# Daniel Verkampt, A. D. 1558.

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About this time, also a young man named Daniel
Verkampt, after suffering much persecution, was
apprehended at Kortrijck, in Flanders, for living
truly according to the word of God. Being sharply
examined by the deans of Ronse and Polet, he willingly
and freely confessed his faith, and said that he
would firmly adhere to it even unto death; but of
his fellow-believers he would betray no one.

Thereupon Ronse and Polet summoned the
mother of this young man before them. She was a
little old woman, and walked with a staff. When
she appeared before them, they told her with severe
words, that according to the imperial decree she
had forfeited life and property, for having harbored
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, that has never merited anything else.
Truly, my lords, this is contrary to your proper
wisdom and urbanity; for, know, that if in that
hour when you came to apprehend him, I could
have concealed 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.” This she said
with such pathos, 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 hence the mother was set
at liberty, but the son had to purchase with fire the
constancy of his faith, and the love of God, with
which he was inflamed, and was burnt for the testimony
of Jesus Christ, who will make him free forever.



## Original source

[Read this passage on Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65855/pg65855-images.html#Page_560)

[Edition details](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65855)

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