“Some especially cruel persecutions at Alzey drew from a brave Evangelical pastor, Johann Odenbach, a protest which does him honour. It is addressed to the “appointed judges of the poor prisoners in Alzey whom people call Anabaptists” and reads as follows—“You, as poor ignorant and unlearned people, ought to cry diligently and earnestly to the true Judge and pray for His Divine help and for wisdom and grace. Then you would not lightly stain your hands with innocent blood, even though Imperial Majesty and all the Princes in the world had commanded you thus to judge. These poor prisoners, with their baptism, have not so deeply sinned against God that He will damn their souls on that account, nor have they acted so criminally against the Government and against mankind as to forfeit their lives. For right baptism or second baptism is not such a power as that it can either save a man or condemn him. We must allow baptism to be just a sign by which we acknowledge that we are Christians, dead to the world, enemies of the Devil, wretched, crucified people, who seek not temporal but eternal blessings; striving unceasingly against flesh, sin and Devil, and living a Christian life. Not many of you judges would know what to say about right or wrong baptism if it came to being bound and questioned under torture.”