of justice and
of love. Still a little while and the prophet Mathys crosses his path,
and tells him of the New Sion and the extermination of the godless."

Mathys, or Jan Mathiesen, was a baker of Haarlem, who, constituted an
Anabaptist bishop, was preaching the new gospel through the Netherlands
and gathering recruits to the community of God's saints which had been
established at Muenster. "Full of hope for the future," says Professor
Pearson, "Jan sets out for Muenster to join the saints. Still young,
handsome, imbued with a fiery enthusiasm, actor by nature and even by
choice, he has no small influence on the spread of Anabaptism in that
city. The youth of twenty-three expounds to the followers of Rottmann
the beauties of his ideal kingdom of the good and the true. With
his whole soul he preaches to them the redemption of the oppressed,
the destruction of tyranny, the community of goods, and the rule of
justice and brotherly love. Women and maidens slip away to the secret
gatherings of the youthful enthusiast; the glowing young prophet of
Leyden becomes the centre of interest in Muenster. Dangerous, very
dangerous ground, when the pure of heart are not around him; when
the spirit 'chosen by God' is to proclaim itself free of the flesh.

"The world has judged Jan harshly, condemned him to endless
execration. It were better to have cursed the generations of
oppression, the flood of persecution, which forced the toiler to
revolt, the Anabaptists to madness. Under other circumstances the
noble enthusiasm, with other surroundings the strong will, of Jan of
Leyden might have left a different mark on the page of history. Dragged
down in this whirlpool of fanaticism, sensuality, and despair, we can
only look upon him as a factor of the historic judgment, a necessary
actor in that tragedy of Muenster, which forms one of the most solemn
chapters of the Greater Bible."

Gradually Jan rose to be head of the saints, Mathiesen having been
killed, and none other displaying so much strength of purpose
or magnetic enthusiasm. And here his mind gave way. Like so
many absolute rulers before and since, he could not resist the
ecstacies of supremacy. To resume Professor Pearson's narrative:
"The sovereign of Sion--although 'since the flesh is dead, gold to him
is but as dung'--yet thinks fit to appear in all the pomp of earthly
majesty. He appoints a court, of which Knipperdollinch is chancellor,
and wherein there are many officers f