Lecture 14: The Birth of the Hutterites (Part 2)

Lesson Transcript

Quick little devotion. I think it'll kind of make sense towards the end of this study, as I hope to get to it. In the first weeks here, I was going through this devotion. It's by E. Stanley Jones. And he had this particular thing about history and tradition. And I thought it was a good, subtle rebuke to me, and I'll bring it to you as well. And I'll just cut in where he says here. He talks about this professor giving up Christianity, and the professor says, "I never consciously gave up a religious belief.

It was as if I had put my belief into a drawer, and when I came back to look for them, the drawer was empty." Then he says this: "The thing has happened to this generation that happened to three generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob could say—my eyes are getting a little bad these days—Jacob could say, 'My father's God, the God of Abraham, the awe of Isaac.'" So Jacob could say, "My father's God, the God of Abraham, the awe of Isaac." That's in Genesis 31, a Moffatt translation he used.

"God was God to Abraham. He had ventured forth with him as friend. He was intimate and firsthand and real. But in the next generation, God was not 'God of Isaac,' but only the 'awe of Isaac.' He had faded and become secondhand. Still, Isaac stood in awe of his father's God. In the third generation, in Jacob, the result of the gradual fading of God began to be shown in the decaying morals of Jacob. Moral rottenness appeared. He stole his brother's birthright.

He was ready to take the main chance without regard to God. The same thing has happened with us. Our forefathers had a firsthand experience of God through revival. The next generation clung to the church for their father's sake, but God was only the awe, the afterglow of a fading faith. The third generation is reaping the results of a fading faith, which is producing decaying morals and a decaying civilization. Our loss of God is working out in moral decay.

We are going to pieces morally, for we have gone to pieces spiritually. We have lost God and have thus lost the basis of morals. Jacob then met God on Jabbok's bank in the midnight rustle and emerged a new man. Unless we, like Jacob, find a renewal in finding God, we're done for. Amen, huh? So when we look at—it's a good thing to talk about Jesus, and it's good to talk about people that talk about Jesus, and that's what history is.

And it's good to talk about people that talk about people that talk about Jesus, but all in the center must still completely come to this becoming new and alive and Christ being alive within us in every generation. So it's just a rebuke I take to myself. I like history, and I have to remind her that the target is not here. Still, the target is here. You see what I'm saying? All right.

So let's get back to the Hutterites here, and we're going to see some of that, how it works itself out in a movement as they go through time. By their own words, they say these types of things. Okay. We picked it up, and we ended yesterday with the statement of faith that we were looking at that comes into page 265 in volume one of the Chronicles. And then we're going to go right in to now start watching some pretty hard years with what the Hutterites have gone through.

And you're thinking, "Well, I thought it was hard already." That's what I thought. When I get to the part here that says the golden years, I think that's the golden years. I mean, people are still getting chopped up. So I mean, I guess it's a matter of semantics here, but I'm going to take you through this, and the whole point is to go on a journey with these people. One of the blessed things of the Hutterites was they kept these chronicles. I wish every group did this. So you can watch them as they go through.

And one of the most impressive things about these chronicles is they're full of their mistakes. "Well, this was a bad idea. We did this. This was dumb," and that type of thing. And it's good to see that. And maybe then we can see a reflection of some of the mistakes that we made. But we have that fiery zeal, that missionary passion, that desire to follow Christ, and now we're going through, and we're going to see how this works itself out.

So in 1547 to 1553, you see there on page 11, we enter the second wave of persecution. In 1545, the king decided that unless we give up living in community, then we would be expelled from Moravia. And they mentioned this, and they were struggling with it. "Should we do this? It's getting so bad. I think we should just stop." And the king said, "You can be in groups of five to seven people." Well, hardly our families could fit in five to seven people.

It was an obvious thing just to divide up the Anabaptists that were there. And then when King Charles V came in, and this is a quote from the Chronicles, I thought it was funny, "It was out, out with us." And those exclamation points are that way. And so unfortunately, all that we talked about yesterday with the development of those communities, all the work they had done, start over. And on the road again they went.

It was a hard time, but I appreciate the spirit of prayer that I see coming out from these brethren. It says here on page 297 in the Chronicles, it says, "We called upon God and asked him if his will was for us to remain together, to show us which way to go in our need and to care for those who trust in him but are deserted by everyone else. The Lord in his mercy showed us a way out, for we were accepted in Hungary." So they got a little chance.

Remember we were talking about the Islamic invasion that was happening at this time. Already they were taking Hungary, Yugoslavia, and all these areas, and we're going to see many times through today that the brothers found easier time with the Islam than they did with the Reformers or with the Catholics. Sad to say. And Hungary was already a place, and so for a little gap, they let them in. But the gap didn't last long. And while they were there, while they were there, they quickly changed their mind.

As soon as they got things built, they changed their mind, and they started to have to kick them out. And it was some pretty bad times for them as well. Just a few thoughts here, how things were bad. This is page 302 in the first Chronicles. The first night they camped out in this particular area, and they had no place to stay. They lived like animals and lived like in the wild. They were wondering what to do with themselves.

In page 306, it went on to say that many of the believers then had to stay away from houses and flee into the woods and the mountains in the cold of the winter. It says they dug holes in the earth to live in like foxes. Hard such conditions were that they would have endured it all thankfully if only they would have been left alone. But even then, when they were digging holes to stay in, even then the persecution kept going.

When they gave them a certain amount of time, the Hungarians there actually built some gallows, you know what you hang people with, in front of their doors and said, "You have till such and such time to be out or you'll be hanging from these gallows." And they could see from their attitudes they were meaning it. You went in here, so there's even been found some of these areas living in holes, and here is an area in Moravia where they've done some where they've found these places.

And these Hutterites actually built like caves in places where they could hide from this terrible time of persecution. And we're going to start with the handout from yesterday, page 11 or 1. And it says, "This would have been okay. Okay, we had to dig this by hand. We were living like animals. But even then, in Puppets, which is this, where believers were living in holes underground, some godless men built a fire at the entrance and tried to suffocate them and smoke them out. But they were stopped and driven away.

Thieving gangs would chase believers out of thickets and woods and force them to move on. Around the Mayburg, many lived with the children in holes among the bushes for a time. They had also lived in the rocky crevices of caves and cliffs in Moravia and wherever they could find. They had a little house still left in Hungary that had 250 children living in one house, as well as sick and the old, lame and the blind.

The brothers in this area supplied them with food, sending them bread and keeping up with brotherly love. And they were just hanging on for survival now as they got kicked out of this particular area. And it was hard times. I have here that the year 1546 was a difficult time for the Hutterites indeed. King Ferdinand made a visit to Moravia. Remember him? He was the guy that I drew the picture of. My children really make fun of my artwork. So he was mad. He's the guy. He has a lot of—he's not a nice guy.

So Ferdinand made a visit to Moravia and put the brethren in danger, and so the Hutterites fled to the mountains, and all these different things began to happen. And then around 1554 to 1564 was a good period. You need a little 10 years of rest every now and then. Poor guys. After the Hutterites survived persecution and suffering, the golden period, which lasted again, even more so from 1565 then to 1592. And during this time, the community grew rapidly.

And by 1621, there were over 102 communities with a total population of 20,000 to 30,000. Some little differences. The king got distracted. I don't know. Perhaps remember there's still this entire Islamic invasion that's threatening Austria and threatening all these different things. And at times, the kings would be distracted with different things, and it was a good time for them, and apparently this was one of those.

