This caused great offence through the land, and many thought that the war would not end well for the country, since they had maltreated the testimonies of the holy martyrs. However they finally again came to honor, since some judicious persons bought what there was left of them.”
It is manifest that the publication of this book was regarded as an event of great magnitude and importance, or the record of it, gathered as it is from such widely separated sources, would not have been so complete, and it is also plain that only religious zeal could have made the production of such a literary leviathan possible at that time. It was reprinted at Pirmasens in the Palatinate in 1780. A note in this edition says: “After this martyr book was received in Europe, it was found good by the united brotherhood of the Mennonites to issue this German martyr book after the copy from Ephrata again in German print, that it might be brought before the united brotherhood in Europe.” They secured the old copperplates of the Dutch edition of 1685, which had since been used on a work entitled Théâtre des Martyrs, published about 1700, without text, date, or imprint, and with them illustrated the publication. It thus appears that the uncomplimentary implication contained in the old query of “who reads an American book?” applies only to our English literature. The republication at that early date of a work so immense certainly marks an epoch in the literary history of America.
The war of 1812 called forth another American edition, which was published by Joseph Ehrenfried at Lancaster, Pa., in 1814, by subscription at ten dollars per copy. It is a folio of 976 pages, fifteen inches tall, and magnificently bound. There is a preface, authorized by many of the Diener and Vorsteher of the Mennonites in
