CHAPTER -Movement in Switzerland — Source of the Reformation — Its democratic Character — Foreign Service — Morality — The Tockenburg — A Chalet on the Alps — A Family of Shepherds — Young Ulrich.

At the moment when the decree of the Diet of Worms appeared, a continually increasing movement began to disturb the quiet valleys of Switzerland. The voices that resounded over the plains of Upper and Lower Saxony were re-echoed from the bosom of the Helvetic mountains by the energetic voices of its priests, of its shepherds, and of the inhabitants of its warlike cities. The partisans of Rome were filled with apprehension, and exclaimed that a wide and terrible conspiracy was forming everywhere in the Church against the Church. The exulting friends of the Gospel said that, as in spring the breath of life is felt from the shores of the sea to the mountain top, so the Spirit of God was now melting throughout Christendom the ices of a lengthened winter, and covering it with fresh flowers and verdure, from its lowest plains to its most barren and its steepest rocks.

It was not Germany that communicated the light of truth to Switzerland, Switzerland to France, and France to England: all these countries received it from God; just as one part of the world does not communicate the light of day to the other, but the same brilliant orb imparts it direct to all the earth. Infinitely exalted above men, Christ, the day-spring from on high, was at the epoch of the Reformation, as he had been at the establishment of Christianity, the Divine fire whence emanated the life of the world. One sole and same doctrine was suddenly established in the sixteenth century, at the hearths and altars of the most distant and dissimilar nations; it was everywhere the same spirit; everywhere producing the same faith.

The Reformation of Germany and that of Switzerland demonstrate this truth. Zwingle had no communication with Luther. There was no doubt a connecting link between these two men; but we must not look for it upon earth: it was above. He who from heaven gave the truth to Luther, gave it to Zwingle also. Their bond of union was God. “I began to preach the Gospel,” says Zwingle, “in the year of grace 1516, that is to say, at a time when Luther’s name had never been heard in this country. It is not from Luther that I learnt the doctrine of Christ, but from the Word of God. If Luther preaches Christ, he does what I am doing; and that is all.” f1285 But if the different reformations derived a striking unity from the same Spirit whence they all proceeded, they also received certain particular marks from the different nations among whom they were effected.

We have already given an outline of the condition of Switzerland at the epoch of the Reformation. We shall add but little to what has been already said. In Germany the monarchical principle predominated, in Switzerland the democratic. In Germany the Reformation had to struggle with the will of princes; in Switzerland against the wishes of the people.

An assembly of men, more easily carried away than a single individual, is also more rapid in its decisions. The victory over the papacy, which cost years of struggle beyond the Rhine, required on this side but a few months and sometimes only a few days.

In Germany, the person of Luther towers imposingly above the Saxon people; he seems to be alone in his attacks upon the Roman colossus; and wherever the conflict is raging, we discern from afar his lofty stature rising high above the battle. Luther is the monarch, so to speak, of the revolution that is accomplishing. In Switzerland, the struggle begins in different cantons at the same time; there is a confederation of reformers; their number surprises us; doubtless one head overtops the others, but no one commands; it is a republican senate, in which all appear with their original features and distinct influences. They were a host: Wittembach, Zwingle, Capito, Haller, Oecolampadius, Oswald, Myconius, Leo Juda, Farel, Calvin; their stage was Glaris, Basle, Zurich, Berne, Neufchatel, Geneva, Lucerne, Schafhausen, Appenzel, Saint Gall, and the Grisons. In the German reformation there is but one stage, flat and uniform as the country itself; in Switzerland, the Reformation is divided, like the region itself by its thousand mountains. Each valley, so to speak, has its own awakening, and each peak of the Alps its own light from heaven.

A lamentable epoch for the Swiss had begun after their exploits against the dukes of Burgundy. Europe, which had discovered the strength of their arms, had enticed them from their mountains, and had robbed them of their independence by rendering them the arbitrators of the fate of nations on the battle-field. The hand of a Swiss pointed the sword at the breast of his fellow-countryman on the plains of Italy and of France, and the intrigues of foreigners had filled with jealousy and dissension those lofty valleys of the Alps so long the abode of simplicity and peace. Attracted by the charms of gold, sons, laborers, and serving-men, stealthily quitted their Alpine pastures for the banks of the Rhone or the Po. Helvetian unity was broken under the slow steps of mules laden with gold. The Reformation, for in Switzerland also it had its political bearings, proposed to restore the unity and the ancient virtues of the cantons. Its first cry was for the Swiss to rend the perfidious toils of the stranger, and to embrace one another in close union at the foot of the cross. But its generous accents were unheeded. Rome, accustomed to purchase in these valleys the blood she shed to increase her power, uprose in anger; excited Swiss against Swiss; and new passions arose to tear the body of the nation.

Switzerland needed a reform. There was, it is true, among the Helvetians, a simplicity and good nature that seemed ridiculous to the refined Italians; but at the same time they had the reputation of being the people that most habitually transgressed the laws of chastity. This astrologers attributed to the constellations; philosophers, to the strength of temperament among those indomitable people moralists, to the Swiss principles, which looked upon deceit, dishonesty, and calumny, as sins of a much deeper die that impurity. Marriage was forbidden the priests; but it would have been difficult to find one who lived in a real state of celibacy. They were required to behave, not chastely, but prudently. This was one of the earliest disorders against which the Reformation was directed.

It is now time to investigate the dawnings of the new day in these valleys of the Alps.

About the middle of the eleventh century two hermits made their way from Saint Gall towards the mountains that lie to the south of this ancient monastery, and arrived at a desert valley about ten leagues long. On the north, the lofty mountains of the Sentis, Sommerigkopf, and the Old Man, separate this valley from the canton of Appenzel; on the south, the Kuhfirsten with its seven peaks rises between it and the Wallensee, Sargans, and the Grisons; on the east, the valley slopes away to the rays of the rising sun, and displays the magnificent prospect of the Tyrolese Alps.

These two hermits, having reached the springs of the little river Thur, erected there two cells. By degrees the valley was peopled; on its most elevated portion, 2010 feet above the level of Lake Zurich, these arouse around a church a village named Wildhaus, or the Wild-house, upon which now depend two hamlets, Lisighaus, or Elizabeth’s house, and Schonenboden. The fruits of the earth grow not upon these heights. A green turf of alpine freshness covers the whole valley, ascending the sides of the mountains, above which enormous masses of rock rise in savage grandeur to the skies.

About a quarter of a league from the church, near Lisighaus, by the side of a path that leads to the pasture-grounds beyond the river, may still be seen a peasant’s cottage. Tradition narrates that the wood necessary for its construction was felled on the very spot. Everything seems to indicate that it was built in the most remote times. The walls are thin; the windows are composed of small round panes of glass; the roof is formed of shingles, loaded with stones to prevent their being carried away by the wind. Before the house bubbles forth a limpid stream.

About the end of the fifteenth century, this house was inhabited by a man named Zwingle, amman or bailiff of the parish. The family of the Zwingles or Zwingli was ancient, and in great esteem among the inhabitants of these mountains. Bartholomew, the bailiff’s brother, at first incumbent of the parish, and from the year 1487 dean of Wesen, enjoyed a certain celebrity in the country. The wife of the amman of Wildhaus, Margaret Meili (whose brother John was somewhat later abbot of the convent of Fischingen in Thurgovia), had already borne him two sons, Henry and Klaus, when on New Year’s day 1484, seven weeks after the birth of Luther, a third son, who was christened Ulrich, was born in this lonely chalet. Five other sons, John, Wolfgang, Bartholomew, James, Andrew, and an only daughter, Anna, increased the number of this Alpine family. No one in the whole district was more respected than the amman Zwingle. His character, his office, and his numerous children, made him the patriarch of the mountains. He was a shepherd, as were his sons.

No sooner had the first days of May clothed the mountains with verdure, than the father and his children would set off for the pasture-grounds with their flocks, rising gradually from station to station, and reaching in this way, by the end of July, the highest summits of the Alps. They then began to return gradually towards the valleys, and in autumn the whole population of the Wildhaus re-entered their humble cottages. Sometimes, during the summer, the young people who should have stayed at home, longing to enjoy the fresh breezes of the mountains, set out in companies for the chalets, accompanying their voices with the melodious notes of their rustic instruments; for all were musicians. When they reached the Alps, the shepherds welcomed them from afar with their horns and songs, and spread before them a repast of milk; and then the joyous troop, after many devious windings, returned to their valleys to the sound of the bagpipe. In his early youth, Ulrich doubtless sometimes shared in these amusements. He grew up at the foot of these rocks that seemed everlasting, and whose summits pointed to the skies. “I have often thought,” said one of his friends, “that being brought near to heaven on these sublime heights, he there contracted something very heavenly and divine.” f1295 Long were the winter evenings in the cottages of the Wildhaus. At such a season the youthful Ulrich listened, at the paternal hearth, to the conversations between the bailiff and the elders of the parish. He heard them relate how the inhabitants of the valley had in former times groaned beneath a heavy yoke. He thrilled with joy at the thought of the independence the Tockenburg had won for itself, and which its alliance with the Swiss had secured. The love of country kindled in his heart; Switzerland became dear to him; and if any one chanced to drop a word unfavorable to the confederates, the child would immediately rise up and warmly defend their cause. Often, too, might he be seen, during these long evenings, quietly seated at the feet of his pious grandmother, listening, with his eyes fixed on her, to her scripture stories and her pious legends, and eagerly receiving them into his heart.

CHAPTER -Ulrich at Wesen and Basle — Ulrich at Berne — The Dominican Convent — Jetzer — The Apparitions — Passion of the Lay-brother — Imposture — Discovery and Punishment — Zwingle at Vienna and Basle — Music at Basle — Wittembach proclaims the Gospel — Leo Juda — The Priest of Glaris.

The good amman was charmed at the promising disposition of his son. He perceived that Ulrich might one day do something better than tend herds on Mount Sentis, to the sound of the shepherd’s song (ranz des vaches).

One day he took him by the hand and led him to Wesen. He crossed the grassy flanks of the Ammon, and descended the bold and savage rocks that border the Lake of Wallenstadt; on reaching the town, he entered the house of his brother the dean, and intrusted the young mountaineer to his care, that he might examine his capacity. Ulrich was particularly distinguished by a natural horror of falsehood, and a great love for truth.

He tells us himself, that one day, when he began to reflect, the thought occurred to him that “lying ought to be punished more severely than theft;” for, adds he, “truth is the mother of all virtues.” The dean soon loved his nephew like a son; and, charmed with his vivacity, he confided his education to a schoolmaster, who in a short time taught him all he knew himself. At ten years of age, the marks of a superior mind were already noticed in the young Ulrich. His father and his uncle resolved to send him to Basle.

When the child of the Tockenburg arrived in this celebrated city, with that single-mindedness and simplicity of heart which he seems to have inhaled with the pure air of his native mountains, but which really came from a higher source, a new world opened before him. The celebrity of the famous Council of Basle, the university which Pius II had founded in this city in 1460, the printing-presses which then resuscitated the masterpieces of antiquity, and circulated through the world the first fruits of the revival of letters; the residence of distinguished men, Wessel, Wittembach, and especially of that prince of scholars, that sun of the schools, Erasmus, all rendered Basle, at the epoch of the Reformation, one of the great centers of light in the West.

Ulrich was placed at St. Theodore’s school. Gregory Binzli was then at its head, — a man of feeling heart and gentleness rarely found at that period among teachers. Young Zwingle made rapid progress. The learned disputations, then in fashion among the doctors, had descended even to the children in the schools. Ulrich took part in them; he disciplined his growing powers against the pupils of other establishments, and was always conqueror in these struggles, which were a prelude to those by which he was to overthrow the papacy in Switzerland. This success filled his elder rivals with jealousy. He soon outgrew the school of Basle, as he had that of Wesen.

Lupulus, a distinguished scholar, had just opened at Berne the first learned institution in Switzerland. The bailiff of Wildhaus and the priest of Wesen resolved to send the boy to it; Zwingle, in 1497, left the smiling plains of Basle, and again approached those Upper Alps where his infancy had been spent, and whose snowy tops, gilded by the sun, might be seen from Berne. Lupulus, himself a distinguished poet, introduced his pupil into the sanctuary of classic learning, — a treasure then unknown, and whose threshold had been passed only by a few. The young neophyte ardently inhaled these perfumes of antiquity. His mind expanded, his style was formed. He became a poet.

Among the convents of Berne, that of the Dominicans was the most celebrated. These monks were engaged in a serious quarrel with the Franciscans. The latter maintained the immaculate conception of the Virgin, which the former denied. Wherever they went, before the dazzling altars that adorned their church, and between the twelve columns that supported its fretted roof, the Dominicans had but one thought — how they might humble their rivals. They had remarked Zwingle’s beautiful voice; they had heard of his precocious understanding, and thinking that he might give luster to their order, endeavored to attract him among them, f1301 and invited him to remain in their convent until he was old enough to pass his novitiate. All Zwingle’s future career was at stake. The amman of Wildhaus being informed of the lures to which the Dominicans had resorted, trembled for the inexperience of his son, and ordered him to quit Berne immediately. Zwingle thus escaped from these monastic walls within which Luther had entered of his own free-will. What transpired somewhat later may serve to show the imminent danger Zwingle then incurred.