During that time, the members of the colonies were engaged with a variety of different economic activities. And this was impressive times. You see the industry of the Anabaptists starting to pour out in these brethren. Some of them included wagon making, cutlery, leather working, nursing. They became doctors. They actually became some of the most famous doctors in Europe at that time. Shoe making, pottery making, watch making, and weaving. There were also barbers, surgeons, and coppersmiths, tin smiths, locksmiths.

Because of their reputation as hardworking, they were hired by many of the lords in Moravia and Slovakia. And so they would get the brothers to come to their castle, and they would help work this or work that.

And one of the things that I find impressive with them—it's the same thing I see with the Zinzendorf brothers there in Bethlehem and Herrnhut—was to have these kind of trades and then still have all these trades be used for the propagating of the kingdom of God would have been a—that's a big temptation in and of itself.

You understand it's one thing when you're starving to death, you have no money, you're hungry, and you're dying, and, "Oh great, we can all live together in community." It's kind of a not-so-bad thing. When it raised to the point where they were able to raise to this kind of level, I think it's even more impressive to something that they were trying to uphold. It's during this time that the Hutterites established their first kindergartens and started to educate the children.

And this day, the education of children in Germany and this area, Moravian area, was pretty pathetic in a lot of places. And so they started to have schools, and a lot of the lords and things would actually have their children go to the school with the Hutterites, and they would begin to train them and begin to educate them. They felt it was very important that the children learned to read and learned to be able to study the faith, kind of like the Hebrews did in earlier times. And it was very successful for them.

And it is at this time that Kaspar Braitmichel began to put together this Chronicles. And here's some of the handwritten copies that I took some pictures of here. I don't know if that matters. I don't know if it'd do me any—oh yeah, at least I know what the 26 says. And so they gathered up a lot of the different papers, a lot of the different documents, and began to put this thing together. And these books are Anabaptist masterpieces. They're historical masterpieces because they read like in journal fashion.

And that's why it makes it fun as a historian to teach a history class on the Hutterites because you follow them through. It's just like this happened, that happened, this happened. And to have a record of a people like that that goes through time is really an incredible gift that we have today. And so they had that here, and here's some of the original documents. They kept transcribing these and through the ages.

And so I've been told—I was reading one little book on the Hutterites, and this person, I think that the first volume is the copy, the leftover handwritten copy of this, according to this one book that I read, he said was under the bed in a wooden box under the bishop's bed in Bonhomme Community in South Dakota. I just think that's so funny. I would love to be able to see this box or something.

I don't know if by now, since he's written that book, they have it somewhere else, but it's been handed down, handed down, handed down, and it is really a treasure we have for all of our history in looking at what they've done here. Another thing I'll just say real quick about these—I mentioned it just a little bit earlier already—I appreciate the honest history. It's kind of like even when you're writing the Bible, if you were writing the Bible, would you have given the David story with Bathsheba?

Would you told the stories that kind of—would you mention that Peter denied the faith? Maybe you'd have left that out and cleaned it up a little bit. But wouldn't you agree we'd all been very sad if that would have happened? Same with these Chronicles. It's hard to believe that they just kept transcribing all these things when some of them were, I mean, like 10 pages of, "This was a disastrous mistake. I can't believe the elder did that." And it went on and went on like that.

But they still pass it down, and I'll read you—if I get to there, I'll read you some quotes where they actually say why they pass it down so future generations can learn lessons. So I think it's good for us all to be honest with our history. I think that's really good for us. Okay. So then during the golden period, the brethren were very well organized and prosperous, and mission work was carried out more than ever before.

And if I could say a rebuke to us in our time of prosperity, we think, "Well, during persecution times, you have nothing else to do. You might as well go into the mission field." But here, during their time of prosperity, they organized and still went into missions. Let me read you some of these. Okay. 352. 352. I'll read you some of this. Just a little glances.

My goal here today is just to give you a flavor as you walk through this people and walk with them on their journey through the centuries here and see things that they had. So during this time, page 352 in volume one, they traveled with joy and in fear of God, again and again praising him who leads into prison and out again. They put their trust in the Lord, and after they reached the Rhine, they carried on their task of obedience to their mission from the church.

They returned joyfully to the church community with a good conscience. Just something said in there about the missionaries there. And 355, another one. So that they lay down again and returned to the prison on Sunday when the city governor came to the two priests who questioned him about his mission. He told them he himself had not chosen to do this task. He didn't choose to be a missionary, but had been appointed by God and his spirit in his church.

Just as God sent his son and as the son sent his apostles into all the world, so he still sends out his servants through his spirit, first of all to preach the word of God, then they are to baptize, not infants and young children, but those who hear, understand, and believe. Again, that's when they were in prison and being challenged about their missionary activity. And another real quick one here. Another missionary, again, being asked questions. Five times the ex—so this is the good time.

This is what I think is funny. They're still in prison. They're still getting killed and everything. 357. Five times the executioner came ready to execute them, but the council could not reach a verdict. Here's one of these particular men here. And they had in mind to execute first Hans Schmidt and the other Heinrich Adams because these two had opposed them the most, and they hoped that they would shake the others when Hans heard that he was going to die, but he sang for joy. He sang for joy.

And this is one of the missionaries that were sent out. That's why I mentioned him here. But it's interesting when they were just trying to decide, "What do we do with them? Do we kill them or not?" And here is an attitude that comes out from him, and it's a beautiful quote. The date of the execution, Hans Schmidt and Heinrich Adams, was set for August 13th. And then they told him what was going to happen to him.

Some felt sympathy for them and had sent them food and drink from time to time, now came to offer their hand to Hans. He shook hands and smiled at them. And even when he had walked through the crowd in the square, there had been a smile on his lips. People had swarmed about him to the left and to the right, in front and behind, and he was—as he was being taken before the court, which made him exclaim.

So everybody started showing up, and he said, "What a wonderful wedding I am having with so many people coming to my attending." And again, they seem to talk about this quite often, about seeing their martyrdom as called their wedding day. One of the particular ones that caught my attention was a brother who was—you'll see this one in the martyr's mirror as well. And the Chronicles, it's on page 343. And this brother was again arrested.

And as he was arrested, the judge told him that an order had come from Innsbruck demanding the names of the leaders who sent brothers out on missions and of those who gave them food and shelter. And he answered, "We are not sent out to harm anyone. Our mission is the salvation of men, to call them to repent and change their lives." But this last question he added was not about the articles of faith. They did not need to know, and he would not tell them. So he wasn't going to tell them.

They would let the people know the articles of faith, but there were some things, it's kind of like name and serial number that the army people gave. They would say, "If they ask you articles of faith, they would talk to them. But if they ask you other things like who sends people on missionaries, where do you go?" He said, "That we don't have to answer." So they finally put this guy in prison, stuck him in a terrible hole, rotten hole. I mean, it's just disgusting. They go through some details here.

And they leave him down there to rot so long. I don't know if you remember the story from the martyr's mirror. They begin him to rot so long that he says he goes through this little journal writings here where they gave him food. He had to quickly eat his food before the rats would get it, and then he had to put a rock on the bowl so that they wouldn't drink his water. And he was there, and began to see his feet were rotting, and he was noticing that.

And then the brothers actually got a letter to him saying, "Can you give us some sign that you're alive? How about a straw from your bed?" And so he looked around because he didn't even have a straw from his bed. So he looked around, and what he had done was all his clothes had rotted except to this collar. All that was left was a collar, and he had that collar hanging up on some little nail or something.

His shirt had rotted away until not a thread remained except the collar that was around his neck, which finally hung on the wall. And so as he thought about what to send them, he said he got word of them asking him to send him some sign that he was still faithful to God and the church. He had nothing else. He just sent him a little piece of straw. But Hans Karl would gladly have done so, but he did not even have so much as a bundle of straw in the dungeon. That is how poor he was.

