Eight days after the sacrifice of the preceding persons, a woman named Catharine was also sentenced to the fire. While yet in prison, she was greatly tormented by the monks, in order to make her apostatize, but she said: “I stand so firmly to my faith that for it, to the honor of God, I will suffer myself to be burned at the stake. What would you do for your faith? not much, I think. Hence repent, before you be brought to shame.”
Having been sentenced to be burned alive, and on her way to death, she was saluted by a brother. When she arrived on the scaffold, her hands were untied at her request. She then knelt down, and prayed fervently to God for strength, which he also gave her; for when she had arisen, and was tied to the stake, she boldly said: “I am put to death for the truth’s sake; whatever you are able to inflict upon me, I am freely ready to suffer.” A seducer then came up, to comfort and strengthen her, as he said, but she replied: “Be still, I am tired of your tormenting; forbear comforting me, and comfort yourself; for he whose name I suffer, shall now be my comfort.”
Thereupon, calling with a firm confidence upon God, she was burned alive in the sight of all men, steadfastly offering up soul and body to God, as a burnt sacrifice.
BROTHER JOHN BAIR, of LICHTENFELS, A. D. 1551.
In the year 1528, on the Wednesday after All-saints-day, Brother John Bair of Lichtenfels, was apprehended for the faith and the divine truth, and was confined for twenty-three years in a tower at Bamberg, in Franconia, on account of his constancy, as is seen from the following letter, written by him from there to the elders of the church. It reads thus:
“Dear brethren, I have received the writing tablets and the account of the doctrine and faith of our religion, as also six candles and pens; but most important, the Bible, I did not receive, as is written in the fore part of the tablets; but it is my request, that you will send it to me, if it can still be found; for I would like to have it above all things; if it can be according to the will of God; for I am sadly in want of it, and suffer great hunger and thirst for the word of the Lord these many long years. To God and his church I make this complaint; the days of my miserable imprisonment are twenty years, wanting eight weeks; the Wednesday after All-saints-day will be the anniversary. I, John Bair of Lichtenfels, the most miserable of the miserable, and the most forsaken of the forsaken, captive in Jesus Christ our Lord, again make the complaint to God and his angels, and to all his laborers and churches. Now, my most dearly beloved brethren and sisters in the Lord, pray to God for me, that he will deliver me from this peril and great distress, a distress which is unspeakable; this God knows, and I poor man, and you know it with me. Adieu.”
Written at Bamberg, in a dark dungeon, in the year 1548.
After this writing, he remained in prison three years longer, that is, twenty-three years in all; when, in the year 1551, he cheerfully fell asleep in the Lord, in his prison, and obtained the martyr’s crown.