In 1507, a great agitation reigned in the city of Berne. A young man of Zurzach, named John Jetzer, having one day presented himself at this same Dominican convent, had been repulsed. The poor dejected youth made another attempt, and said, holding out fifty-three florins and some pieces of silk, “It is all I possess; take it, and receive me into your order.”

He was admitted on the 6th of January among the lay brethren. But on the first night, a strange noise in his cell filled him with terror. He fled to the convent of the Carthusians, whence he was sent back to the Dominicans.

On the following night, the eve of the festival of Saint Matthias, he was awoke by deep groans; he opened his eyes, and saw a tall white spectral form standing beside his bed. “I am,” said a sepulchral voice, “a soul escaped from the fires of purgatory.” The lay brother tremblingly replied: “God help thee! I can do nothing!” The phantom then advanced towards the poor brother, and seizing him by the throat, indignantly reproached him for his refusal. Jetzer, full of alarm, exclaimed: “What can I do to save thee?” “Scourge thyself eight days in succession until the blood comes, and lie prostrate on the earth in the Chapel of Saint John.” The specter answered thus and vanished. The lay brother confided the particulars of this apparition to his confessor, the convent-preacher, and, by his advice, submitted to the discipline required. It was soon reported through the whole city that a soul had applied to the Dominicans in order to be delivered from purgatory. The Franciscans were deserted, and the people ran in crowds to the church, where the holy man was to be seen prostrate on the pavement. The soul from purgatory had announced its reappearance in eight days. On the appointed night, it came again, attended by two spirits that tormented it, extorting from it the most frightful groans. “Scotus,” said the disturbed spirit, “Scotus, the inventor of the Franciscan doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, is among those who suffer like horrible torments with me.” At this news, which soon spread through Berne, the partisans of the Franciscans were still more dismayed.

But the soul, at the moment of disappearing, had announced a visit from the Virgin herself. In effect, on the day fixed, the astonished brother saw Mary appear in his cell. He could not believe his eyes. She approached him kindly, gave him three of our Savior’s tears, and as many drops of his blood, with a crucifix and a letter addressed to Pope Julius II, “who,” said she, “is the man selected by God to abolish the festival of His pretended immaculate conception.” And then, drawing still nearer the bed on which the brother lay, she informed him in a solemn voice that he was about to experience a signal favor, and at the same time pierced his hand with a nail.

The brother uttered a horrible shriek; but Mary wrapped his hand in a cloth that her Son (as she said) had worn at the time of the flight into Egypt. This one would was not enough; in order that the glory of the Dominicans might at least equal that of the Franciscans, Jetzer must have the five wounds of Christ and of St. Francis on his hands, his feet, and his side. The four others were inflicted, and then, after giving him some drink, he was placed in a hall hung with pictures representing our Lord’s passion; here he spent many long days without food, and his imagination soon became greatly excited. The monks from time to time opened the doors of this chamber to the people, who came in crowds to contemplate with devout astonishment the brother with his five wounds, stretching out his arms, bending his head, and imitating by his postures and movements the crucifixion of our Lord. At times, he was quite out of his senses; he foamed at the mouth, and appeared ready to give up the ghost. “He is suffering the cross of Christ,” murmured the spectators. The multitude, eager in pursuit of miracles, thronged the convent incessantly. Men who deserve our highest esteem, even Lupulus himself, Zwingle’s teacher, were overcome with fear; and the Dominicans, from their pulpits, boasted of the glory God had conferred upon their order.

For many years this order had felt the necessity of humbling the Franciscans and of increasing by means of miracles the respect and liberality of the people. The theater selected for these operations was Berne, “a simple, rude, and ignorant city,” as it had been styled by the sub-prior of Berne in a chapter held at Wimpfen on the Neckar. To the prior, sub-prior, Chaplain, and purveyor of the convent were assigned the principal parts, but they were not able to play them out. A new apparition of Mary having taken place, Jetzer fancied he recognized his confessor’s voice; and on saying so aloud, Mary disappeared. She came again to censure the incredulous brother. “This time it is the prior,” exclaimed Jetzer, rushing on him with a knife in his hand. The saint flung a pewter platter at the head of the poor brother, and vanished.

Alarmed at the discovery Jetzer had made, the Dominicans endeavored to get rid of him by poison. He detected their treachery, and having escaped from the convent, revealed their imposture. They put a good face on the matter, and sent deputies to Rome. The pope empowered his legate in Switzerland, and the bishops of Lausanne and Sion, to inquire into the affair. The four Dominicans were convicted and condemned to be burnt alive, and on the 1st of May 1509, they perished at the stake in the presence of more than thirty thousand spectators. The rumor of this imposture circulated through Europe, and by laying bare one of the greatest sores of the Church, prepared the way for the Reformation. f1302 Such were the men from whose hands the youthful Ulrich Zwingle escaped. He had studied polite letters at Berne; he had now to study philosophy, and for this purpose went to Vienna in Austria. The companions of Ulrich’s studies and amusements in the capital of Austria were a young man of Saint Gall, Joachim Vadian, whose genius promised to adorn Switzerland with a learned scholar and a distinguished statesman; Henry Loreti, of the canton of Glaris, better know as Glarean, and who appeared destined to shine as a poet; and a young Swabian, John Heigerlin, the son of a blacksmith, and hence called Faber, a man of pliant character, proud of honors and renown, and who gave promise of all the qualities requisite to form a courtier.

Zwingle returned to Wildhaus in 1502; but on revisiting his native mountains, he felt that he had quaffed of the cup of learning, and that he could not live amidst the songs of his brothers, and the lowing of their herds. Being now eighteen years of age, he again repaired to Basle to continue his literary pursuits; and there, at once master and scholar, he taught in Saint Martin’s school, and studied at the university; from that time he was able to do without the assistance of his parents. Not long after he took the degree of Master of Arts. An Alsatian, Capito by name, who was his elder by nine years, was one of his greatest friends.

Zwingle now applied to the study of scholastic divinity; for as he would one day be called to expose its sophistry, it was necessary that he should first explore its gloomy labyrinths. But the joyous student of the Sentis mountains might be seen suddenly shaking off the dust of the schools and changing his philosophic toils for innocent amusements; he would take up one of his numerous musical instruments (the lute, harp, violin, flute, dulcimer, or hunting horn), draw from them some cheerful air, as in the pasture-grounds of Lisighaus; make his own chamber or that of his friends re-echo with the tunes of his native place, or accompany them with his songs. In his love for music he was a real child of the Tockenburg, — a master among many. He played on other instruments besides those we have already named. Enthusiastic in the art, he spread a taste for it through the university; not that he was fond of dissipation, but because he liked by this means to relax his mind, fatigued by serious study, and to put himself in a condition to return with greater zeal to such arduous pursuits. f1305 None possessed a livelier disposition, or more amiable character, or more attractive conversational powers. He was like a vigorous Alpine tree, expanding in all its strength and beauty, and which, as yet unpruned, throws out its healthy branches in every direction. The time will come for these branches to shoot with fresh vigor towards heaven.

After having plunged into the scholastic divinity, he quitted its barren wastes with weariness and disgust, having only found therein a medley of confused ideas, empty babbling, vain-glory, and barbarism, but not one atom of sound doctrine. “It is a mere loss of time,” said he, and he waited his hour.

In November 1505, Thomas Wittembach, son of a burgomaster of Bienne, arrived at Basle. Hitherto he had been teaching at Tubingen, at the side of Reuchlin. He was in the flower of life, sincere, pious, skilled in the liberal arts, the mathematics, and in the knowledge of Scripture. Zwingle and all the youths of the academy immediately flocked around him. A life till then unknown animated his lectures, and prophetic words fell from his lips. “The hour is not far distant,” said he, “in which the scholastic theology will be set aside, and the old doctrines of the Church revived.” — “Christ’s death,” added he, “is the only ransom for our souls.” f1308 Zwingle’s heart eagerly received these seeds of life. This was at the period when classical studies were beginning everywhere to replace the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. Zwingle, like his master and his friends, rushed into this new path.

Among the students who were most attentive to the lessons of the new doctor, was a young man twenty-three years old, of small stature, of weak and sickly frame, but whose looks announced both gentleness and intrepidity. This was Leo Juda, the son of an Alsatian parish-priest, and whose uncle had died at Rhodes fighting under the banners of the Teutonic knights in the defense of Christendom. Leo and Ulrich became intimate friends. Leo played on the dulcimer and had a very fine voice. Often did his chamber re-echo with the cheerful songs of these young friends of the arts. Leo Juda afterwards became Zwingle’s colleague, and even death could not destroy so holy a friendship.

The office of pastor of Glaris became vacant at this time. One of the pope’s youthful courtiers, Henri Goldli, his Holiness’s equerry, and who was already the possessor of several benefices, hastened to Glaris with the pontiff’s letter of nomination. But the shepherds of Glaris, proud of the antiquity of their race and of their struggles in the cause of liberty, did not feel inclined to bend their heads before a slip of parchment from Rome.

Wildhaus is not far from Glaris, and Wesen, of which Zwingle’s uncle was the incumbent, is the place where these people hold their markets. The reputation of the young master of arts of Basle had extended even to these mountains, and him the people of Glaris desired to have for their priest.

They invited him in 1506. Zwingle was ordained at Constance by the bishop, preached his first sermon at Rapperswyl, read his first mass at Wildhaus on St. Michael’s day, in the presence of all his relations and the friends of his family, and about the end of the year arrived at Glaris.

CHAPTER -Fondness for War — Schinner — Pension from the Pope — The Labyrinth — Zwingle in Italy — Principle of Reform — Zwingle and Luther — Zwingle and Erasmus — Zwingle and the ancient Classics — Paris and Glaris.

Zwingle immediately applied himself with zeal to the duties of his large parish. Yet he was but twenty-two years old, and often permitted himself to be led away by dissipation, and by the relaxed ideas of the age. As a Romish priest, he did not differ from all the surrounding clergy. But even at this time, when the evangelical doctrine had not changed his heart, he never gave rise to those scandals which often afflicted the Church, and always felt the necessity of subjecting his passions to the holy standard of the Gospel.

A fondness for war at that time inflamed the tranquil valleys of Glaris.

There dwelt the families of heroes — the Tchudis, the Walas, the Oeblis, whose blood had flowed on the field of battle. The aged warriors would relate to the youths, delighted at these recitals, their exploits in the wars of Burgundy and Swabia, and the combats of St. Jacques and of Ragaz. But, alas! it was no longer against the enemies of their independence that these warlike shepherds took up arms. They might be seen, at the voice of the king of France, of the emperor, of the duke of Milan, or even of the holy father himself, descending like an avalanche from the Alps, and dashing with a noise of thunder against the troops drawn up in the plains.

As a poor boy named Matthew Schinner, who attended the school of Sion, in the Valais (about the middle of the second half of the fifteenth century), was singing one day in the streets, as the young Martin Luther did a little later, he heard his name called by an old man. The latter, struck by the freedom with which the child answered his questions, said to him with that prophetic tone which a man is thought sometimes to possess on the brink of the grave: “Thou shalt be a bishop and a prince.” These words struck the youthful mendicant, and from that moment a boundless ambition entered his soul. At Zurich and at Como he made such progress as to surprise his masters. He became a priest of a small parish in the Valais, rose rapidly, and being sent to Rome somewhat later to demand of the pope the confirmation of a bishop of Sion, who had just been elected, he obtained this bishopric for himself, and encircled his brows with the episcopal mitre. This ambitious and crafty though often noble-minded and generous man, never considered any dignity but as a step to mount still higher. Having offered his services to Louis XII, and at the same time naming his price: “It is too much for one man,” said the king. “I will show him,” replied the exasperated Bishop of Sion, “that I, alone, am worth many men.” In effect, he turned towards Pope Julius II, who gladly welcomed him; and, in 1510, Schinner succeeded in attaching the whole Swiss confederation to the policy of this warlike pontiff. The bishop was rewarded by a cardinal’s hat, and he smiled as he now saw but one step between him and the papal throne.

Schinner’s eyes wandered continually over the cantons of Switzerland, and as soon as he discovered an influential man in any place, he hastened to attach him to himself. The pastor of Glaris fixed his attention, and Zwingle learnt erelong that the pope had granted him a yearly pension of fifty florins, to encourage him in his literary pursuits. His poverty did not permit him to buy books; this money, during the short time Ulrich received it, was entirely devoted to the purchase of classical or theological works, which he procured from Basle. Zwingle from that time attached himself to the cardinal, and thus entered the Roman party.

Schinner and Julius II at last betrayed the object of their intrigues; eight thousand Swiss, whom the eloquence of the cardinal-bishop had enlisted, crossed the Alps; but want of provisions, with the arms and money from the French, made them return ingloriously to their mountains. They carried back with them the usual concomitants of these foreign wars — distrust, licentiousness, party-spirit, violence, and disorders of every kind. Citizens refused to obey their magistrates; children their parents; agriculture and the cares of their flocks and herds were neglected; luxury and beggary increased side by side; the holiest ties were broken, and the Confederation seemed on the brink of dissolution.

