Elisabeth Dirks
vers 1510-1549 16th century
Not paying for one's own safety with other people's lives.
Who was Elisabeth Dirks?
Raised in a Frisian convent where she had learned Latin, she escaped disguised as a milkmaid, joined the Anabaptists and became one of the first women to teach among them. Arrested in Leeuwarden in January 1549 with a hymn book on her, she spent her whole interrogation refusing to name anyone, endured the thumbscrews, and was drowned in 1549. The record of her answers has been preserved.
In their own words
I hope through the grace of God that he will keep my tongue, so that I shall not become a betrayer.
I have never read in the holy Scriptures of a holy sacrament, but of a supper of the Lord.