Four Sisters, Namely, Barbara Meylin, Ottila Mulerin, Barbara Kolbin, and Elizabeth Meylin, in the Year 1639

The persecution did not end with what has just been told; they went on and laid their hands on four pious sisters as well, Barbara Meylin, Ottila Mulerin, Barbara Kolbin, and Elizabeth Meylin, who also had to drink from the bitter cup of the dreadful Zurich prison. But the Lord preserved them, so that, unharmed in their faith and unnoticed by the authorities, they too unexpectedly escaped from imprisonment and bonds. See the last-mentioned tract, folio 10, A.

NOTE. We mentioned, for the year 1635, one Hans Muller, who was imprisoned in the council house at Zurich with two of his fellow brothers, and was released for a month upon condition, and then imprisoned again, and released the second time upon the same condition.

Afterwards (about the year 1639, as the circumstances show) he was again cruelly persecuted, so that not even his neighbors and their houses were spared; the thief catchers ran through them like ravening wolves on the track of a sheep. But when they came into his house, from which he had already escaped, they broke open chests and drawers with pincers and other tools, hoping to find there the property of the church or of the poor.

These thief catchers threatened his little children that night with bare swords, saying they would kill them if they did not show them where their father was.

When they could not get him, they took his wife along, and bound her and imprisoned her in Othenbach. Then it was proclaimed in church that no one was allowed to lodge Hans Muller from the Groeningen bailiwick, or to give him food or drink, on pain of severe penalty and the disfavor of the authorities.

Now when his life was made exceedingly hard for him, the bailiff in the convent of Ruti, in the name of the burgomasters and councilors of Zurich, sent him a letter to this effect, namely, that he should have safe conduct for three weeks, to go and stay wherever he wished; also that he might freely come to him in the convent, and, after they had finished their conference, leave free and unmolested.

So he went into the convent of his own accord, with sure confidence in that promise; but when he could not agree to the bailiff's demand that he must go to church, he was confined there and guarded day and night, and was then taken to Zurich, imprisoned for a time in the council house, and then in Othenbach (that being the place where his wife was imprisoned as well), where he was stripped and kept a prisoner about sixty weeks. In that time he was in irons sixteen weeks, until at last, one Friday before Easter, he and the other prisoners unexpectedly made their escape.

Afterwards he was hunted again with mad fury, just as before, and driven from one place to another, so that he did not dare to live in his house with his wife.

In the meantime it happened that his wife, having given birth to twins, and having lain in only eleven days, was surprised by ten thief catchers, who surrounded the house by night and entered it with this threat: that if she would not tell them her husband's hiding place, she should not leave the house for six weeks, or else she would have to go to church herself. But when she would not comply with this, two of the ten stayed and guarded her day and night.

This filled the woman with such terror that, seeing what they intended, she broke away one very cold night with her two infants, and went a long way by untraveled paths, over hill and dale, and so escaped the enemies' hands, leaving behind all that she had, which the authorities rented out to strangers, getting a thousand guilders a year from it. See Jer. Mang. Tract, folio 13, A.