Then were the eyes of the young priest of Glaris opened, and his indignation burst forth. His powerful voice was raised to warn the people of the gulf into which they were about to fall. It was in the year 1510 that he published his poem entitled the Labyrinth. Within the mazes of this mysterious garden, Minos has concealed the Minotaur, that monster, halfman, half-bull, whom he feeds with the bodies of the young Athenians. “This Minotaur,” says Zwingle, “represents the sins, the vices, the irreligion, the foreign service of the Swiss, which devour the sons of the nation.”

A bold man, Theseus, determines to rescue his country; but numerous obstacles arrest him: — first, a one-eyed lion; this is Spain and Aragon: — then a crowned eagle, whose beak opens to swallow him up; this is the Empire: — then a cock, raising its crest, and seeming to challenge to the fight; this is France. The hero surmounts all these obstacles, reaches the monster, slays him, and saves his country. “In like manner,” exclaims the poet, “are men now wandering in a labyrinth, but, as they have no clue, they cannot regain the light.

Nowhere do we find an imitation of Jesus Christ. A little glory leads us to risk our lives, torment our neighbor, and rush into disputes, war, and battle......One might imagine that the furies had broken loose from the abyss of hell.” f1313 A Theseus, a reformer was needed; this Zwingle perceived clearly, and henceforth he felt a presentiment of his mission. Shortly after, he composed an allegory, the meaning of which was less enigmatical. f1314 In April 1512, the confederates again arose at the voice of the cardinal for the defense of the Church. Glaris was in the foremost rank. The whole parish took the field under their banner, with the landamman and their pastor. Zwingle was compelled to march with them. The army passed the Alps, and the cardinal appeared in the midst of the confederates decorated with the pontiff’s presents; — a ducal cap ornamented with pearls and gold, and surmounted by the Holy Ghost represented under the form of a dove. The Swiss scaled the ramparts of fortresses and the walls of cities; and in the presence of their enemies swam naked across rivers, halberd in hand. The French were defeated at every point; bells and trumpets pealed their notes of triumph; the people crowded around them from all quarters; the nobles furnished the army with wine and fruits in abundance; monks and priests mounted the pulpits, and proclaimed that the confederates were the people of God, who avenged the Bride of the Lord on her enemies; and the pope, a prophet like Caiaphas of old, conferred on them the title of “Defenders of the Liberty of the Church.” f1315 This sojourn in Italy was not without its influence on Zwingle as regards his call to the Reformation. On his return from this campaign, he began to study Greek, “in order (as he said) to be able to draw from the fountainhead of truth the doctrines of Jesus Christ. I am determined to apply myself to Greek,” wrote he to Vadian on the 23rd of February 1513, “that no one shall be able to turn me aside from it, except God: I do it, not for glory, but for the love of sacred learning.” Somewhat later, a worthy priest, who had been his schoolfellow, coming to see him: “Master Ulrich,” said he, “I am informed that you are falling into this new error; that you are a Lutheran.” — “I am not a Lutheran,” said Zwingle, “for I learned Greek before I had ever heard the name of Luther.” To know Greek, to study the Gospel in the original language, was, in Zwingle’s opinion, the basis of the Reformation.

Zwingle went farther than merely acknowledging at this early period the grand principle of evangelical Christianity, — the infallible authority of Holy Scripture. He perceived, moreover, how we should determine the sense of the Divine Word: “They have a very mean idea of the Gospel,” said he, “who consider as frivolous, vain, and unjust, all that they imagine does not accord with their own reason. Men are not permitted to wrest the Gospel at pleasure that it may square with their own sentiments and interpretation.” — “Zwingle turned his eyes to heaven,” says his best friend, “for he would have no other interpreter than the Holy Ghost himself.” f1320 Such, at the commencement of his career, was the man whom certain persons have not hesitated to represent as having desired to subject the Bible to human reason. “Philosophy and divinity,” said he, “were always raising objections. At last I said to myself: I must neglect all these matters, and look for God’s will in his Word alone. I began (continues he) earnestly to entreat the Lord to grant me his light, and although I read the Scriptures only, they became clearer to me than if I had read all the commentators.”

He compared Scripture with itself; explaining obscure passages by those that are clear. He soon knew the Bible thoroughly, and particularly the New Testament. When Zwingle thus turned towards Holy Scripture, Switzerland took its first step towards the Reformation. Accordingly, when he explained the Scriptures, every one felt that his teaching came from God, and not from man. “All-divine work!” exclaimed Oswald Myconius; “it is thus we recovered the knowledge of the truth from heaven!”

Zwingle did not, however, contemn the explanations of the most celebrated doctors: in after-years he studied Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom, but not as authorities. “I study the doctors,” said he, “with the same end as when we ask a friend: How do you understand this passage?” Holy Scripture, in his opinion, was the touchstone by which to test the holiest doctors themselves. f1324 Zwingle’s course was slow, but progressive. He did not arrive at the truth, like Luther, by those storms which impel the soul to run hastily to its harbor of refuge; he reached it by the peaceful influence of Scripture, whose power expands gradually in the heart. Luther attained the wishedfor shore through the storms of the wide ocean; Zwingle, by gliding softly down the stream. These are the two principal ways by which the Almighty leads men. Zwingle was not fully converted to God and to his Gospel until the earlier years of his residence at Zurich; yet the moment when, in 1514 or 1515, this strong man bent the knee before God, in prayer for the understanding of his Word, was that in which appeared the first glimmering rays of the bright day that afterwards beamed upon him.

About this period one of Erasmus’s poems, in which Jesus Christ is introduced addressing mankind perishing through their own fault, made a deep impression on Zwingle. Alone in his closet, he repeated to himself that passage in which Jesus complains that men do not seek every grace from him, although he is the source of all that is good. “ALL,” said he, “ALL.” And this word was ever present to his mind. “Are there, then, any creatures, any saints, of whom we should beg assistance? No: Christ is our only treasure.” f1325 Zwingle did not restrict himself to the study of christian letters. One of the characteristic features of the reformers of the sixteenth century is their profound study of the Greek and Roman writers. The poems of Hesiod, Homer, and Pindar possessed great charms for Zwingle, and he has left some commentaries or characteristics of the two last poets. It seemed to him that Pindar spoke of the gods in so sublime a strain that he must have felt a presentiment of the true God. He studied Demosthenes and Cicero thoroughly, and in their writings learnt the art of oratory and the duties of a citizen. He called Seneca a holy man. The child of the Swiss mountains delighted also to investigate the mysteries of nature in the works of Pliny.

Thucydides, Sallust, Livy, Caesar, Suetonius, Plutarch, and Tacitus taught him the knowledge of mankind. He has been reproached with his enthusiasm for the great men of antiquity, and it is true that some of his expressions on this subject admit of no justification. But if he honored them so highly, it was because he fancied he discerned in them, not mere human virtues, but the influence of the Holy Ghost. In his opinion, God’s influence, far from being limited in ancient times by the boundaries of Palestine, extended over the whole world. “Plato,” said he, “has also drunk at this heavenly spring. And if the two Catos, Scipio, and Camillus, had not been truly religious, could they have been so high-minded?” f1327 Zwingle communicated a taste for letters to all around him. Many intelligent young men were educated at his school. “You have offered me not only books, but yourself also,” wrote Valentine Tschudi, son of one of the heroes in the Burgundian wars; and this young man, who had already studied at Vienna and Basle under the most celebrated doctors, added: “I have found no one who could explain the classic authors with such acumen and profundity as yourself.” Tschudi went to Paris, and thus was able to compare the spirit that prevailed in this university with that which he had found in a narrow valley of the Alps, over which soared the gigantic summits and eternal snows of the Dodi, the Glarnisch, the Viggis and the Freyberg. “In what frivolities do they educate the French youth!” said he. “No poison can equal the sophistical art that they are taught. It dulls the senses, weakens the judgment, and brutalizes the man, who then becomes, as it were, a mere echo, an empty sound. Ten women could not make head against one of these rhetoricans. Even in their prayers, I am certain, they bring their sophisms before God, and by their syllogisms presume to constrain the Holy Spirit to answer them.” Such were at that time Paris, the intellectual metropolis of Christendom, and Glaris, a village of herdmen among the Alps. One ray of light from God’s Word enlightens more than all the wisdom of man.

CHAPTER -Zwingle to Erasmus — Oswald Myconius — The Robbers — Oecolampadius — Zwingle at Marignan — Zwingle in Italy — Zwingle’s Method — Commencement of the Reform — Discovery — Passage from one World to the other.

A great man of that age, Erasmus, exercised much influence over Zwingle.

No sooner did one of his writings appear than Zwingle hastened to purchase it. In 1514, Erasmus arrived in Basle, where the bishop received him with every mark of esteem. All the friends of learning immediately assembled around him. But the prince of the schools had easily discovered him who was to be the glory of Switzerland. “I congratulate the Helvetians,” wrote he to Zwingle, “that you are laboring to polish and civilize them by your studies and your morals, which are alike of the highest order.” Zwingle earnestly longed to see him. “Spaniards and Gauls went to Rome to see Livy,” said he, and set out. On arriving at Basle, he found there a man about forty years of age, of small stature, weak frame, and delicate appearance, but exceedingly amiable and polite. It was Erasmus. His agreeable manners soon banished Zwingle’s timidity; the power of his genius subdued him. “Poor as Aeschines,” said he, “when each of Socrates’ disciples offered their master a present, I give you what Aeschines gave......I give you myself!”

Among the men of learning who then formed the court of Erasmus, — such as Amerbach, Rhenanus, Frobenius, Nessenus, and Glarean, — Zwingle noticed Oswald Geisshussler, a young man of Lucerne, twenty-seven years old. Erasmus hellenized his name, and called him Myconius. We shall generally speak of him by his christian name, in order to distinguish the friend of Zwingle from Frederick Myconius, the disciple of Luther.

Oswald, after studying at Rothwyl, with a youth of his own age named Berthold Haller, and next at Berne and at Basle, had become rector of Saint Theodore’s school, and afterwards of Saint Peter’s in the latter city. The humble schoolmaster, though possessed of a scanty income, had married a young woman whose simplicity and purity of mind won all hearts. We have already seen that this was a time of trouble in Switzerland, in which foreign wars gave rise to violent disorders, and the soldiers, returning to their country, brought back with them their campaigning habits of licentiousness and brutality. One dark and cloudy day in winter, some of these ruffians attacked Oswald’s quiet dwelling in his absence. They knocked at the door, threw stones, and called for his modest wife in the most indecent language; at last they dashed in the windows, and entering the schoolroom, broke every thing they could find, and then retired.

Oswald returned shortly after. His son, little Felix, ran to meet him with loud cries, and his wife, unable to speak, made signs of the utmost affright.

He perceived what had happened to him. At the same moment, a noise was heard in the street. Unable to control his feelings, the schoolmaster seized a weapon, and pursued the rioters to the cemetery. They took refuge within it, prepared to defend themselves: three of their number fell upon Myconius, and wounded him; and while his wound was dressing, those wretches again broke into his house with furious cries. Oswald says no more. Such were the scenes that took place in the cities of Switzerland at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and before the Reformation had softened and disciplined manners.

The integrity of Oswald Myconius, his thirst for knowledge and virtue, brought him into contact with Zwingle. The rector of the school of Basle recognized the superiority of the priest of Glaris. In his humility he shrunk from the praises lavished on him both by Zwingle and Erasmus. The latter would often say: “I look upon you schoolmasters as the peers of kings.”

But the modest Myconius was of a different opinion. “I do but crawl upon the earth; from my childhood, there has been something humble and mean about me.” f1333 A preacher who had arrived in Basle at nearly the same time as Zwingle was then attracting general attention. Of a mild and peaceful disposition, he loved a tranquil life; slow and circumspect in action, his chief delight was to labor in his study and to promote concord among all Christians. His name was John Hausschein, in Greek Oecolampadius, or “the light of the house;” he was born in Franconia, of rich parents, a year before Zwingle. His pious mother desired to consecrate to learning and to God the only child that Providence had left her. His father at first destined him to business, and then to jurisprudence. But after Oecolampadius had returned to Bologna, where he had been studying the law, the Lord, who was pleased to make him a light in the Church, called him to the study of theology. He was preaching in his native town, when Capito, who had known him at Heidelberg, got him appointed preacher at Basle. He there proclaimed Christ with an eloquence which filled his hearers with admiration. Erasmus admitted him into his intimacy. Oecolampadius was charmed with the hours he passed in the society of this great genius. “There is but one thing,” said the monarch of learning to him, “that we should look for in Holy Scripture, and that is Jesus Christ.” He gave the youthful preacher, as a memorial of his friendship, the commencement of the Gospel of St. John. Oecolampadius would often kiss this pledge of so valued an affection, and kept it suspended to his crucifix, “in order,” said he, “that I may always remember Erasmus in my prayers.”

Zwingle returned to his native mountains, his heart and mind full of all he had seen and heard at Basle. “I should be unable to sleep,” wrote he to Erasmus shortly after his return, “if I had not held some conversation with you. There is nothing I am prouder of than of having seen Erasmus.”