And then so he sent him this collar, and he said, "So he let them know that they should not send him anything. He must clothe himself with the garment of patience." And he considered that a garment of patience because they would say, "We'll send you clothes or something." He said, "He's persevering in the Lord this way," but he wanted them to know that he was very serious. He was very serious indeed. And so they went on with these different things. And these were the good times.

Do you remember the story that I was reading you by Harold S. Bender where the man was saying, "I'll never again execute another Anabaptist"? He was a Hutterite. It's on page 429 in the Chronicles, but there's a little more detail that comes out here in the Chronicles I wanted to show you. Why it made it so graphic was as he was going to—I've got to get a cup picture of that one. Let me see. As he was going to kill—as he was going to kill this man, the blade apparently was not all that sharp, unfortunately.

And the executioner had great difficulty beheading him. He just could not strike accurately. He had to finish cutting off the brother's head on the ground the best he could. He was afraid of his own life and was endangered by the mob. The experience made him say later that he would never execute another brother as long as he lived. It later says that this man, he said he went insane and had to be chained up, the leader there. And so it was some serious hard times even during the good times of what they had there.

So again, we're just watching them go through. They did have some mission frustrations. Not everything came through. In 430, as they were sending some people out, in 430 of the Chronicles, in 1571, a servant of God's word and several other brothers were sent to Tyrol. Remember, that's where Hutter came from and Blaurock ended up, and it was a good place to send out missionaries.

The church sent them to look for people who longed for God's truth, people who were repenting for their sins and desiring to seal their surrender to God with the covenant of grace. And that was their commission to go out. Nice commission, huh? But when they got there, it didn't go that well. They went back to Puster Valley, which is where we remember that Jacob Hutter was from, looking for different people. Then he met him on the road. Okay, heading back for this place.

Okay, they felt that they had traveled so far and met so few people interested in the truth that they had lost all hope of finding anyone who was ready to be obedient and surrender to the truth. So they had decided to leave that area rather than spend their money for nothing. Again, I just thought that was an interesting little note that shows that not all these mission activities were great successes.

They got to a point sometimes and said, "Well, no one's even interested in the gospel here." So bless your brother. So let's not get disheartened when we get into situations like that. One of the particular ones that I wanted to read to you was when they got into one area and they were arrested by the Lutherans. And there's an interesting little dialogue that goes in between the difference between the Anabaptists and the Lutherans there as they're talking about it. And that's what I have here on page 451. 451.

Okay, this is interesting because the point that I want to take from this is that the Anabaptists then, and I believe a true concept of Anabaptism today is the concept of a visible church. Remember, they had the parish idea and they said, "Well, the church is invisible." They said, "That's ridiculous." Yes, true indeed. Only God knows who are his children, but he does desire—remember the whole concept of the incarnation. Christ is both spirit and he's flesh. And so he does have a physical people.

So there's an interesting passage here where they get arrested by the Lutherans. And I'm going to read it to you here. Okay, so as they began to talk with him, the two ministers said that the church—okay. Let's see where to get in here because there's some interesting passages. Okay. Okay. So they were talking first about things like faith and works, and they were saying something here. Finally, he said, talking about—he says, "Yet they are powerless when faced with the word of God and the pure truth.

No Hebrew, Greek, Latin, in short, no kind of learning will help." And finally, these priests at Salzburg openly admitted to these different brothers that the Turks were also devout, maybe more devout than they, but it depended on what each person believed, which is what was the reality of their life, not what was true in their life. And they began to get into this argument on, yes, it matters what you believe, but it also must be a true change in their life.

So they went on and started getting into more trouble with these guys. And it says, "At first, he was cruelly tortured, and many attempts to win him over made by the magistrates, nobles, and commoners, learned doctors, and Lutheran ministers. In 1556, his cell was left unlocked for a full six months with just this word, 'Okay, say you won't leave.'" Now, when they were able to escape, they had free conscience and they left.

But the Lutherans said, "Say you won't leave." So they said, "Okay, we won't leave." And they were there with the gates open for six months, and they just stayed there in prison. And finally, I guess maybe they hoped they would leave, but finally they said, "Okay, we will let you leave if you just do one thing. Just say that we—" or I'll give you right from the quote.

Talking about, as Paul was still firm in the faith, refusing to admit that magistrates, the sword or war, were Christians, these warmongers said that they did not want him to associate with other people, and that here it is, and that they would keep him in prison until he died or admitted that they were good Christians. "All you have to do now, just say that we're Christians. Just say that we're two good Christians and we'll let you go." And they wouldn't do it. Finally, this brother got sick in prison.

He was about to die. And so when they were about to die, they got some people to come up here and talk to them. And he said to him, "Since God has struck him down with disease, now is the time." They sent two ministers to question him on infant baptism in the Eucharist and to win him over to their beliefs. And Paul answered this, "Listen, I'll join your church under this circumstance." It's a beautiful thing that he gets into here about the visible church. Don't miss this.

He says, "If you can show me one little flock of Christ that is a fruit of your preaching, I will join them, and I will lay down whatever is against God in me and accept what is better." Ouch. Oh. The two ministers said, "Well, that a Christian church is not something visible. You cannot point to it." And Brother Paul said, "Remember, he's sick. This shows what false prophets you are.

For Christ pointed to his church and to his disciples when he stretched forth his hand toward them and said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my mother, my brother, and my sisters.'" He also said, "You are to be the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. And further, love one another as I have loved you that all may recognize you as true disciples.

And Peter says, 'Lead such good lives among the heathen that they may be won without words,' and clearly points to the Christian church when he says to his brothers, 'You are a chosen race, the royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people.' Paul says the same, 'You are the temple of the living God, and you are a seal of my apostleship to the Lord. You false serpents.'" He continued, "Look how God points to his church.

But as you cannot do it, you are still children of darkness, not members of the body of Christ. If you were members, you would also be able to point to a body. Am I to submit myself to you so that you can make me a Christian when you have not made a single Christian in your church? You are like the 400 false prophets of Ahab, just as with them a false spirit speaks out of your lying words to mislead the whole world." And he goes on. They didn't win friends and influence people that way, but they made their point.

You know what I mean? And I thought that he goes on in that concept there of talking about the idea of a visible church. And I think it's a good point. It's a good point in all the idea of, I believe, early Christianity and Anabaptist Christianity in that way. Okay, the golden period was over. And now we start to get into the Turkish wars. The Turkish wars are the buildup, not quite the 30-year war, but now we have the Islamic invasion, the jihad against Austria, and they're starting to come up on the side here.

And the golden period of the Hutterites ended with the start of the Turkish war, which was fought against the Roman Empire. During the war, armies from both sides would come to the communities in search of food and shelter. The Turks who killed and captured many of the members frequently raided the colonies. And to get money for the Turks, emperors told all the lords to contribute taxes and monies, and the Hutterites had a problem with paying war taxes.

So sheep, cattle, wagons, and many other possessions were stolen instead. For 13 years, the colonies were raided and the Hutterites were killed. They took refugees and passages. They hid again in passages and caves again. When the war ended, the brethren tried to rebuild what they had left, but the time they did, as soon as they did, it was starting to be it was starting to be the 30-year war. I have here it's mentioned here. This brother talks about this time period.

