Elizabeth Hilzin, in the Year 1639

In the meantime they treated some far more severely and cruelly than those before them; for they did not stop with mere imprisonment, but let the people die of sheer want, poverty and misery.

Among those who suffered death is numbered Elizabeth Hilzin, a God-fearing woman and sister of the church, who was arrested, bound, and imprisoned in Othenbach, and was treated so harshly there that from that time on she had few well moments.

Nevertheless no mercy or compassion was shown her, until, from all the hardships she had suffered, her body wasted away, and she gave back to God the spirit she had received from Him, and died. However, the second death will not hurt her, according to the promise of the Lord

"He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death." Revelation 2, verse 11. See above.

NOTE. The authorities extorted a fine of five hundred guilders from the surviving husband of Elizabeth Hilzin.

Further observations. About this time, 1639, a young man from Horgerberg named Hans Aster was also arrested. He too was taken to Zurich, into Othenbach, fed on bread and water for a time, stripped while in his bonds, and so on, but afterward he was helped out through the assistance of some of his fellow believers.

When this happened, he was so miserably crippled by the severe imprisonment that he had to be carried a long distance in the night.

In the meantime his wife too, with her infant child, was arrested and confined in Othenbach for a time, but afterward, through divine providence, she escaped the hands of the enemies.

The authorities drove the children out into poverty and sold their house and homestead (getting about four thousand guilders for it), without restoring anything.

So the parents had to work hard for a living, having lost everything; but in this they trusted in God's promises. Tract, Jer. and Meyli.