Daniel Verkampt, in the Year 1558

About this time, also, a young man named Daniel Verkampt, after suffering much persecution, was arrested at Kortrijck, in Flanders, for living truly according to the Word of God. When he was sharply examined by the deans of Ronse and Polet, he willingly and freely confessed his faith, and said that he would hold to it firmly even to death; but he would betray none of his fellow believers. [n791-1]

Then Ronse and Polet summoned this young man's mother before them. She was a little old woman, and she walked with a staff. When she appeared before them, they told her in harsh words that according to the imperial decree she had forfeited life and property for having sheltered her son, whom they had found to be a heretic.

To this she meekly replied: "My lords, shall I forfeit life and property for having now and then given shelter to my own son in his distress, whom I carried under my heart, brought forth in pain, and nourished in affliction, when he is neither a thief nor a rogue, but is called the most excellent young man of our village; and this merely because you say that he is a heretic? I think that if the Emperor were present, from whom you say you have a decree, he would say that you abuse his decree against me, and he would commend me, that the mother's heart was moved with compassion for her child, who has never deserved anything else. Truly, my lords, this is contrary to your own wisdom and courtesy; for know that if in that hour when you came to arrest him I could have hidden him from you in my body, by carrying him again for nine months, giving him birth, and raising him, as I have done once, God knows how gladly I would have done it." She said this with such feeling that all the lords who were present and sat in court declared her innocent, and said that she had not acted contrary to the nature of a true mother's heart; and so the mother was set at liberty, but the son had to buy with fire the steadfastness of his faith, and the love of God with which he was aflame, and he was burned for the testimony of Jesus Christ who will make him free for [n791-2]