Publisher's Preface to Third English Edition, 1886

Waterloo, Ontario

Publisher's Preface to Third English Edition, 1886

As the English language becomes more common among our Mennonite people year by year, the need of giving them in that language the doctrines, teachings, and practices, as well as the story of the sufferings, the faithful endurance, and the final triumphant deaths, of those of like faith with us who lived in the earlier ages of Christianity, becomes clear to every thinking mind.

These doctrines, teachings, and practices, together with the examples of faithful devotion to Christ and His Word and of unfaltering endurance under the severest persecution, are powerful incentives to Christians today. They inspire many sincere souls to live a more consecrated life, to practice greater self-denial, to live more separated from the world, and to show greater zeal in the work of the Lord and the salvation of souls. And they are especially precious to us, as Mennonites, because through these people it pleased God to hand down to us the living example of the distinctive tenets and doctrines that we hold and practice today.

Reading books of this kind will also help us to value more highly the privileges with which God has blessed us above our forefathers. They were often not permitted to have permanent places to live. They were driven about and hunted down like wild beasts, forced to dwell in caves and mountains and other secluded places, to hold their meetings in secret, and to suffer every imaginable form of injustice and persecution, because in those days to be a true follower of Christ was counted the very worst of crimes. But we enjoy all the privileges of citizenship, and are protected in the fullest enjoyment of our religion and our forms of worship.

It is the duty of the church to maintain and teach the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to hand it on to the generations to come. And as we consider these facts, what a glorious treasure of pure Christian devotion shines in these pages of the Story of the Martyrs. How much this grand record of their sufferings has done, and may yet do, to preserve the pure doctrines of the Gospel, eternity alone will reveal.

For these reasons, and many others that might be named, the publishers of this edition have, in the fear of God and for the promotion of His glory, undertaken the publication of "The Bloody Theater or Martyrs' Mirror" and now give it to the public, in the hope that it may be the means of promoting the glory of God and of doing much good among the children of men.

NOTE. This work was translated from the Dutch Edition of 1660, and where questions of doubt occurred, the edition of 1685 as well as the German editions were consulted.