And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.
Matthew 3:6
"Conrad Grebel (1498-1526) was one such preacher. ‘The Father of the
Anabaptists’ had actually been led to faith in Christ thanks to
Zwingli’s ministry in 1522; nevertheless, the following year he 
began to
feel that his pastor was not carrying out a full-blown reform at his
church at Zurich, especially due to Zwingli’s willingness to compromise
with the State over the question of abolishing the Mass.
Two
years later, Zwingli and Grebel met for a final showdown. They were to
debate publically upon the controversial theme of infant baptism. After
the debate, Zurich’s authorities officially endorsed Zwingli’s stance,
so Grebel and his faithful followers decided to leave Zurich in order to
preach their newfound faith, baptizing men and women who responded to
their Gospel preaching. From that moment on, Anabaptism (which
literally means ‘rebaptism’ or ‘baptism again’) was to become an
independent movement, separate from the Swiss Reformation.
As can
be imagined, the civil authorities were incensed at Grebel’s
re-baptizing antics. Therefore all of the Anabaptist preachers were
sentenced to death by drowning. Grebel’s close friend Felix Mantz was
the first to die in January 1527.
Grebel himself had been
arrested in October 1525 and handed a life-sentence, however, his
friends helped him to escape some five months later. But all to no
avail. The young Grebel was to be struck down by the plague that very
summer.
Notwithstanding his relative youth, Grebel was to prove
instrumental in the development of a Protestant alternative to the
mainline thought of Luther, Zwingli and Bullinger." FreshBreeze/WillGraham