Zwingle had received a new impulse. Such journeys often exercise a great influence over the career of a Christian. Zwingle’s pupils — Valentine, Jost, with Louis Peter and Egidius Tschudi; his friends — the landamman Aebli, the priest Binzli of Wesen, Fridolin Brunner, and the celebrated professor Glarean, were delighted to see him increase in knowledge and in wisdom. The old respected him as a courageous patriot; the faithful pastors, as a zealous minister of the Lord. Nothing was done in the country without his being first consulted. All good people hoped that the ancient virtues of Switzerland would be one day revived by him. f1338 Francis I having ascended the throne, and desiring to avenge in Italy the honor of the French name, the pope in consternation endeavored to gain over the cantons. Thus, in 1515, Ulrich again visited the plains of Italy in the midst of the phalanxes of his countrymen. But the dissensions that the intrigues of the French sowed in the confederate army wrung his heart.

Often might he be seen in the midst of the camp haranguing with energy, and at the same time with great wisdom, an audience armed from head to foot, and ready to fight. On the 8th of September, five days before the battle of Marignan, he preached in the square of Monza, where the Swiss soldiers who had remained faithful to their colors were assembled. “If we had then, and even later, followed Zwingle’s advice,” said Werner Steiner of Zug, “what evils would our country have been spared!” But all ears were shut against the voice of concord, prudence, and submission. The impetuous eloquence of Cardinal Schinner electrified the confederates, and impelled them to rush like a torrent to the fatal field of Marignan. The flower of the Helvetian youth perished there.

Zwingle, who had been unable to prevent such disasters, threw himself, in the cause of Rome, into the midst of danger. His hand wielded the sword. A melancholy error! A minister of Christ, he forgot more than once that he should fight only with the weapons of the Spirit, and he was destined to see fulfilled, in his own person, this prophecy of our Lord:

They that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.

Zwingle and the Swiss had been unable to save Rome. The ambassador of Venice was the first in the pontifical city to hear of the defeat at Marignan.

Quite elated, he repaired early in the morning to the Vatican. The pope left his chamber half dressed to give him an audience. When Leo X heard the news, he did not conceal his terror. In this moment of alarm he saw only Francis I, and had no hope but in him: “My lord ambassador,” said he trembling to Zorsi, “we must throw ourselves into the arms of the king, and cry for mercy!” Luther and Zwingle, in their dangers, knew another arm, and invoked another mercy.

This second visit to Italy was not unprofitable to Zwingle. He remarked the difference between the Ambrosian ritual in use at Milan and that of Rome. He collected and compared with each other the most ancient canons of the mass. Thus a spirit of inquiry was developed in him, even amid the tumult of camps. At the same time the sight of the children of his fatherland, led beyond the Alps and delivered up to slaughter like their herds, filled him with indignation. It was a common saying, that “the flesh of the confederates was cheaper than that of their kine.” The faithlessness and ambition of the pope, the avarice and ignorance of the priests, the licentiousness and dissipation of the monks, the pride and luxury of the prelates, the corruption and venality that infected the Swiss on every side — all these evils forced themselves upon his attention, and made him feel more keenly than ever the necessity of a reform in the Church.

From this time Zwingle preached the Word of God more clearly. He explained the portions of the Gospels and Epistles selected for the public services, always comparing scripture with scripture. He spoke with animation and with power, and pursued with his hearers the same course that God had adopted with him. He did not, like Luther, expose the sores of the Church; but in proportion as the study of the Bible manifested to him any useful lesson, he communicated it to his flock. He endeavored to instil the truth into their hearts, and then relied on it for the result that it was destined to produce. “If the people understand what is true,” thought he, “they will soon discern what is false.” This maxim is good for the commencement of a reformation; but there comes a time when error should be boldly pointed out. This Zwingle knew full well. “The spring is the season for sowing,” said he; and it was then spring-tide with him.

Zwingle has indicated this period (1516) as the beginning of the Swiss Reformation. In effect, if four years before he had bent his head over the book of God, he now raised it, and turned towards his people to impart to them the light that he had found therein. This is a new and important epoch in the history of the development of the religious revolution in these countries; but it has been erroneously concluded from these countries; but it has been erroneously concluded from these dates that Zwingle’s reform preceded that of Luther. Perhaps Zwingle preached the Gospel a year previous to the publication of Luther’s theses, but Luther himself preached four years before those celebrated propositions. If Luther and Zwingle had strictly confined themselves to preaching, the Reformation would not so rapidly have overrun the Church. Luther and Zwingle were neither the first monk nor the first priest that had taught a purer doctrine than the schoolmen. But Luther was the first to uplift publicly and with indomitable courage the standard of truth against the dominion of error; to direct general attention to the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, — salvation through grace; to lead his generation into that new way of knowledge, faith, and life, from which a new world has issued; in a word, to begin a salutary and real revolution. The great struggle of which the theses of 1517 were the signal, really gave birth to the Reformation, and imparted to it both a soul and a body. Luther was the first reformer.

A spirit of inquiry was beginning to breathe on the mountains of Switzerland. One day the priest of Glaris, chancing to be in the delightful country of Mollis, at the house of Adam the priest of the place, together with Bunzli, priest of Wesen, and Varschon, priest of Kerensen, these friends discovered an old liturgy, in which they read these words: “After the child is baptized, let him partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist and likewise the cup.” — “So then,” said Zwingle, “the sacrament was at that time given in our churches under both kinds.” This liturgy, which was about two hundred years old, was a great discovery for these Alpine priests.

The defeat at Marignan produced its natural results in the cantons. The victorious Francis I was prodigal of gold and flatteries to win over the confederates, and the emperor conjured them by their honor, by the tears of widows and orphans, and by the blood of their brethren, not to sell themselves to their murderers. The French party had the upperhand in Glaris, and from that time this residence became burdensome to Ulrich.

Had Zwingle remained at Glaris, he might possibly have been a mere man of the age. Party intrigue, political prejudices, the empire, France, and the Duke of Milan, might have almost absorbed his life. God never leaves in the midst of the tumult of the world those whom he is training for his people. He leads them aside; He places them in some retirement, where they find themselves face to face with God and themselves, and whence they derive inexhaustible instruction. The Son of God himself, a type in this respect of the course He pursues with his servants, passed forty days in the wilderness. It was now time to withdraw Zwingle from this political movement which, by constant repetition in his soul, would have quenched the Spirit of God. The hour had come to prepare him for another stage than that on which courtiers, cabinets, and factions contended, and where he would have uselessly wasted a strength worthy of a higher occupation.

His fellow-countrymen had need of something better. It was necessary that a new life should now descend from heaven, and that the instrument of its transmission should unlearn the things of earth, to learn those of heaven. These two spheres are entirely distinct: a wide gulf separates the two worlds; and before passing wholly from one to the other, Zwingle was to sojourn for a time on a neutral territory, — an intermediate and preparatory state, there to be taught of God. God at this time removed him from among the factions of Glaris, and conducted him, for his novitiate, to the solitude of a hermitage. He confined within the narrow walls of an abbey this generous seed of the Reformation, which, soon transplanted to a better soil, was to cover the mountains with its shadow.

CHAPTER -Our Lady of Einsidlen — Zwingle’s Call — The Abbot — Geroldsek — A learned Society — The Bible copied — Zwingle and Superstition — First Opposition to Error — Sensation — Hedio — Zwingle and the Legates — The Honors of Rome — The Bishop of Constance — Samson and the Indulgences — Stapfer — Zwingle’s Charity — His Friends.

About the middle of the ninth century, a German monk, Meinrad of Hohenzollern, had passed between the lakes of Zurich and Wallenstadt, and halted on a little hill in front of an amphitheater of pines, where he built a cell. Ruffians imbrued their hands in the blood of the saint. The polluted cell long remained deserted. About the end of the tenth century, a convent and church in honor of the Virgin were built on this sacred spot.

About midnight on the eve of the day of consecration, the Bishop of Constance and his priests were at prayers in the church: a heavenly strain, proceeding from invisible beings, suddenly resounded through the chapel.

They listened prostrate and with admiration. On the morrow, as the bishop was about to consecrate the building, a voice repeated thrice: “Stop! stop! God himself has consecrated it!” Christ in person (it was said) had blessed it during the night: the strains they had heard were those of angels, apostles, and saints; and the Virgin standing above the altar shone with the brightness of lightning. A bull of Leo VIII had forbidden the faithful to doubt the truth of this legend. From that time an immense crowd of pilgrims had annually visited our Lady of the Hermits for the festival of “the Consecration of the Angels.” Delphi and Ephesus in ancient times, and Loretto in more recent days, have alone equaled the renown of Einsidlen. It was in this extraordinary place that, in 1516, Ulrich Zwingle was invited to be priest and preacher.

Zwingle did not hesitate. “It is neither ambition nor covetousness,” said he, “that takes me there, but the intrigues of the French.” Reasons of a higher kind determined him. On the one hand, having more solitude, more tranquillity, and a less extensive parish, he would be able to devote more time to study and meditation; on the other, this resort of pilgrims offered him an easy means of spreading a knowledge of Jesus Christ into the most distant countries. f1350 The friends of evangelical preaching at Glaris loudly expressed their grief. “What more distressing can happen to Glaris,” said Peter Tschudi, one of the most distinguished citizens of the canton, “than to be deprived of so great a man?” His parishioners, seeing that he was inflexible, resolved to leave him the title of pastor of Glaris, with a portion of the stipend, and the power of returning whenever he chose. f1352 Conrad of Rechberg, a gentleman descended from an ancient family, serious, frank, intrepid, and sometimes perhaps a little rough, was one of the most celebrated huntsmen of the country to which Zwingle was going.

In one of his farms (the Silthal) he had established a stud where he raised a breed of horses that became famous in Italy.

Such was the abbot of Our Lady of the Hermits. Rechberg held in equal detestation the pretensions of Rome and theological discussions. One day when, during a visitation of the order, some observations were made to him: “I am master here, and not you,” said he, somewhat rudely; “go your ways.” At another time, as Leo Juda was discussing some intricate question at table with the administrator of the convent, the hunting abbot exclaimed: “Leave off your disputes! I cry with David: Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, and enter not into judgment with thy servant. I desire to know nothing more.” f1353 The manager of the monastery was Baron Theobald of Geroldsek; a man of mild character, sincere piety, and great love for letters. His favorite plan was to assemble in his convent a body of learned men; and with this view he had invited Zwingle. Eager for instruction and reading, he begged his new friend to direct him. “Study the Holy Scriptures,” replied Zwingle, “and that you may better understand them, read Saint Jerome. However (added he) a time will come (and that soon, with God’s help) when Christians will not set great store either by Saint Jerome or any other doctor, but solely by the Word of God.” Geroldsek’s conduct gave indication of his progress in faith. He permitted the nuns in a convent depending on Einsidlen to read the Bible in the vulgar tongue; and some years later, Geroldsek went and lived at Zurich beside Zwingle, and died with him on the field of Cappel. The same charm erelong tenderly attached to Zwingle, not only Geroldsek, but also Zink the chaplain, the worthy Oexlin, Lucas, and other inmates of the abbey. These studious men, far from the tumult of parties, used to unite in reading the Scriptures, the fathers of the Church, the masterpieces of antiquity, and the writings of the restorers of learning. This interesting circle was often increased by friends from distant parts. Among others, Capito one day arrived at Einsidlen. The two old friends of Basle walked over the convent together, and strolled about its wild environs, absorbed in conversation, examining the Scriptures, and seeking to learn God’s will. There was one point upon which they were agreed, and it was this: “The pope of Rome must fall!”

Capito was at this time a bolder man than he was afterwards.

In this calm retreat Zwingle enjoyed rest, leisure, books, and friends, and grew in understanding and in faith. It was then (May 1517) that he commenced a work that proved very useful to him. As in ancient days the kings of Israel transcribed God’s law with their own hands, so Zwingle with his copied out the Epistles of St. Paul. At that time there existed none but voluminous editions of the New Testament, and Zwingle wished to be able to carry it with him always. He learned these Epistles by heart, and somewhat later the other books of the New Testament and part of the Old. His soul thus grew daily more attached to the supreme authority of the Word of God. He was not content simply to acknowledge this authority: he resolved sincerely to subject his life to it. He entered gradually into a more christian path. The purpose for which he had been brought into this desert was accomplishing. Doubtless, it was not until his residence at Zurich that the power of a christian life penetrated all his being; but already at Einsidlen he had made evident progress in sanctification. At Glaris, he had been seen to take part in worldly amusements; at Einsidlen, he sought more and more after a life pure from every stain and from all worldliness; he began to have a better understanding of the great spiritual interests of the people, and learned by degrees what God designed to teach him.

Providence, in bringing him to Einsidlen, had also other aims. He was to have a nearer view of the superstitions and abuses which had invaded the Church. The image of the Virgin, carefully preserved in the monastery, had, it was said, the power of working miracles. Over the gate of the abbey might be read this presumptuous inscription: “Here a plenary remission of sins may be obtained.” A crowd of pilgrims flocked to Einsidlen from every part of Christendom to merit this grace by their pilgrimage at the festival of the Virgin. The church, the abbey, and all the valley were filed with her devout worshippers. But it was particularly at the great feast of “the Consecration of the Angels” that the crowd thronged the hermitage.

Many thousand individuals of both sexes climbed in long files the slopes of the mountain leading to the oratory, singing hymns or counting their beads. These devout pilgrims crowded eagerly into the church, imagining themselves nearer to God there than elsewhere.

Zwingle’s residence at Einsidlen, as regards a knowledge of the abuses of the papacy, produced an analogous effect to that resulting from Luther’s visit to Rome. In this monastery he completed his education as a reformer.

