Hans Huber, from the Horgerberg, was first imprisoned with eleven other brethren, for the faith’s sake, from which bonds he was delivered with his companions; but he was subsequently again apprehended, and imprisoned in a strong place at Othenbach; and as he was fettered and chained, there was no prospect for him to be released without the miraculous help of God.
In the meantime, his wife and her sister, two aged women, were driven into exile, also because of the faith.
The last, named Henry, had divers times also been severely persecuted for the testimony of Jesus Christ, and had also been imprisoned; but he was now confined with the others, in a way which made deliverance almost an impossibility.
They were all chained, and stripped of their usual garments, and dressed, in the aforementioned manner, for a mockery and reproach, in long gray coats.
Thus they persevered until the last of August of the year 1645, being the time when we heard of them for the last time; how it further went with them, we have not been able to ascertain.
In the meantime there cannot be withheld from them the name of pious witnesses of Jesus Christ; since they professed a good profession, and, moreover, suffered all this for his name’s sake. See _Tract, Mang., of the year 1645, completed the 15th of September_.
OF A CERTAIN WRITING FROM MACKENHEYM, BEING A DEFENSE OF THE PERSECUTED SWISS BRETHREN, OR REFUTATION OF A LETTER ACCUSING THEM, SENT FROM ZURICH TO AMSTERDAM, A. D. 1658.
When all the aforementioned outrages perpetrated on the Swiss brethren gave rise to much censure on the part of some people, against the authors of said outrages, a certain letter was sent from the city of Zurich to one of the merchants at Amsterdam, in which the cause of the persecuted brethren was represented in the blackest hues, but the cause of their persecutors, in the fairest colors; consisting principally in the assertion, that those who were persecuted there were quite a different class of people, and of another faith and practice, than their fellow-believers in the Netherlands, namely, that they were disobedient, stubborn, etc.
This letter having arrived at Amsterdam, it was found good to send the same (either the original or a copy of it) to the Swiss brethren; to the end that they might obtain from them a correct and true explanation with regard to this matter.
Thereupon they wrote an answer upon the 20th of March, old style, or the 30th of the same month, new style, A. D. 1658, and sent the same, together with the confession of their faith to the ministers of the church of God at Amsterdam.
Therein it is stated, among other things, concerning the slander of disobedience, that even the Zurich lords of both estates had often confessed to them (the prisoners), that they had been to them very dear and obedient subjects, that is in common or civil matters, yea, that in the matter of doing right they serve as lights and examples unto others. Again, that they had nothing to complain of them, save only that they would not go to church with them, etc.
It is then stated in said letter, that they had nevertheless been reduced to extreme desolation and misery, in regard to which these words are found:
“They apprehended the old and sick, women enceinte and in childbed, together with their innocent babes, and treated said persons in various ways, with great harshness and cruelty; yea, they seized all whom they could get into their power, so that at one time there were, in confinement, thirty-seven persons, of whom many men and women, in consequence of the dampness and long confinement, were very grievously injured in their health, and sixteen persons had to die in these prisons,” etc.
This letter was written at Mackenheym, and signed by six elders and ministers from Alsace (whose names on account of the present peril, we will not mention), in the year 1658, in the month and on the day given above.