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deputies were graciously received by the Emperor, and remained at the Court five years, during which time they presented no less than seventeen memorials to the Emperor in person at audiences granted for that purpose, setting forth the persecutions suffered by their people at the hands of the missionaries and of the magistrates at the instigation of the missionaries, and praying for toleration and protection. But notwithstanding the Emperor's uniform kindness of manner at these audiences, and that he ordered a cessation of violence until further consideration, matters constantly grew worse in Silesia.

When parents refused to present their children for instruction, they were imprisoned; women were placed in the stocks and compelled to lie in cold rooms in the winter without so much as straw under them; and when imprisonment failed to bring the people with their children to the missionary services, fines and extortions were added. Marriages were forbidden unless the parties would promise to rear their offspring in the Catholic faith, and when young people went into other countries to be married, they were imprisoned for that on their return. The dead were not allowed Christian burial in the churchyards where their ancestors of the same faith for many generations slept, but were required to be interred in cattle-ways, and sorrowing friends were forbidden to follow the remains of loved ones to these ignominious resting-places. Hundreds of Schwenkfelders were so buried at Harpersdorf, Laugenneudorf, and Lauterseifen during the twenty years that the mission was maintained. The missionaries claimed guardianship of all orphan children of Schwenkfelders, and thus the last hours of the dying were embittered by the thought that their children must be educated in a faith that they themselves abhorred. And to prevent escape from the horrible situation in which they were placed, the people were forbidden to sell their property