Swiss Mennonites in the colonies of Kotusufka, in the district (county or canton) of Schitomir, state of Volkinien, Russia.”
This Letter of Authority concerns the proposed migration above alluded to. Of the six names signed thereto, one at least appears to belong also to this county of Lancaster, where it is now sometimes written Graybill; in the Russian letter Krehbiehl. A similar name is found among the Schwenckfelders, who were of Silesian origin.
[41] See the article “[Ephrata],” in this volume.
[42] See article “[Ephrata]” in this volume.
[43] Our “Dutch”—all of them, I believe—use the singular pronoun “du,” thou.
[44] A friend tells me that he once heard a discourse from a celebrated Dunker preacher, named Sarah Reiter. She was allowed to preach, it seems, by a liberal construction of Paul’s celebrated edict, because she was unmarried. Even when afterward married, by a more liberal construction still, the liberty to preach was not forbidden her. Possibly it was assumed that her husband at home was not able to answer all her questions upon spiritual matters. She removed to Ohio.
In the Encyclopædia Americana the following are given as propositions of some of the former Anabaptists: “Impiety prevails everywhere. It is therefore necessary that a new family of holy persons should be founded, enjoying without distinction of sex the gift of prophecy, and skill to interpret divine revelations. Hence they need no learning, for the internal word is more than the outward expression.”
At this time, however, while our German Baptists still believe in an unpaid, untaught ministry, none of them, I think, hold to the doctrine that the gift of prophecy or preaching is without distinction of sex. In this respect, George Fox seems to have agreed with the early Anabaptists just mentioned.