His agony of soul became intolerable with a tragedy at the Old Cloister. Some three hundred Anabaptists, who had sought refuge there from persecution, were put to death. Among the dead was Menno's own brother. This event more than any other intensified the inner conflict of his soul, which had been raging for at least four years. He wrote:

The next year, Hamilton published two more poems in the paper, now recreating himself as a somber religious poet. The change in heart can almost certainly be attributed to the advent in St. Croix of a Presbyterian minister named Hugh Knox. Born in northern Ireland of Scottish ancestry, the handsome young Knox migrated to America and became a schoolteacher in Delaware. As a raffish young man, he exhibited a lukewarm piety until a strange incident transformed his life. One Satu