Still a little while and the prophet Mathys crosses his path, and tells him of the New Sion and the extermination of the godless." Mathys, or Jan Mathiesen, was a baker of Haarlem, who, constituted an Anabaptist bishop, was preaching the new gospel through the Netherlands and gathering recruits to the community of God's saints which had been established at Muenster.

"Full of hope for the future," says Professor Pearson, "Jan sets out for Muenster to join the saints.

Still young, handsome, imbued with a fiery enthusiasm, actor by nature and even by choice, he has no small influence on the spread of Anabaptism in that city.

The youth of twenty-three expounds to the followers of Rottmann the beauties of his ideal kingdom of the good and the true.

With his whole soul he preaches to them the redemption of the oppressed, the destruction of tyranny, the community of goods, and the rule of justice and brotherly love.