When Austin, the Romish monk and missionary, visited Wales, at the close of the _sixth_ century, he found a community of more than two thousand Christians, quietly living in their mountain homes. They were independent of the Romish See, and wholly rejected its authority. Austin labored hard to convert them--that is, to bring them under the Papal yoke; but entirely failed in the effort. Yielding things in general, he reduced his demand upon them to three particulars: 1. That they should observe Easter in due form, as ordered by the Church. 2. That they should give Christendom, or baptism, to their children. 3. That they should preach to the English the Word of God, as directed.[1] These demands of Austin prove that they neither observed the Popish ordinance of Easter, nor baptized their children. They, however, rejected all his overtures, whereupon he left them with threats of war and wretchedness. Not long after, Wales was invaded by the Saxons, and many of these inoffensive Christians cruelly murdered, as was believed, at the instigation of this bigoted zealot, the exacting Austin. THE DUTCH BAPTISTS The Baptists of Holland have a history that reaches back to a very remote period, if not to the Apostolic age, as some confidently assert. And this antiquity is conceded by historians who have no sympathy with their denominational sentiments. MOSHEIM, in his Church History, says, "The true origin of that sect which acquired the name Anabaptist _is hid in the remote depths of antiquity,_ and is consequently extremely difficult to be ascertained." _Eccl. Hist., Vol. IV., p. 427, Mac. Ed., 1811._ See _Introd. Orchard's Hist. Bap., p. 17._ ZWINGLI, the Swiss Reformer, contemporary with Luther, declares: "The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty but for _thirteen hundred years_ has caused great disturbance in the church." _Introd. Orchard's Hist. Bap., p. 17._ Thirteen hundred years before his time would have carried it back to within two centuries of the death of Christ. DOCTOR DERMONT, chaplain to the king of Holland, and Doctor Ypeij, professor of theology at Groningen, a few years since received a royal commission to prepare a history of the Reformed Dutch Church. That history, prepared under royal sanction, and officially published, contains the following manly and generous testimony to the antiquity and orthodoxy of the Dutch Baptists. "We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were the original Waldenses, and have long in the history of the church received the honor of that origin. On this account, _the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the Apostles, and as a Christian society, which has preserved pure the doctrines of the Gospel through all ages." Hist. Ref. Dutch Ch., Ed. Breda, 1819._ See _Ency. Relig. Knowledge, Art. Mennonites._