ands, or weavers.[1] It is not improbable that the truth, lies between the two theories of friend and foe, and that the Baptist movement which swept through Germany and the Netherlands in the early part of the 16th century gathered into its embrace many of these communities of Waldenses. At the one extreme of this movement were Thomas Munzer, Bernhard Rothman, Jean Matthys, and John of Leyden; at the other were Menno Simons, and Dirck Philips. Between them stood Battenburg and David Joris of Delft. The common ground of them all, and about the only ground which they had in common, was opposition to the baptism of infants. The first party became entangled in the politics of the time, and ran into the wildest excesses. They preached to the peasantry of Europe, trodden beneath the despotic heels of Church and State, that the kingdom of Christ upon earth was at hand, that all human authority ought to be resisted and overthrown, and all property be divided. After fighting many battles and causing uotold commotion, they took possession of the city of Munster, and made John of Leyden a king. The pseudo-kingdom endured for more than a year of siege and riot, and then was crushed by the power of the State, and John of Leyden was torn to pieces with red hot pincers, and his bones set aloft in an iron cage for a warning.[2]
Menno Simons was born at the village of Witmarsum in Friesland, in the year 1492, and was educated for the priesthood, upon whose duties early in life he entered. The beheading of Sicke Snyder for rebaptism in the year 1531 in his near neighborhood called his attention to the subject of infant baptism, and after a careful examination
