O holy Father, sanctify the son of thy handmaiden in thy truth, and keep him from the evil, for thy name’s sake, O Lord.
Thereupon she sealed this with her blood, and thus, as a pious heroine and follower of Jesus Christ, she was received among the number of the witnesses of God who were offered up.
About the year 1539, there was also a godfearing peasant, named Tjaert Reynerts, who lived near Harlingen, in Friesland. He was brought a prisoner to Leeuwærden, where he had to suffer much for the truth, from the blood-thirsty papists. Proverbs 29:10. The cause of his imprisonment was, that, out of compassion and brotherly love, he had secretly harbored Menno Simon in his great misery, in his house. This having been brought to the notice of the enemies, he was apprehended and very cruelly examined; but he, as a valiant hero and witness of Jesus (Rev. 2:13; 20:4), would not forsake his Creator in this extremity, but freely and undauntedly confessed the faith of the everlasting truth against these tyrants and blood-thirsty men; on which account he, at said place, as a chief of murderers (according to the example of his Lord Jesus), was placed upon the wheel, though even his greatest enemies bore witness that he was an upright and pious man. 1 Tim. 3:7.
At this time the tyranny and persecution against the godfearing Christians was very dreadful, so that the envious papists, who hated the truth, caused likenesses of many of the principal teachers and overseers of the church of Jesus Christ to be made, and posted up on doors, gates, and other public places, promising a large sum of money, to such as should deliver them into the hands of the officers and executioners. And since the godfearing Menno Simon, who was zealous for God, was one of the principal teachers and elders in this bloody and perilous time, who, by his glorious admonitions, and writings from the word of God, so flourished, that none of his adversaries dared come before him in an open and free scriptural disputation, though he at various times and very earnestly requested it; through which sound doctrine and Christian admonition, and the power of the Most High, said Menno Simon drew, turned, and won to God, a great number of men, from dark and erring popery; yea, from the dumb idols, to the living God. Therefore the servants of antichrist were embittered the more against him, and, in order to quench and hinder this, caused, A. D. 1543, a dreadful decree to be proclaimed against him throughout all West Friesland; in which all malefactors and murderers were offered remission of their crimes, the pardon of the Emperor, the freedom of the country, and one hundred Carl Guilders, if they could deliver Menno Simon into the hands of the torturers and executioners. But though these envious men thirsted with such exceeding tyranny and great bitterness for his blood, and sought and persecuted him unto death, yet the Almighty God preserved him, and most miraculously protected him from the designs of all his enemies, so that they could not execute their tyrannical desires on him; for he died a natural death, as God had appointed it to him, at Wuestefeld, near Luebeck, on the 13th of January, in the year 1559, in his sixty-sixth year. Ps. 31:15; Job 14:5; Ps. 139:16.
He that desires, may read _Menno Simon, contra Gallius Faber, fol. 23_, where the offering of Tjaert Reynerts is referred to.[232]
[232] See Menno Simon’s Complete Works, English Edition, published by John F. Funk and Brother, Elkhart, Indiana, 1871, part first, page 8.