He says in page 403, "As usual, wherever possible, the tribe of priests keeps stirring up the powers that be. But the Lord our God stood in the way. The archangel Michael stood watch over his people, otherwise they would long since have been swallowed up and devoured like bread. But as a hen gathers her young under his wings, protecting them by pecking at all that want to attack her own, indeed, as an eagle hovers over its young, this and much more God did for the sake of his people.

Even the unbelievers often had to acknowledge that God refused to let his people be driven away and annihilated. They lived in the land God had provided, especially for them. They were given the wings of a great eagle and flew to the place God had prepared for them, and they were sustained there as long as it pleased him. Thus, they gathered in peace and unity and preached the word of God publicly." Don't miss that, page 403. They were put in a certain place by God.

They gathered in peace and preached the word of God publicly. Then they had prayer meetings twice a week, sometimes more often. They held meetings in which the communal and united prayer was offered to God, asking him for all the needs of the brotherhood and giving joyful thanks for all the good things they enjoyed.

Likewise, intercession was made for emperors and kings, princes, and worldly authority that God might make them think about the office entrusted to them and conduct it properly so as to govern peaceably and protect the faithful. Interesting. Preaching publicly, even in a time like this and going into these prayer meetings is what this brother here believes to be some of the success of what survived this time. Page 13 now. Go to that. We'll do a few more in there.

I'm going to stop right before the 30-year war, and then we'll take a quick break. There's a beautiful analogy here of two brothers that were killed. This is on page 489 during this time period. Again, this is the Turkish-Russian excuse me, the Turkish war. And I like this brotherhood team. When they send out missionaries two by two, when you do these things, the camaraderie that you have in that, I read that in the Circuit Riders with the Methodist and type of thing.

And here's two young brothers that were zealous for the Lord, and they were killed. Here's one, and here's another. But it's an interesting story how they give it out to them in 489 of volume one. These two brothers were caught. Heinrich and Jacob were beset with 24 ministers who tried to make them waver in their faith and recant. But even with their combined efforts, they made no headway against the brothers, nor could they convict them of any wrongdoing, much less find any just reason to put them to death.

So they go on doing these different things. When the dear brothers heard that their hour had come, they rejoiced and were undismayed, saying, "It was an even greater joy to them than celebrating a wedding." Again, this analogy comes through. Yes, they were of such courage because God made them worthy to die for the truth in praise of his name, like many servants and saints of God before them who attained the heavenly crown. Now, here's the way this happened.

When they were let out, they spoke courageously to the great crowd that had gathered, admonishing them to repent from their sinful life and turn to God. The two brothers began to sing with overflowing hearts, lifting their voices in a lovely song of praise to the Lord. Those present told us that the people were startled and shaken to hear them sing together so joyfully. Many of that great gathering wept as they heard the singing.

It touched their hearts that the brothers should have such an inner joy and peace in the very moment of meeting death. Eternal joy had already blazed up in them because they were to be with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with the patriarchs and all the holy ones, with all the prophets and apostles, and with the Lord and with the faithful brothers and the sisters already. Yes, with Jesus Christ himself, their redeemer forever and ever. They sang until they came to the edge of the water where they were to be drowned.

Then Heinrich said, "My brother Jacob, my brother Jacob, we have traveled long and far together. So now together still, let us pass through this temporal death into the life of the world beyond." The executioner took brother Jacob Mendel first and pushed him under the water. This one here. And pushed him under the water. When he was dead, the executioner pulled him out and laid him in front of Heinrich, saying, "My dear Heinrich." And there's he's appealing.

"My dear Heinrich, take a look at your brother who has lost his life. Recant or you must die too. There is no other way." But Heinrich said, "I will never recant and desert the divine truth. I will remain firm even if it costs my life." And you know what happened. So impressive stories of the zeal and the tenacity of these brothers as they went on. Again, a little missionary on page 503, there's a mention there. I was going to say that they're talking about sending the missionaries to Bern.

And remember we talked about Bern and they were starting to make those laws against the Anabaptist missionaries. We see some of those in that time period around Bern. It was an interesting thing. I just threw this out. It doesn't really tie to our story, but I just thought it was really curious. I wrote here Hebrew letters on the grapes. I don't know. I have no idea what this this is like a diary, remember? This guy's just writing stuff that he saw. And this is in 1602. And he says he woke up one morning.

He said, "Beautiful Hebrew writing was found on the grapes in many places. It was so skillfully done that no one could have painted it better, and each one was different from the other." Strange. It lists that. That's the kind of thing that comes out in the chronicles, just little things like that. There's also they go through the concept of this time and praying and stopping for the battles.

And some of the generals and things comment that there's no way this particular battle could have been stopped if it wasn't for the intercession of these brothers that were praying, the brothers and sisters that were praying. And there's 579 and 588, there's all this coming out. And during this war then, and still, on page 597, this brother Conrad Blausee, a servant of the word, was traveling in Switzerland that year with three of his brothers.

And keeping with the task of the brotherhood, they were sent to gather God's people for his church. They were on their way back to the community, but Brother Conrad had not taken to heart the warnings that they had been given him, and then they were captured and probably killed. Just again, these little examples of the different things. And then I'm going to give you this one quote, and then we're going to take a break. So now we're into this Turkish war, and we're about to get into perhaps their hardest time.

And it's interesting, as it's mentioned there in the chronicles. There's actually they mention every time a comment comes, but here's to give you an example of one of them. On page 632 in volume one, they finished this phase, and he said this. He wrote, "On November 29th, 1618, around 4 o'clock in the morning, an extraordinary comet appeared." And he wrote it in drew a picture in the chronicles. "It was a brilliant and had a very long tail such as is rarely seen.

After that, it appeared each morning a little earlier until it rose exactly at midnight. The time when it rose changed gradually from morning to midnight and from midnight to evening. This covered a period of four weeks, namely from November 29th until the end of December. It was watched with great awe and terror and was last seen close to the north star where it faded away. In the year following, we were to learn what much suffering and sorrow what it had signified." All right, take a break and we'll see.

We'll go into the 30-year war. Quick. Okay. All right, welcome back. All right. What we get to now is this 30-year war period with the Hutterites. And again, the 30-year war, I don't have time to get into the details of that, but it was a war between the Catholics and the Protestants. And who was going to rule these nations in these areas? Was this going to be a Catholic kingdom or a Protestant kingdom? And they went back and forth.

And again, you still have the Ottoman Empire trying to make its way up at the same time and kind of watching to see what the Christians are going to do to themselves. And then the Hutterites are in the middle of all this and reeling. And this day and age, you could probably not be in a worse place. And that's why I call them you'll see at the end of this I call them the Marine Corps of the Anabaptists because this is the Iwo Jima of the Anabaptists when they went through all these different times.

I have it written on my paper. In 1618, the 30-year war began. And then by 1622, Cardinal von Dietrichstein expelled the Hutterites from Moravia, and they moved southeast to Slovakia. The 30-year war was still raging in Hutterite communities where the prime target for plundering, pillaging, burning, and looting. And one particular thing happened that was bad news for the Hutterites, and that was the Battle of White Mountain. To give you a little bit of world history. The Battle of White Mountain.

What this was, all the different you remember Moravia was always a little bit more independent and these things. And so who was going to fight these Catholic lords? And so there was a big battle where I think I gave the numbers here: 30,000 Bohemian and mercenaries from the Protestant side, and they were up against 27,000 by Ferdinand II representing the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic side. And it was a huge battle, and the Battle of White Mountain. And unfortunately for the Hutterites, the Protestants lost.