God alone is the source of salvation, and He is everywhere: this was what he learned at Einsidlen, and these two truths became the fundamental articles of Zwingle’s theology. The seriousness he had acquired in his soul soon manifested itself in his actions. Struck by the knowledge of so many evils, he resolved to oppose them boldly. He did not hesitate between his conscience and his interests: he stood forth with courage, and his energetic eloquence uncompromisingly attacked the superstitions of the crowd that surrounded him. “Do not imagine,” said he from the pulpit, “that God is in this temple more than in any other part of creation. Whatever be the country in which you dwell, God is around you, and hears you as well as at Our Lady’s of Einsidlen. Can unprofitable works, long pilgrimages, offerings, images, the invocation of the Virgin or of the saints, secure for you the grace of God?......What avails the multitude of words with which we embody our prayers? What efficacy has a glossy cowl, a smooth-shorn head, a long and flowing robe, or gold-embroidered slippers!......God looks at the heart, and our hearts are far from Him!” f1356 But Zwingle desired to do more than merely inveigh against superstition; he wished to satisfy the ardent yearnings for reconciliation with God, experienced by many pilgrims who flocked to the chapel of Our Lady of Einsidlen. “Christ,” exclaimed he, like John the Baptist in this new desert of the mountains of Judea, “Christ, who was once offered upon the cross, is the sacrifice (host) and victim, that had made satisfaction for the sins of believers to all eternity.” Thus Zwingle advanced. On the day when such bold language was first heard in the most venerated sanctuary of Switzerland, the standard uplifted against Rome began to rise more distinctly above its mountains, and there was, so to speak, an earthquake of reformation that shook her very foundations.

In effect, universal astonishment filled the crowd as they listened to the words of the eloquent priest. Some withdrew in horror; others hesitated between the faith of their sires and this doctrine which was to ensure peace; many went to Jesus, who was preached to them as meek and gentle, and carried back the tapers they had brought to present to the Virgin. A crowd of pilgrims returned to their homes, everywhere announcing what they had heard at Einsidlen: “ChristALONE SAVES, and he saves\parEVERYWHERE.” Often did whole bands, amazed at these reports, turn back without completing their pilgrimage. Mary’s worshippers diminished in number daily. It was their offerings that made up in great measure the stipends of Zwingle and Geroldsek. But this bold witness to the truth felt happy in impoverishing himself, if he could spiritually enrich souls.

Among Zwingle’s numerous hearers at the feast of Whitsuntide in 1518, was Gaspard Hedio, doctor of divinity at Basle, a learned man, of mild character and active charity. Zwingle was preaching on the narrative of the paralytic (Luke v.), in which occurs this declaration of our Lord: The Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins — words well adapted to strike the crowd assembled in the temple of the Virgin. The preacher’s sermon stirred, harmed, and inspired his congregation, and particularly the Basle doctor. For a long while after, Hedio was accustomed to speak of it with admiration. “How beautiful is this discourse,” said he: “how profound, solemn, copious, penetrating, and evangelical! how it reminds us of the energeia (the force) of the ancient doctors!” From this moment Hedio admired and loved Zwingle. He would have liked to have spoken with him, to have unbosomed himself to him; he wandered round the abbey, yet dared not advance, being held back (he says) by superstitious timidity. He remounted his horse, and retired slowly, often turning his head towards the walls that enclosed so great a treasure, and bearing away in his heart the keenest regret. f1361 Thus preached Zwingle; certainly with less force, but with more moderation and not less success than Luther; he precipitated nothing; he shocked men’s minds far less than the Saxon reformer; he expected everything from the power of truth. He behaved with the same discretion in his intercourse with the heads of the Church. Far from showing himself immediately as their adversary, like Luther, he long remained their friend.

The latter humored him exceedingly, not only on account of his learning and talents (Luther had the same claims to the respect of the Bishops of Mentz and Brandenburg), but especially because of his attachment to the political party of the pope, and the influence such a man as Zwingle possessed in a republican state.

Several cantons, indeed, disgusted with the papal service, were on the point of breaking with it. But the legates flattered themselves they would retain many by gaining Zwingle, as they had already gained Erasmus, by pensions and honors. The legates Ennius and Pucci paid frequent visits to Einsidlen, whence, considering its vicinity to the democratic cantons, their negotiations with these states were easier. But Zwingle, far from sacrificing the truth to the demands and offers of Rome, let no opportunity escape of defending the Gospel. The famous Schinner, whose diocese was then in a disturbed state, spent some time at Einsidlen. “The popedom,” said Zwingle one day, “reposes on a bad foundation: apply yourselves to the work; reject all errors and abuses, or else you will see the whole edifice fall with a tremendous crash.” f1363 He spoke with the same freedom to Cardinal Pucci. Four times he returned to the charge. “With God’s aid,” said he, “I will continue to preach the Gospel, and this preaching will make Rome totter.” He then explained to the prelate what ought to be done in order to save the Church. Pucci promised everything, but did nothing. Zwingle declared that he would resign the pope’s pension. The legate entreated him to keep it, and Zwingle, who had no intention at that time of setting himself in open hostility against the head of the Church, consented to receive it for three years longer. “But do not imagine,” added he, “that for love of money I retract a single syllable of the truth.” Pucci in alarm procured for the reformer the nomination of acolyte to the pope. This was a step to further honors. Rome aimed at frightening Luther by her judgments, and gaining Zwingle by her favors. Against the one she hurled her excommunications; to the other she cast her gold and splendors. These were two different ways of attaining the same end, and of silencing the bold tongues that dared, in the pope’s despite, proclaim the Word of God in Germany and in Switzerland. The latter was the more skillful policy: but neither was successful. The emancipated souls of the preachers of the truth were equally beyond the reach of vengeance or of favor.

Another Swiss prelate, Hugo of Landenberg, bishop of Constance, about this time excited hopes in Zwingle’s breast. He ordered a general visitation of the churches. But Landenberg, a man of no decision of character, permitted himself to be guided at one time by Faber his vicar, and at another by a vicious woman whose influence he could not shake off.

Sometimes he appeared to honor the Gospel, and yet he looked upon any man as a disturber of the people who ventured to preach it boldly. He was one of those men, too common in the Church, who, although they prefer truth to error, show more regard to error than to truth, and often end by turning against those by whose sides they should have fought. Zwingle applied to him, but in vain. He was destined to make the same experiment as Luther, and to acknowledge that it was useless to invoke the assistance of the heads of the Church, and that the only way of reviving Christianity was to act as a faithful teacher of the Word of God. The opportunity soon came.

Along the heights of Saint Gothard, over those elevated roads that have been cut with incredible toil through the steep rocks that separate Switzerland from Italy, journeyed a Franciscan monk, in the month of August 1518. Emerging from an Italian convent, he was the bearer of the papal indulgences which he had been empowered to sell to the good Christians of the Helvetic Confederation. The brilliant successes gained under the two preceding popes had conferred honor on this scandalous traffic. Accompanied by men appointed to puff off the wares he had for sale, he crossed these snows and icy glaciers as old as the world. This greedy train, whose appearance was wretched enough, not ill resembling a band of adventurers in search of plunder, advanced silently to the noise of the impetuous torrents that form the Rhine, the Rhone, the Ticino, and other rivers, meditating the spoliation of the simple inhabitants of Switzerland. Samson, for such was the Franciscan’s name, and his troop, arrived first in Uri, and there opened their trade. They had soon finished with these poor mountaineers, and then passed on to Schwytz. Zwingle resided in this canton — and here combat was to take place between the two servants of two very different masters. “I can pardon all sins,” said the Italian monk, the Tetzel of Switzerland, addressing the inhabitants of the capital. “Heaven and hell are subject to my power; and I sell the merits of Christ to any who will purchase them by buying an indulgence for ready money.”

Zwingle’s zeal took fire as he heard of these discourses. He preached with energy, saying; “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has said, Come UNTO ME all ye that are weary and heaven laden, and I will give you rest. Is it not, then, most presumptuous folly and senseless temerity to declare, on the contrary: ‘Buy letters of indulgence! hasten to Rome! give to the monks! sacrifice to the priests! and if thou doest these things, I absolve thee from thy sins?’ Jesus Christ is the only oblation; the only sacrifice; the only way!” f1366 Throughout Schwytz, Samson erelong was called a cheat and seducer. He took the road to Zug, and for a time the two champions did not meet.

Scarcely had Samson left Schwytz, when Stapfer, a citizen of this canton, a man of distinguished character, and afterwards secretary of state, was suddenly reduced with his family to great distress. “Alas!” said he, addressing Zwingle in his anguish, “I know not how to satisfy my hunger, and that of my poor children.” Zwingle could give when Rome could take, and he was as ready to practice good works, as he was to combat those who taught that salvation was to be gained by them. Every day he carried Stapfer abundant supplies. “It is God,” said he, desirous of taking no praise to himself, “it is God who begets charity in the faithful, and gives at once the thought, the resolve, and the work itself. Whatever good work the just man doeth, it is God who doeth it by His own power.” Stapfer remained attached to Zwingle all his life, and when four years later he had become secretary of state at Schwytz, and felt impelled by more elevated desires, he turned towards Zwingle, saying with nobleness and candor: “Since it was you who provided for my temporal wants, how much more may I now expect from you the food that shall satisfy my soul!”

Zwingle’s friends increased in number. It was not only at Glaris, Basle, and Schwytz that souls were found in harmony with his: in Uri, there was Schmidt, the secretary of state; at Zug, Colin, Muller, and Werner Steiner, an old fellow-soldier at Marignan; at Lucerne, Xyloctect and Kilchmeyer; at Bienne, Wittembach; and many others in other places besides. But the priest of Einsidlen had no friend more devoted that Oswald Myconius.

Oswald had quitted Basle in 1516, to superintend the cathedral school at Zurich. At that time this city possessed neither learned men nor learned schools. Oswald labored, in conjunction with several other well-disposed men, among whom was Utinger, the pope’s notary, to rescue the Zurich people from their ignorance, and to initiate them in the literature of the ancients. At the same time he upheld the immutable truth of the Holy Scriptures, and declared that if the pope and the emperor commanded anything in opposition to the Gospel, man is bound to obey God alone, who is above the emperor and the pope.

CHAPTER -The Canon’s College — Election to the Cathedral — Fable — Accusations — Zwingle’s Confession — Development of God’s Purposes — Farewell to Einsidlen — Arrival at Zurich — Zwingle’s bold Declaration — First Sermons — Their Effect — Opposition — Zwingle’s Character — Taste for Music — Arrangement of the Day — The Bookhawker.

Seven centuries before, Charlemagne had attached a college of canons to the cathedral of Zurich, the school belonging to which was under the direction of Myconius. These canons having declined from their primitive institutions, and desiring to enjoy their benefices in the sweets on an indolent life, used to elect a priest to whom they confided the preaching and the cure of souls. This post became vacant shortly after the arrival of Myconius, who immediately thought of his friend. What a gain it would be to Zurich! Zwingle’s exterior was in his favor. He was a handsome man, of graceful manners, and pleasing conversation; he had already become celebrated for his eloquence, and excelled throughout the Confederation by the splendor of his genius. Myconius spoke of him to Felix Frey, the provost of the chapter, who was prepossessed by Zwingle’s talents and appearance; to Utinger, an old man, highly respected, and to the canon Hoffmann, a person of upright and open character, who, from having long preached against the foreign service, was already well disposed in Ulrich’s favor. Other Zurichers had, on different occasions, heard Zwingle at Einsidlen, and had returned full of admiration. The election of a preacher for the cathedral soon put everybody in Zurich in motion. The different parties began to bestir themselves. Many labored day and night to procure the election of the eloquent preacher of Our Lady of the Hermits. f1372 Myconius informed his friend of this......”Wednesday next, I shall go and dine at Zurich,” replied Zwingle, “and then we will talk this matter over.”

He came accordingly. While paying a visit to one of the canons, the latter said, “Can you not come and preach the Word of God among us?” — “I can,” replied he, “but I will not come, unless I am called.” He then returned to his abbey.

This visit spread alarm in the camp of his enemies. They pressed several priests to become candidates for the vacant post. A Swabian, Lawrence Fable, even delivered a probationary sermon, and a report was circulated that he had been elected. “It is very true, then” said Zwingle, on being apprized of this, “that no man is a prophet in his own country since a Swabian is preferred to a Swiss. I know what the applause of the people is worth.” Immediately after, Zwingle received a letter from Cardinal Schinner’s secretary, informing him that the election had not yet taken place. But the false intelligence that had reached him first, piqued the chaplain of Einsidlen. Knowing that a man so unworthy as this Fable aspired to the station, he became the more eager for himself, and wrote about it to Myconius. Oswald replied on the following day: “Fable will always remain a fable; our gentlemen have learnt that he is the father of six boys, and already holds I know not how many livings.” f1374 Zwingle’s enemies, however, did not consider themselves beaten. All agreed in extolling to the clouds the extent of his acquirements; but some said, “He is too fond of music!” Others, “He loves company and pleasure!” And others again, “He was once too intimate with persons of light conduct!” One man even accused him of seduction. Zwingle was not blameless, and although less erring than the ecclesiastics of his day, he had more than once, in the first years of his ministry, allowed himself to be led astray by the passions of youth. We cannot easily form an idea of the influence upon the soul of the corrupt atmosphere in which it lives. There existed in the papacy, and among the priests, disorders that were established, allowed, and authorized, as conformable to the laws of nature.

