experiment of an Anabaptist community was forthwith begun. For some years they suffered no interference, and so the experiment was conducted under most favourable conditions. The nobles were glad to encourage them, for population was sparse, labour was scarce, and apart from their religious notions the Anabaptists were known to be settlers of the most desirable sort, sober and industrious. The Austerlitz colony did not long remain the sole Anabaptist community: a colony soon went forth and settled at Auspitz, nearly midway between Nikolsburg and Austerlitz, and gradually others "swarmed," until there are said to have been by 1536 no fewer than eighty-six settlements, mostly numbering several hundred persons each, one being as large as two thousand. And in every case these communities seem to have enjoyed a uniform, steady prosperity.
Socialistic ideas often found advocates during the Reformation period, but here in Moravia was the most conspicuous, if not the only, instance of a practical experiment in the working out of these ideas. Jacob Huter is credited with the chief part in the organisation of these Moravian communities,