And after that, all hope of any kind of this protection from the lords of their areas was just come to a ruin. And then that's when in 1622 that that was 1620. November 8th, 1620, and 1622 is when the Cardinal Dietrichstein just said, "Out with all of you. Out with all of you." And it was a very pitiful, pitiful time. And so again, these were very, very hard times. Let me just thumb through. I'm just going to thumb through this just to kind of get you a sample of the journal entries that they put in here.

It's just pitiful. Okay. "Terrible, remorseless punishment came to us, and that was the chastening of God's people." October 30th, the community at Fritzschau was plundered twice. October 30th, its trot was plundered. I'm just going down here. August 9th, the house at Widerstetten and its old mill was destroyed. 15th, 19th, September 18th, another one destroyed. Fire set here September 19th. They go through. On September 24th, a tragic thing occurred.

Our fugitives from Pribitz were trying to return home and put their nursing mothers, their old, their sick, and their children from both Austerlitz and Litnitz into 12 wagons from which they fled, but they were massacred. They were destroyed, and terrible things happened there. Turning the page, a whole mob of peasants then began to run into the community and took the flour, the meat, the salt, the cheese, and began to take everything that was there.

And some places, when the enemy was gone, the peasants were even worse because they were also being plundered in their towns. And so they came into our towns. People always say when you get into non-resistance debates of, "Well, what would you do if the Muslims would take over America or Hitler would not have been stopped? What would you do if you're not going to resist yourself and then people are going to take your food?" Yeah. Been there, done that. It is the theology of martyrdom.

And we can see that it's not just a theory. We've been through that as an Anabaptist people. And not just the Hutterites, but other groups have done this as well. But this is graphically preserved for us because of the chronicles. He says, "It may be it is impossible to overstate the depth of the need and pain we suffered. When all human hope is gone, we fervently pray to God. God oppose the enemy and change their fury into kindness towards the devout.

Let us all the more thank the Lord as long as we live for his deliverance and the good that he has done to us. Let our lives be more dedicated and holy so that he has no need to bring still harsher chastisement to us." Again, just going flipping through here. Killed here, wars here, worse and worse to all the nations of the countries revolted.

March 25th, they shot a baby in his mother's arm, injured the brothers and sisters, plundered a house, struck a child dead in his father's arm, cruelly tortured several others, murdered 52 brothers as well as sister and a child. One was burned, got pulled, tortured some brothers terribly. Particularly Heinrich Schützer was burned with red hot iron. Wounds were cut in his thigh, then gunpowder was poured into the wound and caught on fire.

These people, he said, "I don't even understand." He said, "They're claiming to be Christians. Even the Turks, the Muslims wouldn't do this. It is heartbreaking more than human nature could stand." He goes on, "Such horrible shootings and slashings followed. The captives could scarcely describe it." He goes into the things, then the Battle of White Mountain. That was before the Battle of White Mountain. Then it got worse.

Different people were going over the mountains, freezing to death in the mountains, overwhelmed by fear and despair. And these different areas and taken prisoner, some for the community were taken prisoner and helped to up a barricade and to throw up on the barricade, shot a lady and a boy, three or four years old. And it's just, I mean, it's page after page of this. "All we could do was to commit everything to God, including this outrage and violence that we suffered.

Oftentimes, our greatest fear and need, God provided in a merciful way. Beyond all human comprehension, he promotes generals completely unknown to us, generals of foreign nations and languages to help us in this way or that." They saw God's hand and different things and were very blessed with it. 230 people killed over here and hurt over there. Then a famine came. There was disaster. The stopped raining and there was famine. Destruction. March 6th, somebody was dying here, another one there.

March 24th, the steward, the servant, he died. But then in all the midst of all this, and I just couldn't believe that. So here it's now 1622. So in the middle of this disaster, everything's falling apart. They're barely living. This year too, we followed the example of our forefathers by sending out brothers, several brothers into various places in Germany. In the middle of all that, there was something inside them that they believed that part of who they were as Christians had to spread the gospel.

And even in the midst of this 30-year war of absolute pillage and tyranny, they still did this. And they even comment on it. They went—this is page 678 in volume one—they went to seek those on fire for the truth and to call people to repentance. It amazed many people in Bohemia where both hostile armies were encamped, as well as in Germany, that our defenseless members set out in a time of such terrible danger when scarcely anyone, whether of high or low estate, could travel in safety.

But the Lord was their protector, and they relied on him alone when their task was completed through the intercession of his people. He often then brought them home again safe, praising God for that. So amazing. It still goes on at one place in page 678. They were mixing clay with their food to try to help survive and just literally starving to death. They're being expelled out. Again, I have just written pages here in page 765, 766, 769, 770.

Again, each one, they're talking about sending out missionaries, sending out missionaries, sending out missionaries. It's almost as if these brothers knew, "If we stop, if we stop the mission activity, if we stop the forward advance of the gospel, we're going to deteriorate. We're going to start falling apart. We're going to start to die." And when they saw lots of people dying literally, and then also during this persecution, they're mentioning here, there are oftentimes a lot of people recanted.

I mean, it happened a lot. People left. People said, "That's enough." Even back when they were saying you had to just be in living in caves and digging holes, many of them said, "No, it's not for me. Thanks," and recanted to the faith. And so for all those people, they had to keep going and keep going. And this is where that simplify of the Anabaptists really shows itself in their tenacious attitude to keep things going. At this point, we're coming to the end of the 30-year war.

And it was in 1648, and it was good, but they were still in a bad place. Even after the war ended in 1648, Catholics controlled most of Hungary. So there was renewed religious persecution. Torture, whippings, and book burnings were among the conversion methods used by the Jesuit priest. This is also a time, if you know your church history or your world history, that the Ottoman Empire now was coming up and expanding, and they had taken actually Vienna. They took it and held it for a few months.

And this was like the point of world history that could have went one way or the other. During this time, it's interesting in the chronicles and the footnotes in the chronicles back this up in records that building up to this taking of Vienna, there was one time a 15-pound hailstorm was coming up and coming down on the area. It was documented both in the chronicles and in different times. Huge different storms and things like that that was happening.

There was an earthquake and lots of comets just like this that might have been actually one of these in this time. The comets were being seen. And when I read that and when I considered what was happening in world history at the time, and I think back of Daniel and the battles that go on in heaven when we pray and Daniel fights, I just can't help but think there was some powerful warfare going on in the heavens during this time. In 1665, there's these. They have a prayer meeting here.

They're talking about these different things. And finally, they continue to be beat down, continue to be persecuted. It was interesting. One thing they also mention, again, getting close to the time of the taking of Vienna, they go out, and one time he writes in his chronicles that many people in the city saw a great sword in the sky pointed towards the east. And he says, "I don't know what this means. God knows its meaning." And then a pillar and lots of different things were happening in this time period.

It must have been pretty interesting. And when you think of all the ramifications that would have happened if the Ottoman Empire would have continued to take the Western world, it would have—I just imagine there's a lot more that was happening than just fighting on the ground. Yeah. Did you say that the Anabaptists actually were in Turkish territory? Yeah. They were. Now, particularly where they're going now, they're getting there.

But when they went down to Hungary, the Ottoman had already taken part of Hungary and Yugoslavia. And when they were scattering out, they were getting into these places. And now where they're going from now, and this next step is entirely into Turkish areas. Maybe this is—I don't know, but we always say that the Battle of Tours and this thing that changed the course of history did. But I kind of wonder, it seems like Christian armies were more brutal than the Muslim armies in some ways.

And I wonder what it would really have been like for a Roman church. I know. Yeah. Amen. And you see this, and they even say that in one of these quotes here that when they get over, they're about to make this decision now to go over into Transylvania. And they say, "It's better here than it was with the Catholics and the Protestants." And the Muslims was actually taking better care of them, so interestingly enough. So finally, they get through this. They're beaten down, beaten down.