A saying of Aeneas Sylvius, afterwards pope under the title of Pius II, gives some notion of the degraded state of public manners at this epoch. Disorder had come to be the generally admitted order of things.

Oswald exerted an unwearying activity in his friend’s behalf; he employed all his powers to justify him, and luckily succeeded. He visited the Burgomaster Roust, Hoffman, Frey, and Utinger; he lauded the probity, decorum, and purity of Zwingle’s conduct, and confirmed the Zurichers in the favorable impression they entertained towards the priest of Einsidlen.

Little credit was paid to the stories of his adversaries. The most influential men said that Zwingle would be preacher at Zurich. The canons said the same, but in an under-tone. “Hope on,” wrote Oswald with a rising heart; “hope on, for I hope.” He nevertheless informed him of the accusations of his enemies. Although Zwingle had not yet become altogether a new man, he was one of those whose conscience is awakened, who may fall into sin, but never without a struggle and without remorse. Often had he resolved to lead a holy life, alone among his kind, in the midst of the world. But when he found himself accused, he would not boast of being without sin. “Having no one to walk with me in the resolutions I had formed,” wrote he to the canon Utinger, “many even of those about me being offended at them, alas! I fell, and like the dog of which St. Peter speaks (2 Peter 2:22), I turned again to my vomit. The Lord knows with what shame and anguish I have dragged these faults from the bottom of my heart, and laid them before that great Being to whom, however, I confess my wretchedness far more willingly than to man.” But if Zwingle acknowledged himself a sinner, he vindicated himself from the odious accusations that had been made against him. He declared that he had always banished far from the thought of adultery or seducing the innocent, — grievous excesses which were then too common. “I call to witness,” says he, “all those with whom I have ever lived.” f1381 The election took place on the 11th of December. Zwingle was appointed by a majority of seventeen votes out of twenty-four. It was time that the Reformation began in Switzerland. The chosen instrument that Providence had been preparing for three years in the hermitage of Einsidlen was ready; the hour was come for him to be stationed elsewhere. God, who had chosen the new university of Wittenberg, situated in the heart of Germany, under the protection of one of the wisest of princes, there to call Luther, selected in Helvetia the city of Zurich, regarded as the head of the confederation, there to station Zwingle. In that place he would be in communication not only with one of the most intelligent and simplehearted, the strongest and the most energetic people in Switzerland, but still more with all the cantons that collected around this ancient and powerful state. The hand that had led a young herdsman from the Sentis to the school of Wesen, was now setting him, mighty in word and in deed, in the face of all, that he might regenerate his nation. Zurich was about to become the center of light to the whole of Switzerland.

It was a day of mingled joy and sorrow at Einsidlen, when its inmates were informed of Zwingle’s nomination. The society which had been formed there was about to be broken up by the removal of its most valuable member; and who could say that superstition might not again prevail in this ancient resort of pilgrims?......The state-council of Schwytz transmitted to Ulrich the expression of their sentiments, styling him, “reverend, most learned, very gracious lord and good friend.” — “Give us at least a successor worthy of yourself,” said the heart-broken Geroldsek to Zwingle. — “I have a little lion for you,” replied he, “one who is simple-minded and prudent, and deep in the mysteries of Scripture.” — “I will have him,” said the administrator. It was Leo Juda, that mild and intrepid man, with whom Zwingle had been so intimate at Basle. Leo accepted this invitation which brought him nearer his dear Ulrich. The latter embraced his friends, quitted the solitude of Einsidlen, and arrived at that delightful spot where rises the cheerful and animated city of Zurich, with its amphitheater of hills, covered with vineyards, or adorned with pastures and orchards, and crowned with forests above which appear the highest summits of the Albis.

Zurich, the center of the political interests of Switzerland, and in which were often collected the most influential men in the nation, was the spot best adapted for acting upon Helvetia, and scattering the seeds of truth through all the cantons. Accordingly, the friends of learning and of the Bible joyfully hailed Zwingle’s nomination. At Paris, in particular, the Swiss students, who were very numerous, thrilled with joy at this intelligence. But if at Zurich a great victory lay before Zwingle, he had also to expect a hard struggle. Glarean wrote to him from Paris: “I foresee that your learning will excite great hatred; but be of good cheer, and like Hercules you will subdue the monsters.”

On the 27th of December 1518, Zwingle arrived at Zurich and alighted at the hotel of Einsidlen. He received a hearty and an honorable welcome. f1385 The canons immediately assembled, and invited him to take his place among them. Felix Frey presided; the canons, friends or enemies to Zwingle, sat indiscriminately around their provost. Unusual excitement prevailed in the assembly; for every one felt, unconsciously perhaps, how serious was the beginning of this ministry. As they feared the innovating spirit of the young priest, it was agreed to explain to him the most important duties of his charge. “You will make every exertion,” they said to him gravely, “to collect the revenues of the chapter, without overlooking the least. You will exhort the faithful, both from the pulpit and in the confessional, to pay all tithes and dues, and to show by their offerings their affection to the Church. You will be diligent in increasing the income arising from the sick, from masses, and in general from every ecclesiastical ordinance.” The chapter added: “As for the administration of the sacraments, the preaching and the care of the flock, these are also the duties of the chaplain. But for these you may employ a substitute, and particularly in preaching. You should administer the sacraments to none but persons of note, and only when called upon; you are forbidden to do so without distinction of persons.” f1386 What a regulation for Zwingle! money!, money, nothing but money!......Did Christ establish his ministry for this? Prudence, however, moderated his zeal; he knew that he could not at once deposit the seed in the earth, behold the tree grow up, and gather its fruits. Without any remark on the duties imposed upon him, Zwingle, after humbly expressing his gratitude for their flattering selection, announced what he intended doing: “The life of Christ,” said he, “has been too long hidden from the people. I shall preach upon the whole of the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter after chapter, according to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, without human commentaries, drawing solely from the fountains of Scripture, sounding its depths, comparing one passage with another, and seeking for understanding by constant and earnest prayer. It is to God’s glory, to the praise of his only Son, to the real salvation of souls, and to their edification in the true faith, that I shall consecrate my ministry.” Language so novel made a deep impression on the chapter.

Some testified their joy; but the majority evinced sorrow. “This way of preaching is an innovation,” exclaimed they; “one innovation will lead to another, and where shall we stop?” The canon Hoffman, especially, thought it his duty to prevent the melancholy consequences of an election for which he himself had been so earnest. “This explanation of Scripture,” said he, “will be more injurious that useful to the people.” — “It is not a new manner,” replied Zwingle, “it is the old custom. Call to mind the homilies of Chrysostom on St. Matthew, and of Augustine on St. John.

Besides, I will speak with moderation, and give no persons just cause to complain of it.”

Thus did Zwingle abandon the exclusive use of the fragments of the Gospels read since the time of Charlemagne: by restoring the Holy Scriptures to their ancient rights, he bound the Reformation from the very commencement of his ministry to the primitive times of Christianity, and laid a foundation by which future ages might study the Word of God. But we may go further: the firm and independent position he took up as regards the Gospel, announced a new work; the figure of the reformer stood in bold outline before the eyes of his people, and the reform advanced.

Hoffman, having failed in the chapter, addressed a written request to the provost, praying him to forbid Zwingle to disturb the faith of the people.

The provost called the new preacher before him, and spoke to him very affectionately. But no human power could close Zwingle’s lips. On the 31st December, he wrote to the council of Glaris, resigning entirely the cure they had reserved for him up to this time: he was all for Zurich, and for the work that God was preparing for him in this city.

On Saturday, the 1st day of the year 1519, and it was also his thirty-fifth birthday, Zwingle went into the cathedral pulpit. A great crowd, eager to see this celebrated man, and to hear this new Gospel, which was a general topic of conversation, crowded the temple. “It is to Christ,” said Zwingle, “that I desire to lead you; to Christ, the true source of salvation. His Divine Word is the only food that I wish to set before your hearts and souls.” He then gave out that on the following day, the first Sunday in the year, he would begin to explain the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The next morning, the preacher and a still more numerous congregation were at their posts. Zwingle opened the Gospel — so long a sealed book — and read the first page. Discoursing on the history of the patriarchs and prophets (1st chapter of St. Matthew), he explained it in such a manner that his wondering and enraptured hearers exclaimed: “We never heard the like of this before!” f1391 He continued thus to explain St. Matthew according to the Greek text. He showed how all the Bible found at once its explanation and its application in the very nature of man. Setting forth the highest truths of the Gospel in simple language, his preaching reached all classes, the wise and learned, as well as the ignorant and foolish. He extolled the infinite mercies of God the Father, and conjured all his hearers to place their sole trust in Jesus Christ, as their only Savior. At the same time, he called them most earnestly to repentance; he forcibly attacked the prevailing errors among his people; and inveighed courageously against the luxury, intemperance, costly garments, the oppression of the poor, idleness, foreign service, and pensions from the princes. “In the pulpit,” said one of his contemporaries, “he spared no one, neither pope, emperor, kings, dukes, princes, lords, nor even the confederates themselves. All his strength and all the delight of his heart was in God; and accordingly he exhorted all the city of Zurich to trust solely in Him.” “Never had they heard a man speak with such authority,” said Oswald Myconius, who followed his friend’s labors with great joy and hope.

It was impossible that the Gospel could be preached in Zurich to no purpose. An ever increasing multitude of all classes, and particularly of the lower orders, flocked to hear him. Many Zurichers had ceased to frequent the public worship. “I derive no instruction from the sermons of these priests,” said Fusslin, the poet, historian, and councillor of state; “they do not preach the things belonging to salvation, because they understand them not. I can see in these men nothing but avarice and licentiousness.” Henry Rauschlin, treasurer of state, a constant reader of scripture, thought the same: “The priests,” said he, “met in thousands at the Council of Constance......to burn the best of them all.” These distinguished men, attracted by curiosity, came to hear Zwingle’s first sermon. On their features might be read the emotion with which they listened to the preacher. “Glory be to God!” said they, as they retired; “this man is a preacher of the truth. He will be our Moses to lead us forth from this Egyptian darkness.” From this moment they became the intimate friends of the reformer. “Ye mighty ones of the world,” said Fusslin, “cease to proscribe the doctrine of Christ! When Christ, the Son of God, had been put to death, fishermen rose up to fill his place. And now, if you destroy the preachers of the truth, you will see glaziers, millers, potters, founders, shoemakers, and tailors teaching in their stead.” f1397 For a time there was but one cry of admiration in Zurich; but as soon as the first moments of enthusiasm were passed, the adversaries resumed their courage. Many well-meaning men, alarmed by the fear of a reformation, gradually became estranged from Zwingle. The violence of the monks, suppressed for a while, burst forth again, and the college of the canons resounded with complaints. Zwingle was immovable. His friends, as they contemplated his courage, imagined they saw a man of the apostolic age reappearing before them. Among his enemies, some laughed and joked, others gave utterance to violent threats; but he endured all with christian patience. “If we desire to gain over the wicked to Jesus Christ,” he was accustomed to say, “we must shut our eyes against many things.” An admirable saying, which should not be lost!

His character and his deportment towards all men contributed, as much as his discourses, to win their hearts. He was at once a true Christian and a true republican. The equality of mankind was not with him a mere conventional term; it was written in his heart, and shown by his life. He had neither that pharisaical pride nor that monastic coarseness which offend equally the simple and the wise of this world; they felt attracted towards him, and were at ease in his society. Bold and energetic in the pulpit, he was affable to all whom he met in the streets or public places; he was often seen in the halls where the companies and trades used to meet, explaining to the citizens the chief features of the christian doctrine, or conversing familiarly with them. He addressed peasants and patricians with the same cordiality. “He invited the country-people to dine with him,” said one of his most violent enemies, “walked with them, talked to them of God, put the devil in their hearts, and his books into their pockets.

He succeeded so well that the notables of Zurich used to visit the peasants, drink with them, show them about the city, and pay them every mark of attention.” f1401 He continued to cultivate music “with moderation,” says Bullinger; nevertheless the opponents of the Gospel took advantage of this, and called him “the evangelical lute-player and fifer.” Faber having one day censured him for this taste, he replied with noble frankness: “My dear Faber, you do not know what music is. True, I have learnt to play on the lute, the violin, and other instruments, and they serve me to quiet little children; but you are too holy for music!......Do you not know that David was a skillful player on the harp, and how by this means he drove the evil spirit out of Saul?......Ah! if you did but know the sounds of the heavenly lyre, the wicked spirit of ambition and love of riches which possesses you would soon depart from you likewise.” Perhaps this may have been a weakness in Zwingle; still it was with a spirit of cheerfulness and evangelical liberty that he cultivated this art, which religion has always associated with her sublimest devotion. He set to music some of his christian poems, and was not ashamed from time to time to amuse the little ones of his flock with his lute. He conducted himself in the same kindly manner towards the poor. “He would eat and drink with all who invited him,” says one of his contemporaries; “he despised no one; he was compassionate to the poor, always steadfast and cheerful in good and evil fortune. No misfortune alarmed him; his conversation was at all times full of consolation, and his heart firm.” Thus Zwingle’s popularity was ever on the increase; sitting by times at the tables of the poor and at the banquets of the rich, as his Master had done in former days, and everywhere doing the work to which God had called him.

