Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III REPRESENTATIVE LEADERS OF THE ANABAPTISTS AND EARLY MENNONITES. We find many types of mind represented among the Anabaptists and early Mennonite leaders. This is not surprising when we take into consideration the conditions under which they were brot together and the fact that the movement was so little organized. Then, too, the fact that so many of these leaders were quickly removed by death leaves room for speculation as to what they might have thot, said, written or done if the cruel hand of persecution had not removed them so early from the scene of action. As things are, it happens that different denominations claim the same men as their spiritual ancestors. This seems no serious condition of affairs to the present writer, especially in view of the purpose of this work. The very fact that these leaders were of one mind on such fundamental questions as to make it possible for various denominations to claim them legitimately is proof that they are worthy of serious consideration on so far- reaching a question as Christ's Headship of the Church. Brief sketches of the lives of some of these leadersare here presented for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the types of mind found among those whose views are considered representative on the question under discussion and also to see under what circumstances they gave expression to the thots and views which are of interest to us. A study of such lives is both profitable and pathetic. "Those who had this vision, and with it had ihe power of restraint and the gifts of statesmanship to see what would work and what would not work in the world as it actually was then, became the leaders of the Protestant Reformation and have their renown in the pages of history. Those who had this vision and who were resolved t...