Finally, people are leaving, but then they're getting the missionaries getting, and finally, they get to the very end, and volume one closes with this appeal to the Dutch Mennonites and saying, "Help. Help. We're dying. We're starving to death." And there's this letter that's written to the Dutch Mennonites, which I appreciate because they call them brother and that type of thing. And a lot of these early guys in their zeal, the Swiss brethren were the same.

Certainly, the Dutch in their early days were the same, and the Hutterites were the same. That was kind of the "we're it" personality. And I like to see at the end of this, if there's one thing that God gave them through all that great persecution was a humility to say, "Help." And they wrote to the Dutch, and the Dutch did beautifully help them financially. And in that letter at the end of volume one, they mention a lot about the idea of calling them brother and that type of thing. So I appreciate that.

And I think that just like we need a brotherhood, my personal feeling that brotherhoods need each other. And it's good to help one another, encourage one another, hold each other accountable. And that's the kind of thing that happened with them. All right. So now we go on. And this tenacious group of people is still trying to limp on and keep going and keep going. But the hard times keep falling on.

In 1685, I wrote, "After constant torturing and robbing, the Hutterites gave up community of goods." They still had a Lehr and other church services, but community of goods was abandoned. And so after all that, they said, "Okay, let's break this up. Let's meet in our little homes. We'll still have a common area." They still read the Lehr. They had the teachings. They had these different things.

But they said, "We've got to just survive here." In 1688, all the Hutterite babies, the Catholics kept coming in here now before they went to this area, the Transylvania area, building up to that, sorry, that the Catholics were coming in and sending Jesuits into their place and persecuting them. And it was some very hard times, very hard times indeed.

And this is where the chronicles turns very honest, what I hope it all was, but not honest, but very humbly revealing of what Johannes Waldner began to talk about some of this time period. I'm going to read to you a few of those things. So as they were trying to make their way through this time, the Catholics now who had full control were trying to get at them and do things to them. And after they're already beat down so much, it did begin to start to wear on them.

And I have here in 272, and page 271 of volume two, "Large numbers left the brotherhood until at last the community was ruined and it almost came to an end. One third of the people died that year and things were getting bad." 1622, he goes up and just makes a little brief walking through some of these hard times. He comes to this passage in 272. He says, "The Hutterian church nearly came to the same point where it lost everything because it had left its first love.

And as lost the first purity and integrity, the Lord removed its lampstand from its place." Interesting. That was from their own words. Johannes Waldner was said that he believed that this was happening. He said, "The brothers and sisters no longer gave such a clear witness of godliness and dedication as in the early days." Things were bad here. They started to be able to be not organized. They weren't raising up other leaders. They weren't getting their message across.

And it was a hard task for their teachers, but things went from bad to worse. He mentioned things like sleeping during the meetings, sleeping in church. Hard rebukes were given. People were lazy. People were basically losing their vision. They were beaten down to the point where they were beginning to lose their vision.

A revealing thing in 284, it says, "To make the matter clear, dear brothers," Johannes Waldner is writing this later to future generations, "To make the matter clear, dear brothers, the church is and must be established by the Holy Spirit. It is the only place where the true brotherly love of the church can be practiced fairly and impartially." And he begins to see just this lack of the indwelling place of the Holy Spirit. He rebukes them for slander and gossip and the problem that the gossip is causing them.

Talks about the different clothes they're getting into, the different attitudes they're following the world. And he finally gets to this beautiful prayer found on page 303. And Johannes Waldner says, "Oh Lord God Almighty, grant that we may once more know a time when you daily add to your church those who are being saved so that our hearts may rejoice in it.

How old and how barren has grown Sarah, Abraham's wife, your church, who ought to have children, to bear children for eternal life, that your praise may be proclaimed on earth." You see, they see he's just noticing that after all that, wear it down and wear it down and wear it down, finally they're getting to the point where they're just losing the vision. They're going on, and Johannes Waldner is with the elder here, and he's just bemoaning that we don't have that.

We don't have that spirit, and we need to somehow return and get that kind of spirit again. He then talks about the idea of the Jesuits. When make matters worse, the Catholics were then sending Jesuits in and forced them onto the community and made agreements with them. And here was one of the agreements. In page 310, the Jesuits refused to release some imprisoned brothers unless the whole congregation signed an agreement to attend church and have their small children's baptized. So it was bad already.

You're losing the fire. The lampstand's practically gone. Johannes Waldner, I guess, said it was gone. And then this Jesuit attack says, "Okay, I'll let your brothers go if you sign this." In the end, the people signed it, and the people were set free. That is how easily they gave up true Christian baptism, signing against their own hearts and consciences because they were not willing to suffer for God and his truth, the chronicles write.

And then this one, after they finally do that first baptism, someone's watching it. And it says here, "The brothers and therefore returned home. After the elder was deeply sorry for what he had done, when the local priest came to the first time to baptize a baby, this man's looking through a window. And Jacob Pullman saw him through a window and cried out, 'Oh, woe is me. What have I done?'" And they realize, "We've let it all go. It's gone. I'm letting our babies get baptized. This ministry is watching this.

And how did it get to this point?" A disturbance followed from all that. They rushed and attacked the pastor and all different things. It was just like nonstop letting up. It just went from bad to bad to bad with all these different things. They sent more Jesuits in at different times. They made an agreement to come to them and to let them into their church. And it was terrible. Finally, a group of them had made to Transylvania to Hammersztadt or Hermannstadt in Transylvania and began to get there.

There they allowed the Jesuits to come in there, and they allowed the Jesuits to preach. The preacher said, "Okay." He said, "Just let me come in, and I'll talk to your people. And if you agree to do that," so the preacher made the mistake and let the Jesuit come into the church and preach. He mentions in the chronicles that he was faking and crying and saying, "You brothers just don't understand the truth," and began to explain to him from the Catholic faith to them.

And they were so weakened and so lacking their understanding that they bought it. They said, "Yeah. All right." And they left, and they became Catholics. And so worse and worse. And it was just beaten down and made to a last where it was finally hardly anything left. And then he says this. Finally, he gets to that point. He says, "Now it's come to complete ruin." He says, "Now I continue telling how God the Lord did not let the light of the divine truth die down and be entirely extinguished.

To the praise and glory of his name, he left a tiny spark alive and kept it alive to this very day and can be found in the following history." So here again, a bad time in their life. And they'd got to a point where things were very bad, and it looked like things were going nowhere. And there was about 50 Hutterites left. At one time, 50,000 or 40,000 or so, 30 at least, were down to 50, beaten down to almost nothing. Almost nothing. And then this happened.

In 1755, well, 1752, it says here in the chronicles, they began to have these revivals that were going on in the eastern side of Germany. And people started to get a hold of these writings of Luther, and they started talking about faith and started talking about—and there was a group of people that were gathering together, and they got revived.

And it says here that they got a hold of these Lutheran books, and they got a hold of these things, and they said, "Wow, this is exciting." And on page 369, volume two, these books and writings were introduced to the Carinthians. That's the eastern wayside of Germany. In the mid-18th century, although they were brought in secretly, they produced a great fervent revival. Many peasants stopped attending church and read the Bible and other books in their homes instead.

They also began holding secret meetings at night for the joy of hearing God's word. Many others went long distance through the dark and rain, snow, and wind. In these meetings, they prayed, read the Bible, and other books sang and talked together. This was happening not only in one place, but spread nearly to every judicial district in Carinthia. And for instance, this area around these different places, there was a big revival that was happening in this far east Germany. Well, so they got to all these things.

