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 of the church." Once more their communities flourished, under the protection of the Moravian nobles, who successfully withstood the occasional demands of Austria's rulers that the Anabaptists should be driven out of the land.

In the meantime Nikolsburg had continued to be, in some sort, the headquarters of the Anabaptists. The House of Lichtenstein had not ceased to grant them countenance and protection, so far as possible, nor is there any hint that Lord Leonhardt ever withdrew from the body. There does not seem to have been any radical change in the attitude of the House towards the brethren during the lifetime of his son, Christopher, though it is not known that the latter was a member of the body. The Lichtensteins, and for the most part the other Moravian nobles, pretty uniformly returned a non possumus to all their monarch's edicts of persecution; and, if they did not openly protest, their capacity for passive resistance was practically unlimited. Unless the Austrian Government was prepared to send soldiers into Moravia, little could be done towards the dispersal of the Anabaptists.

But with the death of Christopher von