THE ANABAPTISTS AND THEIR DOCTRINES 245 As some of the rebellious provinces contained a majority of Catholics, a system of toleration towards them would be dictated by wise policy. If, therefore, they alone had been protected, history might be content with giving William of Orange credit for statesmanship only, although that kind of statesmanship was then almost as rare as toleration from principle. But his conduct towards other religious bodies disposes of the theory that he stood on any except the highest plane of thought and action. In proof of this, we may look at the experience of one of these bodies, the most interesting of them all, especially to Americans, as the reader will see when we come to trace the growth of dissent in England. Among the many sects brought forth in the early ferment of the Reformation, the Anabaptists have perhaps left the most unsavory reputation. First appearing about 1522, some of them had, twelve years later, been guilty in Holland of gross and immoral extravagances, which historians have fully pictured, and the remembrance of which has always clung around their name.* Such events it is characteristic of human nature to dwell upon, but corresponding stress has not always been laid on the subsequent history of this interesting people. In fact, their excesses were the work of but a minority of the sect, and were also of very brief duration. After a rule of a few months, their prophets were put to death, leaving behind them a numerous body of earnest disciples who had acquiesced in polygamous practices only from a conviction that they were divinely ordained. With their leaders gone, the offensive doctrines of the old dispensation were universally abandoned. *Davies's "Holland," i. 396. Most of the sect changed their name to Mennonites,* and they all confined themselves to tenets derived from the New Testament, which made them the most peaceful and inoffensive Christians of the world. Their most striking article of faith, the one which gave them a name, was that baptism should be confined to adults, including those who had been baptized in infancy by other denominations. But this, if the most striking, was not the most important of their doctrines. In early days they were composed almost entirely of the unlearned, who could understand the simple teachings of the Founder of Christianity more easily than those of his philosophic successors. Hence it was, perhaps, that, antedating the English Quakers by more than a century, they took the words of the Great Master seriously, and believed it wrong to resist evil, go to law, bear arms, take oaths, or assume any office of magistracy which might cause them to judge others. These tenets, of course, included the broad doctrine of entire separation of Church and State, and perfect liberty of conscience. Private ownership of property they at first also abandoned as unchristian, holding that all things should be in common.§ * They called themselves Mennonites, after Menno Simons, of Friesland, a new leader, but by others were still called Anabaptists. A phrase used by W. D. Howells when reviewing "My Religion," by Count Leo Tolstoï, in Harper's Magazine for 1886. "The Anabaptists in Switzerland," by Dr. Philip Schaff, Baptist Quarterly Review, July, 1889. § Davies's "Holland," i. 396. The Russian author, Count Tolstoï, in "My Religion," without alluding to the Anabaptists or Quakers, advocates these doctrines with great ability, as embodying the prin ciples of Christianity before the admixture of Greek philosophy or Roman paganism. WILLIAM PROTECTS THE ANABAPTISTS 247 What they professed they practised. An incident which occurred in 1569, during the rule of Alva, illustrates their ideas of returning good for evil. A poor Anabaptist was pursued by an officer of justice, who, under the order of the Inquisition, wished to bring him to the stake. The fugitive passed over a frozen lake, the brittle ice of which cracked beneath his feet. The officer, following hard after, was less fortunate. He sank into the deep water, uttering cries for help. No one else was near to save him, and so the hunted fugitive, at the peril of his own life, recrossed the treacherous ice and rescued his enemy from certain death. Then, giving life for life, he went back and met a martyr's doom.* Such a people had no political influence, and some of the Calvinists of the time thought their heresies worthy of the severest punishment. Zwingli, in Switzerland, had denounced their doctrine of adult baptism as deserving of death, and under his influence a number were executed there, while in Germany they suffered by the thousand. In Holland an attempt was made simply to exclude them from citizenship, and even Sainte Aldegonde, the accomplished scholar and friend of the Prince of Orange, was in favor of the project. How he was met is told in one of his own letters. "The affair of the Anabaptists has been renewed. The prince objects to exclude them from citizenship. He answered me sharply that their yea was equal to our oath, and that we should not press this matter unless we were willing to confess that it was just for the papists to compel us to a divine service which was against our conscience. In * Motley's "Dutch Republic," ii. 280, citing Brandt's "History of the Reformation," sec. 1, b. x. p. 500. "The Anabaptists in Switzerland." short, I don't see how we can accomplish our wish in this matter. The prince has uttered reproaches to me that our clergy are striving to obtain a mastery over conscience."* This was in 1577. In the next year the authorities of Middelburg, in Zeeland, attempted a persecution of the Anabaptists in their midst. This the prince at once arrested. He wrote to the magistrates reminding them that these peaceful burghers were always perfectly willing to bear their share of the common burdens, that their word was as good as an oath, and that as to the matter of military service, although their principles forbade them to bear arms, they had ever been ready to provide and pay for substitutes. "We declare to you, therefore," said he, "that you have no right to trouble yourselves with any man's conscience so long as nothing is done to cause private harm or public scandal. We therefore expressly ordain that you desist from molesting these Baptists, from offering hindrance to their handicraft and daily trade by which they can earn bread for their wives and children, and that you permit them henceforth to open their shops and to do their work according to the custom of former days. Beware, therefore, of disobedience and of resistance to the ordinance which we now establish."+ Thus did William of Orange protect even the members of this poor and despised sect. His influence was effectual, for we hear little more of any attempts at their persecution in the Dutch Republic.+ * Motley, iii. 206. Brandt's "History of the Reformation," sec. 1, b. xi. pp. 588, 589. † Motley, iii. 334. Brandt, i. 609,610. In Holland, the Mennonites, or Anabaptists, were exempted from military service in 1575, from taking an oath in 1585, and from ac DUTCH TOLERATION IN AMERICA 249 Some eighty-five years after this last event, a governor of the colony which the Dutch West India Company had planted on the Hudson River, in America, began on his own account a persecution of some harmless Quakers who had been driven from Massachusetts. An appeal was made to the home authorities at Amsterdam, who extinguished it at once by a letter containing these memorable words: "At least the consciences of men ought to remain free. Let every one remain free as long as he is modest, moderate, his political conduct irreproachable, and as long as he does not offend others or oppose the government. This maxim of moderation has always been the guide of our magistrates in this city; and the consequence has been that people have flocked from every land to this asylum. Tread thus in their steps, and we doubt not you will be blessed." In this manner did the principles of toleration established by William in Holland bear their fruits in America, twenty years before the great English Quaker carried them to Pennsylvania.+ cepting any public office in 1617. In Zeeland, freedom from military service and oaths was granted them in 1577, but there, at a later day, and also in Frisia, they paid a heavy poll-tax for the military exemption. Barclay's "Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth," p. 608. How they were burned at the stake in Protestant England we shall see in due time. * Brodhead's "History of New York," i. 707. + Penn himself fully appreciated the religious liberty which existed in the Dutch Republic. In 1686, a century after the death of William of Orange, he published a treatise entitled "A Persuasive to Moderation," an argument for liberty of conscience to all church dissenters. In this work he gives an illustration of what real liberty can accomplish. "Holland, that bog of the world, neither sea nor dry land, now the rival of the tallest monarchs, not by conquests, marriage, or accession of royal blood, the usual way to empire, but |