reason and object was to have no government, but only from their own number to draw out and elect one.
"Again, the aforesaid Doctor Balthasar confesses that he does not at all believe in the sacrament of the altar nor in infant baptism.
"Therefore, Doctor Balthasar, on account of this crime and condemned heresy is condemned to the fire."[1]
Though urged to confess to a priest and receive the last rites of the Church before his death, Hübmaier steadfastly refused. On March 10th, he was led forth to his death, his wife (of whom it is related that "she was hardened in the same heresy, more constant than her husband ") exhorting him to fortitude. The story that he was borne through the streets to his execution on a cart, while his flesh was torn by red-hot pincers, does not rest on the best authority. We have the testimony of an eye-witness[2] to his end, and the details are self-evidencing. As he was led to the place of execution, he from time to time repeated for his own consolation verses of Scripture, and remained to the last "fixed like an immovable rock in his heresy." He was accompanied by an armed troop, and a large crowd, and