Regarding such books, therefore, people started finding these books, and they said they were very dangerous. So the Catholics got everybody's books, and they stamped it. Unless it had the king stamped on this book, then we were kind of consider it illegal. But then they stopped going to church. They started meeting in their little cottage services. And you know what the story is. They finally were arrested. It was interesting.

One of the things that they said when they were mad about all these revived people reading these books and the Bibles, this one guy said—he says, "Nothing is kept in its proper place anymore," this Catholic judge. He said, "Many people have the effrontery to meddle in matters not fitting for them. A farmer or head of the family should have a plow, whip, or ox goad in his hand, not a book. His wife should have a cooking spoon and household keys, not a book.

A farm laborer should have a hoe, woodcutter's axe, flail, or manure fork, not a book. A servant girl should be at the spinning wheel, feeding the pigs or similar work, not occupied with a book. But now no one is content with a rightful station and work. Everybody wants to be a priest." And that was their attitude of dealing with these things. These people then, the empress at that time, was said she was kind of nice, and she allowed them then to be gone to the far end of her domain there.

Let me catch where I'm at here. They experienced a miraculous revival and the stringent attempt to Catholicize her empire. Empress Maria Theresa, not to be confused with Mother Theresa, Maria Theresa had deported these Lutherans to the remote borders of her empire. She allowed the revived Lutherans to practice their religion, but only in the fringes of her domain. However, these were different. These were some names that started to come in, part of this revival.

Some people called the Waldners, the Hoffers, the Kleinsassers, the Glanzers, the Wurze, and perhaps even more. But the thing is, she said, "I'll let you go there, but I want you, if you go there, to swear an oath of allegiance to me." Oh, well, these people were a little different. They said, "Well, we've been reading the Bible, and Jesus says you can't swear oaths, so we can't do that. I'll give you free farms. I'll give you free land.

I'll let you go there and even give you free land if you swear an oath." And they said, "Well, how can you make me do something if it's not in God's word?" And they didn't do it. So because of that, they started then to work amongst the brothers. They had to get menial jobs, and they started meeting up with some of the last remnant of the Hutterites. And now you can turn over to the second handout here, and I'll hurry up. And as they were there with these other, they started to look at these others.

They started to be impressed with their life. And as they were impressed with their life, they started to know more. And as they wanted to know more, they started showing them some different works. And even though they weren't meeting with the Hutterites anymore as Hutterite colonies anymore, they still had church services, and they gave them Peter Riedemann's writing. They gave them certain things. And these brothers started to get excited, and they started to say, "Wow, this is pretty interesting.

Tell us more about this." And they went home, and they compared it to the gospel. And they read it with the gospel, and they read it with these writings. They got more excited, and they said, "Well, let's do it." So they got everybody together. They got them excited. And on volume two, page 385, it mentions they met at Andreas Wurze's house, and they began to have the church service there. And things were going great, and they started to have a new revival of these people.

As they went on and started meeting, it was impressive. There was one already arrested quickly, and they Michael Hoffer. He died in prison. So as soon as they got started again, as soon as they grabbed some of the cubs from the lions, the persecution happened again, and they began to come down on them. And then so you have this first generation of people revived, on fire for the Lord, and now they're starting this movement back again, and they want to do that. But what happens with first generation Christians?

What happens a lot of times that we read about in the first generation of the Hutterites and the first generations here? They started to have a little fight. Andreas Wurze married this couple that the rest of the community, another community, the church community was a little didn't like. And so they didn't approve of who this boy was marrying, and so they got upset with it. He said, "I'm going to marry her anyway." And they started having this big wedding feast and everything.

And finally, they were getting already to the point of a split already. And I know you're thinking, "Oh, no. Here it comes." But here's something that I want to show you for something that we can learn. All right? And it's June 16, 1765, and they're starting to this, and they're already starting to split up again. They discipline one of the communities want discipline on Andreas Wurze because he didn't listen to them. They, of course, with him and all his people start getting mad, and they were going to break up.

So it says on here on page 397, "When the four arrived, they talked with the brothers about the division between them. But after a great deal of arguing and each side insisting their own opinion was right, it almost seemed as if nothing would come of the uniting. They had in fact already parted. Andreas Wurze and his son-in-law were setting out for Ebersdorf, the two others for Stein.

And Andreas turned around and said," they're about to split, and Andreas Wurze turned around and said this, "Let us submit completely and think of nothing but making peace. We are the only brothers in Transylvania, and can't the few of us be united?" So finally, somebody in a time of passion decided that they're going to actually have peace. The three united with Kurtz and with him, and Andreas told the brothers there.

The three returned to Kurtz, the community with him, and Andreas told the brothers there, "We have changed our mind. We want to accept their discipline, their correction, and unite with you." And so they came back together and were able to go in a united front. So I think that's a rare moment in church history, and I think it deserves—let's give them a round of applause. Let's hear it. Instead of splitting, they got together and came together. I think that's incredible. Wish we could learn that spirit. All right.

They're keeping going. And yes, it never stops. It never stops. They're going through the different things, and now finally, they get up to the point where they're planning on—people are saying, "Well, we're going to take your children, and we're going to put them in orphanages." They say, "We've got to get out of here." And so finally, they plan an escape. A miraculous thing happens that they were able to leave the prison.

Many of them were arrested and put in prison, and they were allowed to escape in broad daylight. But finally, they got to this point where where were they going to go? So they had to—of course, it was going in hiding. People were after them. It was terrible. And so they had to leave at night. And the place that they had to cross—do you see that picture I have on your map? They had to cross these mountains to finally get to the place where they felt was much safer in Islamic countries here than where they were now.

And let me read you where they're going. So they're going from Transylvania to Wallachia, and here in this area, they cross. And finally, they get to this part here with these mountains, and it's an impressive story. The very same day, the guys returned, and we made ready to leave in the evening. This is their journal entry before they're going to one of those peaks. "It was impossible to take the wagons over the mountains, so we loaded what was absolutely necessary into the four horses.

We unharnessed the four oxen and drove them with us, leaving the empty wagons for the guides to bring them customs as opportunity offered. When everything was ready and the sun began to sink, we started on our way again." It was October 13th. "The guides led us through pathless thickets and wilderness, for they knew where we would be safe from danger. There was a familiar with every path and hiding place in the mountains.

The ground began to rise sharply, and often the only way was to clamber upon the hands and feet. Each of us had to scramble up the best he could so as not to be left behind. In some places, it was hard work to bring the laden horses up the steep slopes. The climb went on all night. Every reader can imagine how difficult and exhausting it was with little children on our back, with young, old, and weak, all struggling up the high mountainside in the dark of night.

All did their utmost using their last drop of energy without sparing themselves. All hurried on, eager to flee from Babel and the abomination that causes the desolation. We reached the crest. We halted a little while. Then our guides told us that we had already succeeded in crossing over the border into Wallachia and were out of danger. We could now release the dogs, which we had kept them so they wouldn't bark. And on the top, they held a common prayer and thanked God.

A little later, they found that the government had already actually had beds ready for their children that they were about to take and put into the orphanages to be made into Catholics." So they start here. They keep going. They make it into this area.

There's an interesting story I don't have to give you, but again, how the problems I like in the Chronicles where as soon as they get into this Islamic area, it was an area that the Muslims had taken over, but they wanted to protect the rights of the Orthodox that were there. And you couldn't knock over crosses and things like that.

