carelessly strolling amidst sylvan shades, caught a hasty glimpse of some
spirit of the woods, and were doomed ever afterwards to spend their lives
in fruitlessly searching after it. The race of Fanatics are somewhat akin
to these restless seekers. There is a wildness and excessive extravagance
in their notions and actions which separates them from the calm followers
of Truth, and leads them into strange courses and curious beliefs. How far
the sacred fire of enthusiasm may be separated from the fierce heat of
fanaticism we need not now inquire, nor whether a spark of the latter has
not shone brilliantly in many a noble soul and produced brave deeds and
acts of piety and self-sacrifice. Those whose fate is here recorded were
far removed from such noble characters; their fanaticism was akin to
madness, and many of them were fitter for an asylum rather than a gaol,
which was usually their destination.

Foremost among them was Quirinus Kulmanus (Kuhlmann), who has been called
the Prince of Fanatics, and wandered through many lands making many
disciples. He was born at Breslau in Silesia in 1651, and at an early age
saw strange visions, at one time the devils in hell, at another the
Beatific Glory of God. His native country did not appreciate him, and he
left it to wander on from university to university, publishing his
ravings. At Leyden he met with the works of Boehme, another fanatic, who
wrote a strange book, entitled _Aurora_, which was suppressed by the
magistrates. The reading of this author was like casting oil into the
fire. Poor Kuhlmann became wilder still in his strange fanaticism, and
joined himself to a pretended prophet, John Rothe, whom the authorities at
Amsterdam incarcerated, in order that he might be able to foretell with
greater certainty than he had done other things when and after what manner
he should be released. Kuhlmann then wrote a book, entitled _Prodromus
Quinquennii Mirabilis_, and published at Leyden in 1674, in which he set
forth his peculiar views. He stated that in that same year the Fifth