This little volume—little when compared to the ponderous Martyr-book—gives an account of the persecution in Zurich between the years 1635 and 1645. Many of the persons mentioned in the hymn-book as suffering at that time appear to be of families now found in Lancaster County,—not merely from the hymn-book’s being preserved here, but especially because some of the surnames are the same as are now found here, or only slightly different. Thus we have Landis, Meylin, Strickler, Bachmann; and Gut, now Good; Müller, now Miller; Baumann, now Bowman.
Mention is made of about eighteen persons who died in prison during this persecution, in the period of nine or ten years. Proclamation was made from the pulpits forbidding the people to afford shelter to the Baptists: even their own children who harbored them were liable to be fined,—as Hans Müller’s wife and children, who were fined forty pounds because “they showed mercy to their dear father.”
The hymn-book states that the Gelehrte (the learned or the clergy?) accompanied the captors, running day and night with their servants. Many of the persecuted fell into the power of the authorities,—men and women, the pregnant, the nursing mother, the sick.
In the midst of this, the authorities of Amsterdam, themselves Calvinists or Reformed, being moved by the solicitations of the Baptists of Amsterdam, sent a respectful petition to the burgomaster and council of Zurich to mitigate the persecution; but the petition, it is said, excited an unfriendly and irritating answer.
It seems that some of the Baptists, harassed in Zurich, took refuge in Berne; and about the time that the persecution in Zurich came to a close, or about 1645, it is stated that “those of Berne” threatened the Baptists. About four years after, “those of Schaffhausen” issued an edict against the people called Anabaptists.[17]
Only a few years later, or in 1653, as we read in the Martyr-book, there was another persecution elsewhere. The record says, in substance, “As a lamb in making its escape from the wolf is eventually seized by the bear, so it obtained for several defenceless followers of the meek Jesus, who, persecuted in Switzerland by the Zwinglians, were permitted to live awhile in peace in the Alpine districts, under a Roman Catholic prince, Willem Wolfgang. About this year, however, this prince banished the Anabaptists, so called. But they were received in peace and with joy elsewhere, particularly in Cleves, under the Elector of Brandenburg, and in the Netherlands. ‘When they persecute you in one city,’ saith the Lord, ‘flee ye into another.’”[18]
About six years after, or in 1659, an edict was issued in Berne, from which extracts are given in the Martyr-book. If the edict in full brings no more serious charges against the Baptists than do these extracts, this paper itself may be regarded as a noble vindication of the Anabaptists of Switzerland at this era.
According to the substance of this Bernese edict the teachers of this people—i.e., the preachers—were to be seized wherever they could be sought out, “and brought to our orphan asylum to receive the treatment necessary to their conversion; or, if they persist in their obstinacy, they are to receive the punishment in such cases belonging. Meantime the officers are to seize their property, and present an inventory of the same.
“To the Baptists in general, who refuse to desist from their error, the punishment of exile shall be announced. It is our will and command that they be escorted to the borders, a solemn promise obtained from them, since they will not swear, and that they be banished entirely from our country till it be proved that they have been converted. Returning unconverted, and refusing to recant, they shall be whipped, branded, and again banished, which condign punishment is founded upon the following reasons and motives:
“1. All subjects should confirm with an oath the allegiance which they owe to the authorities ordained them of God. The Anabaptists, who refuse the oath, cannot be tolerated.