Well, as soon as they got into town, the Chronicler writes, "Some boys went out and started hacking down some crosses and stuff." And he writes in there, "And not for religious reasons." And so some of the people saw it, turned them in, and there was this great offense. They had to protect their own Muslim people, not to oppress the Greeks and the Greek Orthodox people that were there, the Russian Orthodox that were there.

And so they came under this charge, and so they wanted to cut their hands off of the boys or give something like $50,000 for each offense. And they went back and forth, and I appreciate the Waldner who said, "Now I'm telling," or the Chronicler, I think it might have been Johannes Waldner, he wrote, "I'm telling this so future generations can know not to do these kinds of things. It's terrible when he tells those kinds of stories. It's a blessing." So they go through this.

Again, they fight their way through these different things. And now, unfortunately, the Ottoman now wants to take Russia. And just when they got from one place of war and another place, now the Ottoman Empire is going into Russia, and they find themselves in the Turkish war trying to take Russia. And back and forth, there's terrible things. And they say it's even worse than the other of things that were happening to them.

Some of the things that are so graphic in the Chronicle that I wrote a warning on my pages so that my children don't just pick it up. It's just terrible. Some of the things like they would have these head vices, which would have been a nice, easy torture device. You would just take a strap and turn a stick like that with the strap around your head, like you would do a tourniquet, and then tell you to recant. And then he gives the graphic words on what happened to that person when that's happening. It's terrible.

One thing, I'll just read you for the girls' sake, 473. During this time, back and forth with the Catholics now and the Turks in this whole area, on page 473, there's an interesting story the girls can appreciate. Excuse me, 437. "One of the robbers had fetched Maria Nagler, a young sister about 15 years old, and brought her out to the school and to the yard. The godless man tormented her, telling her, 'Make the sign of the cross,'" meaning like this, "Make the sign of the cross.

Make the sign of the cross." She refused point blank to do it. The German went up to her and said, "My child, he wants you to cross yourself. If you refuse, he'll cut off your head." Do you understand that? She said, "I will not do it. I would rather die." His tormentor drew his sword as if to behead her. But when Maria would not let herself be intimidated and was ready to die rather than submit, something in him was touched, and he left her alone.

After a while, he looked for her again and wanted to take her with him, but she had hidden herself, however, and didn't fall into his hands. Yikes. That would have been bad. But just again, to show you some of the tenacity there. Again, in the midst of this, they have different times in their history where they're trying to get back together, trying to not real quick in page 508. I just want to keep this theme going in page 508.

"Since the situation in Germany provided to be, as we had heard, God filled many brothers with courage and great eagerness to send two of their numbers into countries that we have mentioned to find out whether there were any zeal and longing to learn of God and his truth, to change their lives and to save their souls from eternal destruction." And they went on and began to continue their mission activities. Through this time, it got harder.

They finally got into places where it became disastrous, and things again began to dwindle, and things began to get hard. And they eventually found themselves getting into Russia. And in Russia, they meet up with the Russian Mennonites, which is interesting in it because it's kind of like a full circle. As we're taking now the Swiss brethren and we're going from Switzerland over to Moravia, now up to Transylvania, and finally we get into Russia, we're going to pick up next week.

We're going to go from Holland into Poland and all this and through the Dutch and end up in the same community in Russia. And this is where they end up. They actually end up with the Russian Mennonites and essentially become Russian Mennonites for a while and again give up community of goods. Until it was finally revived. It was revived, and they brought that to America right at a time when Russia was beginning to change their desire for their rules about non-resistance. First, they had full permission to go up.

They said, "No restraints." And they came up. But when they were there with the Russian Mennonites in these different colonies, and we're going to talk about next week, hopefully, they became incredibly prosperous. And with that incredible prosperity, there's some pretty graphic mistakes said in the Chronicles about the way of life that they had experienced. And finally, some brothers got together and said, "It can't be like this." And they decided to bring it back again and regain what they had.

Those communities were Chortitsa and Radiva, and also another one that they came. And was that the community that you said that your people came? Chortitsa. Okay. That's where these brothers had ended up with. And again, there's some very honest words in the Chronicles about how they were during this time. Molotschna was another one that they came to. But finally, in their wanting, they would get together.

There were several talks sometimes about, "Can we have a community?" The Russians wouldn't let them have community of goods. They kept trying to argue back and forth. And they were finally able to pull this out, and they wanted to try to rebuild. And again, shortly after they did that, they started coming to America. Last page, and we'll finish up here, is on page 6 of this next handouts. These were then the rebuild again. The colonies still didn't practice community of goods, but that was about to change.

Michael Waldner was one of the ministers at the time. He experienced a dream where the angels instructed him to set up a community after the pattern of Jesus and the disciples. They began to some prayer groups after this time. And after soul searching, they realized the answer: they would reestablish the community of goods. And in 1859, community of goods began again 40 years after it was abandoned.

It's interesting if you ever read on page 666 in the volume 2, they talk about that the early one, they had a wrong emphasis on community and that the emphasis must be on God itself and to let these things to flow. And there's some good words there about that. Michael Waldner was a blacksmith, and so his followers, the people who accepted community of goods, were known as the Schmiedeleut. I guess Schmied is blacksmith in Hutterisch. Is that right, Marcus?

The next year, Darius Walter also established communal living, and they lived on the other end of the community, and they were called the Dariusleut. And the group who hadn't accepted community of goods lived in the middle, and both groups immigrated in a few years each other in the 1870s. And then there was another teacher, and his name, because of a teacher, they also became the Lehrerleut who came later. There was one more group too.

When they did immigrate to America, they were given free lands and free farms, and some of them just took up having those farms, and they became what's known as a Prairieleut who didn't quite stay together as a people and kind of dwindled. All right. So that's incredible, people. And when we get to America the last week, I'm going to try to talk about our American experience and justice things. But just I know I'm running late, but just one thing I want to say.

Quick things can we learn from the Hutterites, even if you don't like their whole way of doing things, and that's it. Last page. The conservative Anabaptists, what can we learn from the Hutterites still to this day? The idea of working as a brotherhood. One I have on there. The idea of working as a brotherhood. Not just being independent, but coming and working your life together and sharing in one form or another.

The Anabaptists, excuse me, the Hutterites show this obviously through their history in some wonderful ways. The ability to set a direction and execute a vision. To do that, individuals have to lay down many of their own personal things and be able to go forward. You can see in their heyday they did that beautifully. The concept of sharing material blessings in one fashion or another, I think this is very important. It's part of the teachings of Christ.

And again, I see this in all true expressions of Anabaptist churches, and I think that's something that we can learn from them as well. And four, particularly with the beginning, is a zeal to spread the kingdom of God. The one thing that I wanted, the burden of the whole two days, was to see that there seemed to be something in the Swiss brethren. There seemed to be something in the spirit that started with Conrad Grebel and Manz and all that in Zurich, and it spread to all these places.

There's just this passion within them that won't rest until this expresses itself in spreading Christ's kingdom to the world. And there was a balance between not just doing that and not existing, but they had the discipleship of a church community, a church brotherhood, but also the same burden to share that and spread that to the world. And they didn't seem to be at odds as much as we tend to get to in these days. So that's the Hutterites. You're going to try to pick up.

There'll be a test Monday, and then just you four have to come. And then after that, we're going to try to go to Holland and through Münster and then follow the Dutch brothers all the way to Russia and see kind of an interesting progress as well of the Russian Mennonites making it. And then the last week, I'm going to hope to bring these people to America, and then we can talk about some of our personal experiences and the things that we can learn and maybe see things that are a little closer to home.

And I'll let you talk about some of your histories and things as well. So let's close with a quick word of prayer.