Deliverance of Hans Brael From Roman Persecutors by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 18, 1915

Deliverance of Hans Brael From Roman Persecutors

By W. A. S.

In the year 1557, Hans Brael, a member of the Baptist brotherhood of believers in Moravia, was traveling in the Tyrol, visiting fellow believers. In this region, in those times, determined efforts were being made to stamp out the witness to Bible truth, particularly Baptist teaching; for these Baptists were especially active and devoted in working for souls.

Having visited his brethren, Brael was turning homeward toward Moravia, when he met a judge traveling with his secretary. The judge nodded and passed on, but the secretary questioned Brael, and soon found that the stranger would not deny being a Baptist. The judge was called back, and Brael was haled to court and held prisoner till he should renounce his faith. For months he was kept in an underground dungeon of the castle, where clothing rotted away, and he felt his life was surely sustained only by the interposition of God. Winter coming on, he was moved to a room in the castle, and for thirty-seven weeks remained with one hand and one foot in the stocks. One day the young man felt that the Spirit of God had given him a message for his persecutors. Van Braght says (in his 'Baptist Martyrology'):—

He sent for the secretary that had apprehended him, wishing him to come to him in the prison. He very speedily came and sat down, and asked what he desired that he had sent for him there. The brother said, 'The only reason is that I cannot forbear showing you that, as you well know, you are the most guilty cause of my imprisonment and miserable sufferings, while never in my life did I do you any injury.' The secretary sat alarmed and silent, and said not a word, except that he had been obliged to do it.

The brother said: 'Yes, the judgment of God impelled you to do it, because you thirsted for the blood of the godly; it has therefore befallen you to have brought a heavy judgment upon yourself. God will assuredly visit you for it, demand it at your hands, and punish you for your sins.'

The secretary was silent and could say nothing, so alarmed and stupefied was he. Thus he went away. In about fourteen days he died suddenly in the night. In one quarter of an hour was he well and dead. Great dread was upon him, so that he cried fearfully and moaned, lamenting that he had acted unrighteously and committed iniquity. . . . In the same night in which this man died, the brother experienced great joy, so that he could not, by prayer and thanksgiving, sufficiently praise the Lord; for it occurred to him in the night that he should yet be restored to the brethren and the church. In the morning there came an officer, who told him that the secretary had that night suddenly and awfully died. The fate of the secretary produced great alarm in the mind of his lordship [the lord of the castle].

These things determined the persecutors to be rid of the prisoner, and it was decided to send him to the galleys, those prison pens of the sea. But the Lord, who had not suffered his servant to perish, and who had given him the token of final deliverance, frustrated their purpose. First Brael was left to go about the castle yard for two days, 'that he might learn again how to walk.' Then he was sent off with an officer on the road to the seaport. But at one of the first inns at which they halted, the officer drank himself to sleep, with the door open, and Brael walked out at liberty. 'Thus God on that night delivered him,' says the martyrologist, 'and he came in peace and with joy to his brethren and the church of God.'

W. A. S.