He was indefatigable in study. From daybreak until ten o’clock he used to read, write, and translate; at that time Hebrew was the special object of his studies. After dinner he listened to those who had any news to give him or who required his advice; he then would walk out with some of his friends and visit his flock. At two o’clock he resumed his studies. He took a short walk after supper, and then wrote his letters, which often occupied him till midnight. He always worked standing, and never permitted himself to be disturbed except for some very important cause. f1405 But the exertions of more than one man were required. A man named Lucian called on him one day with the works of the German reformer.

Rhenanus, a scholar then residing at Basle, and indefatigable in circulating Luther’s writings in Switzerland, had sent him to Zwingle. Rhenanus had perceived that the hawking of books was a powerful means of spreading the evangelical doctrines. Lucian had traveled over almost the whole of Switzerland, and knew nearly everybody. “Ascertain,” said Rhenanus to Zwingle, “whether this man possesses sufficient prudence and skill; if so, let him carry from city to city, from town to town, from village to village, and even from house to house, among the Swiss, the works of Luther, and especially his exposition of the Lord’s prayer written for the laity. f1406 The more they are known, the more purchasers they will find. But you must take care not to let him hawk any other books; for if he has only Luther’s, he will sell them so much faster.” By this means a ray of light penetrated the humble dwelling of many a Swiss family. There was however one book that Zwingle should have caused to be distributed along with Luther’s, — the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER -The Indulgences — Samson at Berne and at Baden — The Dean of Bremgarten — Young Henry Bullinger — Samson and the Dean — Zwingle’s internal Struggles — Zwingle opposes the Indulgences — Samson is sent back.

An opportunity of displaying Zwingle’s zeal in a new vocation presented itself. Samson, the famous indulgence merchant, was slowly approaching Zurich. This wretched trafficker had left Schwytz and arrived at Zug on the 20th of September 1518, and had remained there three days. An immense crowd had gathered round him. The poorest were the most eager, and thus prevented the rich from getting near him. This did not suit the monk’s views; and accordingly one of his attendants began to cry out to the populace: “Good folks, do not crowd so much! make way for those who have money! We will afterwards endeavor to satisfy those who have none.” From Zug, Samson and his band proceeded to Lucerne; from Lucerne to Unterwalden; and then, after crossing fertile mountains and rich valleys, skirting the everlasting snows of the Oberland, and displaying their Romish merchandise in these most beautiful portions of Switzerland, they arrived in the neighborhood of Berne. The monk was at first forbidden to enter the city; but eventually, by means of certain friends he had there, he succeeded in gaining admission, and set up his stall in St.

Vincent’s Church. Here he began to bawl out more lustily than before: “Here,” said he to the rich, “are indulgences on parchment for a crown.” — “There,” said he to the poor, “are absolutions on common paper for two batz!” One day a celebrated knight, Jacques de Stein, appeared before him, prancing on a dapple-gray horse, which the monk admired very much. “Give me,” said the knight, “an indulgence for myself, for my troop, five hundred strong, for all my vassals at Belp, and for all my ancestors, and you shall have my dapple-gray charger in exchange.” This was asking a high price for a horse; but as it pleased the Franciscan, they soon came to terms; the charger was led to the monk’s stable, and all those souls were declared for ever exempt from hell. Another day, a citizen purchased of him for thirteen florins an indulgence empowering his confessor to absolve him, among other matters, from every kind of perjury. So much respect was felt for Samson, that the councillor De May, an aged and enlightened man, who had spoken irreverently of him, was compelled to beg pardon of the haughty monk on his knees.

On the last day of his stay the noisy sound of bells proclaimed the departure of the monk from Berne. Samson was in the church, standing on the steps of the high altar. The canon Henry Lupulus, formerly Zwingle’s teacher, was his interpreter. “When the wolf and the fox prowl about together,” said the canon Anselm, turning to the schultheiss De Watteville, “your safest plan, my gracious lord, is to shut up your sheep and your geese.” But the monk cared little for such remarks, which, moreover, did not reach his ears: “Kneel down,” said he to the superstitious crowd, “recite three Paters, three Aves, and your souls will immediately be as pure as at the moment of your baptism.” Upon this all the people fell on their knees. Samson, desirous of surpassing himself, exclaimed: “I deliver from the torments of purgatory and of hell all the souls of the Bernese who are dead, whatever may have been the manner and the place of their death!” These mountebanks, like their brothers of the fairs, kept their best trick till the last.

Samson, laden with money, proceeded through Argovia and Baden towards Zurich. At every step, this monk, whose appearance had been so wretched when first he crossed the Alps, displayed greater haughtiness and splendor. The Bishop of Constance, who was irritated because Samson would not have his bulls legalized by him, had forbidden all the priests of his diocese to open their churches to him. At Baden, however, the priest of the parish dared not make any strenuous opposition to his traffic. The effrontery of the monk was redoubled. Heading a procession round the cemetery, he seemed to fix his eyes upon some object in the air, while his acolytes were chanting the hymn for the dead; and pretending to see the souls escaping from the cemetery to heaven, he exclaimed: “F,cce volant!

See how they fly!” exclaimed this wag, shaking a cushion on the summit of the tower. Many persons burst out laughing. Samson flew into a passion, and was not to be appeased until he was told that a man’s wits were sometimes disordered. He left Baden quite abashed.

He continued his journey, and about the end of February 1519, arrived at Bremgarten, which the schultheiss and junior priest of the town, who had seen him at Baden, had invited him to visit. In all that district no one enjoyed a better reputation than Dean Bullinger. This man, although ill informed in the Word of God an in the errors of the Church, was frank, zealous, eloquent, charitable to the poor, ever ready to do a kindness to the little ones of his flock, and was generally beloved. In his youth he had formed a conscientious union with the daughter of a councillor in the town.

This was a practice not unusual among priests who were unwilling to lead a scandalous life. Anna had borne him five sons, and this numerous family had by no means diminished the respect felt towards him. In all Switzerland there was not a more hospitable house than his. He was fond of hunting, and might often be seen with a pack of ten or twelve hounds, and accompanied by the lords of Hallwyll, the abbot of Mury, and the patricians of Zurich, scouring the neighboring fields and forests. His table was free to all comers, and none of his guests was gayer than himself.

When the deputies to the diet were going to Baden by way of Bremgarten, they were always entertained by the dean. “Bullinger,” said they, “holds a court like the most powerful lord.”

Strangers had remarked in this house a child with intelligent features.

Henry, one of the dean’s sons, had incurred many dangers from his earliest infancy. At one time he was attacked by the plague, and he was about to be buried, when some feeble signs of life restored joy to his parent’s hearts. On another occasion, a vagabond, having attracted him by his caresses, was carrying him away, when some passers-by recognized and rescued him. At three years old, he knew the Lord’s prayer and the Apostles’ creed; and creeping into the church, he would go into his father’s pulpit, gravely take his station, and repeat at the full strength of his voice: “I believe in God the Father,” etc. At twelve years of age his parents sent him to the grammar school of Emmeric; their hearts were filled with apprehension, for the times were dangerous for an inexperienced boy.

When the regulations of a university appeared to them too severe, the students might often be seen quitting the school in troops, taking little children with them, and encamping in the woods, whence they would send the youngest of their number to beg bread, or else, with arms in their hands, would fall upon travelers, whom they robbed, and then consumed the fruits of their plunder in debauchery. Fortunately, Henry was preserved from evil in this distant place. Like Luther, he gained his bread by singing from door to door, for his father wished him to learn to live on his own resources. He was sixteen years old when he opened a New Testament. “I there found,” said he, “all that is necessary for man’s salvation, and from that time I adhered to this principle, that we must follow the sacred Scriptures alone, and reject all human additions. I believe neither the Fathers nor myself, but explain scripture by scripture, without adding or taking away anything.” Thus did God prepare this young man, who was one day to be Zwingle’s successor. He is the author of the chronicle so often quoted by us.

About this time Samson arrived at Bremgarten with all his train. The bold dean, whom this little Italian army did not dismay, forbade the monk to sell his merchandise in his deanery. The schultheiss, the town-council, and the junior pastor, — all friends to Samson, — were met together in a chamber of the inn where the latter had alighted, and, greatly disconcerted, had gathered round the impatient monk when the dean arrived. “Here are the papal bulls,” said the monk; “open your church!” The Dean. — “I will not permit the purses of my parishioners to be drained by unauthenticated letters; for the bishop has not legalized them.” The Monk, solemnly. — “The pope is above the bishop. I forbid you to deprive your flock of so signal a favor.” The Dean . — “Should it cost me my life, I will not open my church.” The Monk, indignantly. — “Rebellious priest! in the name of our most holy lord the pope, I pronounce against you the greater excommunication, and will not absolve you until you have redeemed such unprecedented rashness by paying three hundred ducats.”...... The Dean, turning his back and quitting the room. — “I shall know how to reply to my lawful judges: as for you and your excommunication, I care not for either.” The Monk, in a passion. — “Impudent brute! I am going to Zurich, and I will there lay my complaint before the deputies of the confederation.” f1412 The Dean . — “I can appear there as well as you, and will go thither immediately.”

While these events were taking place at Bremgarten, Zwingle, who saw the enemy gradually approaching, preached energetically against the indulgences. The vicar, Faber of Constance, encouraged him, promising him the bishop’s support. “I am aware,” said Samson, as he was moving towards Zurich, “that Zwingle will speak against me, but I will stop his mouth.” In effect, Zwingle felt too deeply all the sweetness of Christ’s forgiveness, not to attack the paper indulgences of these foolish men. Like Luther, he often trembled because of his sinfulness, but he found in the Lord a deliverance from every fear. This modest but resolute man increased in the knowledge of God. “When Satan frightens me,” said he, “by crying out: ‘You have not done this or that, which God commands!’ forthwith the gentle voice of the Gospel consoles me, by saying: ‘What thou canst not do (and certainly thou canst do nothing), Christ has done and perfected.’ Yes (continued the pious evangelist), when my heart is troubled because of my helplessness and the weakness of my flesh, my spirit is revived at the sound of these glad tidings: Christ is thy innocence!

Christ is they righteousness! Christ is thy salvation! Thou art nothing, thou canst do nothing! Christ is the Alpha and Omega; Christ is the First and the Last; Christ is all things; he can do all things. All created things will forsake and deceive thee; but Christ, the innocent and righteous one, will receive and justify thee......Yes! it is he,” exclaimed Zwingle, “who is our righteousness, and the righteousness of all those who shall ever appear justified before the throne of God!”......

In the presence of such truths, the indulgences fell of themselves: Zwingle accordingly feared not to attack them. “No man,” said he, “can remit sins; Christ, who is very God and very man, alone has this power. Go! buy indulgences......but be assured, that you are not absolved. Those who sell remission of sins for money, are the companions of Simon the magician, the friends of Balaam, and the ambassadors of Satan.”

Dean Bullinger, still heated by his conversation with the monk, arrived at Zurich before him. He came to lay his complaints before the diet against this shameless merchant and his traffic. He found some envoys from the bishop who were there with the same motives, and made common cause with them. All promised to support him. The spirit that animated Zwingle pervaded the city. The council of state resolved to oppose the monk’s entry into Zurich.

Samson had reached the suburbs and alighted at an inn. He was preparing to mount his horse to make his solemn entry, and had already one foot in the stirrup, when deputies from the council appeared before him, offering him the honorary cup of wine as envoy from the pope, and informing him that he might dispense with entering Zurich. “I have something to communicate to the diet in the name of his holiness,” replied the monk.

This was a mere trick. It was agreed, however, to receive him; but as he spoke of nothing but papal bulls, he was dismissed after being compelled to withdraw the excommunication pronounced against the dean of Bremgarten. He quitted the hall fuming with anger, and soon after the pope recalled him to Italy. A wagon, drawn by three horses and laden with the money that his falsehoods had wrung from the poor, preceded him on those steep paths of the St. Gothard that he had crossed eight months before, without money or parade, and burdened with only a few papers. f1417 The Helvetic diet showed more resolution than the German. It was because neither bishops nor cardinals had a seat in it. And hence the pope, deprived of these supporters acted more mildly towards Switzerland than towards Germany. But the affair of the indulgences, which played so important a part in the German, was merely an episode in the Swiss Reformation.

CHAPTER -Zwingle’s Toils and Fatigue — The Baths of Pfeffers — The Moment of God — The Great Death — Zwingle attacked by the Plague — His Adversaries — His Friends — Convalescence — General Joy — Effects of the Pestilence — Myconius at Lucerne — Oswald encourages Zwingle — Zwingle at Basle — Capito invited to Mentz — Hedio at Basle — The Unnatural Son — Preparations for the Struggle.

Zwingle did not spare himself. Such great and continued toil called for relaxation, and he was ordered to repair to the baths of Pfeffers. “Oh! had I a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, and a voice of iron, as Virgil says; or rather had I the eloquence of Cicero, how could I express all that I owe to you, and the pain this separation causes me?” Such were the parting words of Herus, one of the pupils resident in his house, and who thus gave utterance to the feelings of all who knew Zwingle. He departed, and reached Pfeffers through the frightful gorge formed by the impetuous torrent of the Jamina. He descended into that infernal gulf, as Daniel the hermit terms it, and arrived at those baths, perpetually shaken by the fall of the torrent, and moistened by the spray of its broken waters. Torches were required to be burned at noon-day in the house where Zwingle lodged. It was even asserted by the inhabitants, that frightful specters appeared sometimes amid the gloom.

