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MARTYRS MIRROR

Thomas Han, A.D. 1592

In the year 1592, on the twelfth day of May, also Thomas Han, of Nicktsburg, was imprisoned for the faith, at Freiburg, in Bavaria ; he was also very severely tortured and racked, and in order that he should tell what they wanted, and renounce his faith, they had him suspended by ropes from eight until eleven o'clock. But he answered them : du�'ou have my body ; do with it what you will ; you shall not deprive me of my soul, and 1 shall also not tell you wha, you want, nor betray any one ; though you extract the veins out of my body, one after another, and cut away a strip from my skin every day, yet I will not renounce, nor depart from the truth.'' They applied to him many words of re- proach, as that he was a deceiver, and had se- duced many to the sect of the Anabaptists. But he said to them : ''lt is the true, Christian baptism, and not anabaptist ; and if I could convert the whole world, I would gladly die three times if it were possible.''

When he had been in confinement about seven weeks, he was (since he could not be brought to recant) on the 8th of July brought into the council house to be sentenced. As this took place, he turned to the people and exclaimed thrice with a loud voice : ('Honor and thanks be to God, that it has come to this, and that this is His wi11.'' The executioner then bound him, and wanted to place him into a wagon, but he said : f'I will walk to death? even as also Christ our Lord walked to '' d he thereupon commenced to sing. death ; an e, The beadle enjoined him silence, but the execu- tioner said : ''Let him alone.'' In going out, a priest joined himself to him, and also other persons went with him. The priest asked (when he refused to be instructed) whether he thought that he and his like alone were righteous, and that the rest were all damned. But Brother Thomas answered : f4We endeavor to live piously, and shun sin ; but those who will live in sin, we put away from us, and do not tolerate them ; yet we condemn no one ; but every one that commits sin is condemned by his f evil works, and this we tell them.'' Thereupon the l priest said ; dtWe also reprove sin.'' The brother : said : ''How should you reprove, for where the A shepherd is not good, how then should the sheep j be good ? You are false prophets, how then should 1 you reprove falseness ?'' And he further said to the i priest : dfGo away, ypu false prophet ; I cannot be- hold you any longer.'' Thereupon the priest began � to exalt his sacrament, that it was the true body f and blood of Christ, and that whosoever partakes S of it has no sin. The brother said : ''You go t Around with your sacrament, and sell it for money, & lven as Judas sold and betrayed the Lord ; but we 1 t observe the Lord's Supper in remembrance of Him, > according to His command.'' More