GOVERT JASPERS, PUT TO DEATH A. D. 1558.

About this time a lay brother by the name of Govert Jaspers, with two others, left the monastery of the Cross-brethren at Goes. However, they did not continue together long; for one of them utterly 560 forsook the good way, and accepted the love of this world; the other, from fear of persecution, went to Friesland, where he became a brother in the church, and died a pious man; but this Govert Jaspers was apprehended by the bailiff, soon after he left the monastery, as he was sitting in the field, reading in a Testament. He was brought to the city of Brussels, in Brabant, where he had to suffer much, yea, finally even death, for the testimony of the truth, in which he steadfastly persevered, and thus, as a valiant soldier of Jesus Christ, pressed through the strait gate, in order to take by force the kingdom of God, which he had preferred far above all the kingdoms of this world.