And yet even here he found an opportunity of serving his Master. His affability won the hearts of many of the invalids. Among their number was the celebrated poet, Philip Ingentinus, professor at Friburg, in Brisgau, f1419 who from that time became a zealous supporter of the Reformation.

God was watching over his work, and designed to accelerate it. Strong in frame, in character, and in talents, Zwingle, whose defect consisted in this strength, was destined to see it prostrated, that he might become such an instrument as God loves. He needed the baptism of adversity and infirmity, of weakness and pain. Luther had received it in that hour of anguish when his cell and the long galleries of the convent at Erfurth reechoed with his piercing cries. Zwingle was appointed to receive it by being brought into contact with sickness and death. There is a moment in the history of the heroes of this world, of such as Charles XII or Napoleon, which decides their career and their renown; it is that in which their strength is suddenly revealed to them. An analogous moment exists in the life of God’s heroes, but it is in a contrary direction; it is that in which they first recognize their helplessness and nothingness; from that hour they receive the strength of God from on high. A work like that of which Zwingle was to be the instrument, is never accomplished by the natural strength of man; it would wither immediately, like a tree transplanted in all its maturity, and vigor. A plant must be feeble or it will not take root, and a grain must die in the earth before it came become fruitful. God conducted Zwingle, and with him the work that depended on him, to the gates of the sepulcher. It is from among the dry bones, the darkness, and the dust of death, that God is pleased to select the instruments by means of which he designs to scatter over the earth his light, regeneration, and life.

Zwingle was hidden among those colossal rocks that encircle the furious torrent of the Jamina, when he was suddenly informed that the plague, or the great death, as it was called, had broken out at Zurich. It appeared in all its terror in the month of August, on St. Lawrence’s day, and lasted till Candlemas, sweeping off two thousand five hundred inhabitants. The young men who resided in Zwingle’s house had quitted it immediately, in accordance with the directions he had left behind him. His house was deserted; but it was his time to return to it. He hastily quitted Pfeffers, and reappeared in the midst of his flock, which the malady had decimated; his younger brother Andrew, who had waited for him, he immediately sent back to Wildhaus, and from that hour devoted himself entirely to the victims of this frightful scourge. Every day he proclaimed Christ and his consolations to the sick. His friends, delighted to see him unharmed amid so many deadly arrows, experienced however a secret alarm. “Do your duty,” said a letter from Basle, written by Conrad Brunner, who himself died of the plague a few months afterwards, “but at the same time remember to take care of your own life.” This caution came too late; Zwingle was attacked by the plague. The great preacher of Switzerland lay stretched on a bed from which he seemed likely never to rise. His thoughts were turned inwards; his eyes were directed to heaven. He knew that God had given him a sure inheritance, and venting the feelings of his heart in a hymn overflowing with unction and simplicity, of which, though we cannot transfer the antique and natural language, we will endeavor at least to exhibit its rhythm and literal meaning, — he exclaimed: — Lo! at the door I hear death’s knock! f1423 Shield me, O Lord, My strength and rock.

The hand once nailed Upon the tree, Jesus, uplift — And shelter me.

Willest thou, then, Death conquer me f1424 In my noonday?......

So let it be!

Oh! may I die, Since I am thine; Thy home is made For faith like mine.

Meantime his disease increased in virulence; his despairing friends beheld this man, the hope of Switzerland and of the Church, about to fall a prey to the tomb. His senses and his strength forsook him. His heart was dismayed, but he still found strength sufficient to turn towards God and to cry: — My pains increase:

Lord, stand thou near.

Body and soul Dissolve with fear.

Now death is near, My tongue is dumb; Fight for me, Lord.

Mine hour is come! f1425 See Satan’s net Is o’er me tost — I feel his hand......

Must I be lost? His shafts, his voice Alarm no more, For here I lie Thy cross before.

Canon Hoffman, sincerely attached to his creed, could not bear the idea of seeing Zwingle die in the errors of which he had preached. He called on the provost of the chapter, and said to him: “Think of the danger to which his soul is exposed. Has he not designated as innovators and fantastical all the doctors who have taught these three hundred and eighty past years past and more — Alexander Hales, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and all the canonists? Does not he maintain that their doctrines are mere visions, which they dreamt in their cowls within the walls of their cloisters?......Alas! it would have been better for the city of Zurich had Zwingle ruined our vintage and our harvest for many years! Now he is at death’s door......I entreat you to save his poor soul!” It would appear that the provost, who was more enlightened than the canon, did not think it necessary to convert Zwingle to Bonaventure and Albertus Magnus. He was left in peace.

The city was filled with distress. The believers cried to God night and day, praying Him to restore their faithful pastor. The alarm had spread from Zurich to the mountains of the Tockenburg. The pestilence had made its appearance even on those lofty hills. Seven or eight persons had died in the village, among whom was a servant of Zwingle’s brother Nicholas. f1427 No letter was received from the reformer. “Tell me,” wrote young Andrew Zwingle, “in what state you are, my dear brother. The abbot and all our brothers salute thee.” It would appear that Zwingle’s parents were dead, from there being no mention of them here.

The news of Zwingle’s malady, and even the report of his death, was circulated through Switzerland and Germany. “Alas!” exclaimed Hedio in tears, “the preserver of our country, the trumpet of the Gospel, the magnanimous herald of truth, is cut down in the flower and spring-tide of his life!” When the news of Zwingle’s decease reached Basle, the whole city resounded with lamentations and mourning. f1429 Yet the spark of life that still remained began to burn more brightly.

Although his frame was weak, his soul felt the unalterable conviction that God had called him to replace the candle of His Word on the empty candlestick of the Church. The plague had forsaken its victim, and Zwingle exclaims with emotion: — My God, my Sire, Heal’d by thy hand, Upon the earth Once more I stand.

From guilt and sin May I be free!

My mouth shall sing Alone of thee!

The uncertain hour For me will come...

O’erwhelm’d perchance With deeper gloom. f1430 It matters not!

With joy I’ll bear My yoke, until I reach heaven’s sphere. f1431 At the beginning of November, as soon as he could hold a pen, Zwingle wrote to his family. This gave unutterable joy to his friends, f1432 particularly to his young brother Andrew, who himself died of the plague in the following year, and at whose death Ulrich wept and groaned (as he himself observes) with more than woman’s sorrow. At Basle, Conrad Brunner, Zwingle’s friend, and Bruno Amerbach, the celebrated printer, both young men, had died after three days’ illness. It was believed in that city that Zwingle also had fallen. The university felt the deepest dejection. “Whom the gods love die young,” said they. But who can describe their delight when Collins, a student from Lucerne, and after him a merchant from Zurich, brought intelligence that Zwingle had escaped from the jaws of death! The vicar of the Bishop of Constance, John Faber, that old friend of Zwingle’s, who was subsequently his most violent antagonist, wrote to him: “Oh! my beloved Ulrich, what joy I feel at learning that you have been saved from the grasp of cruel death! When you are in danger the christian commonwealth is threatened. The Lord has pleased to urge you by these trials to seek more earnestly for eternal life.”

This was indeed the aim of the trials by which God had proved Zwingle, and this end was obtained, but in a different manner from that imagined by Faber. This pestilence of 1519, which committed such frightful ravages in the north of Switzerland, was in the hands of God a powerful means for the conversion of many souls. But on no one did it exercise so powerful an influence as on Zwingle. The Gospel, which had hitherto been too much regarded by him as a mere doctrine, now became a great reality.

He arose from the darkness of the sepulcher with a new heart. His zeal became more active; his life more holy; his preaching more free, more christian, and more powerful. This was the epoch of Zwingle’s complete emancipation; henceforward he consecrated himself entirely to God. But the Reformation of Switzerland received a new life at the same time as the reformer. The scourge of God, the great death, as it swept over these mountains and descended into its valleys, gave a holier character to the movement that was there taking place. The Reformation, as well as Zwingle, was baptized in the waters of affliction and of grace, and came forth purer and more vigorous. It was a memorable day in the counsels of God for the regeneration of this people.

Zwingle derived fresh strength, of which he stood so much in need, from communion with his friends. To Myconius especially he was united by the strongest affection. They walked in reliance on each other, like Luther and Melancthon. Oswald was happy at Zurich. True, his position there was embarrassed, but tempered by the virtues of his modest wife. It was of her that Glarean said: “If I could meet with a young woman like her, I should prefer her to a king’s daughter.” Yet a faithful monitor often broke in upon the sweet affection of Zwingle and Myconius. It was the canon Xyloctect inviting Oswald to return to Lucerne, his native place. “Zurich is not your country,” said he, “it is Lucerne! You tell me that the Zurichers are your friends; I do not deny it. But do you know what will be the end of it? Serve your country: This I would advise and entreat you, and, if I may, I would command you!” Xyloctect, joining actions with words, procured his nomination as head-master of the collegiate school at Lucerne.

Oswald hesitated no longer; he saw the finger of God in this appointment, and however great the sacrifice, he resolved to make it. Who could tell that he might not be an instrument in the hand of the Lord to introduce the doctrine of peace in the warlike city of Lucerne? But what a sad farewell was that of Zwingle and Myconius! They parted in tears. “Your departure,” wrote Ulrich to his friend shortly after, “has inflicted a blow on the cause I am defending, like that suffered by an army in battle-array when one of its wings is destroyed. Alas! now I feel all the value of my Myconius, and how often, without my knowing it, he has upheld the cause of Christ.”

Zwingle felt the loss of his friend more deeply, as the plague had left him in a state of extreme weakness. “It has enfeebled my memory,” wrote he on the 30th of November 1519, “and depressed my spirits.” He was hardly convalescent before he resumed his duties. “But,” said he, “when I am preaching, I often lose the thread of my discourse. All my limbs are oppressed with languor, and I am almost like a corpse.” Besides this, Zwingle’s opposition to indulgences had aroused the hostility of their partisans. Oswald encouraged his friend by the letters he wrote from Lucerne. Was not the Lord, at this very moment, giving a pledge of his support by the protection He afforded in Saxony to the powerful champion who had gained such signal victories over Rome?......”What is your opinion,” said Myconius to Zwingle, “of Luther’s cause? As for me, I have no fear either for the Gospel or for him. If God does not protect His truth, who shall protect it? All that I ask of the Lord is, that He will not withdraw his hand from those who hold nothing dearer than his Gospel.

Continue as you have begun, and an abundant reward shall be conferred upon you in heaven!”

The arrival of an old friend consoled Zwingle for the departure of Myconius. Bunzli, who had been Ulrich’s instructor at Basle, and who had succeeded the Dean of Wesen, the reformer’s uncle, visited Zurich in the first week of the year 1520, and Zwingle and he formed a project of going to Basle to see their common friends. Zwingle’s sojourn in that city was not fruitless. “Oh! my dear Zwingle,” wrote John Glother not long after, “never can I forget you. I am bound to you for that kindness with which, during your stay at Basle, you came to see me, — me, a poor schoolmaster, an obscure man, without learning, merit, and of low estate!

You have won my affections by that gracefulness of manner, that inexpressible suavity with which you subdue all hearts, — nay, even the stones, if I may so speak.” But Zwingle’s old friends profited still more by his visit. Capito, Hedio, and many others, were electrified by his powerful language; and the former, commencing in Basle a work similar to that which Zwingle was carrying on in Zurich, began to explain the Gospel according to St. Matthew, before an ever-increasing auditory. The doctrine of Christ penetrated and warmed their hearts. The people received it gladly, and hailed with acclamations the revival of Christianity. This was the dawn of the Reformation; and accordingly a conspiracy of priests and monks was soon formed against Capito. It was at this period that Albert, the youthful cardinal-archbishop of Mentz, desirous of attaching so great a scholar to his person, invited him to his court. Capito, seeing the difficulties that were opposed to him, accepted the invitation.

The people were excited; their indignation was roused against the priests, and a violent commotion broke out in the city. Hedio was thought of as his successor; but some objected to his youth, and others said, “He is Capito’s disciple!” “The truth stings,” said Hedio; “it is not safe to wound tender ears by preaching it. But it matters not! Nothing shall make me swerve from the straight road.” The monks redoubled their efforts: “Do not believe those,” exclaimed they from the pulpit, “who tell you that the sum of christian doctrine is found in the Gospel and in St. Paul. Scotus has been more serviceable to Christianity than St. Paul himself. All the learned things that have been ever said or printed were stolen from Scotus. All that these hunters after glory have been able to do, is merely to add a few Greek or Hebrew words to obscure the whole matter.” f1445 The disturbance increased, and there was cause to fear that, after Capito’s departure, the opposition would become still more powerful. “I shall be almost alone,” thought Hedio; — “I, a weak and wretched man, to struggle unaided with these pestilent monsters.” In these circumstances he called to God for succor, and wrote to Zwingle: “Animate my courage by frequent letters. Learning and Christianity are now between the hammer and the anvil. Luther has just been condemned by the universities of Louvain and Cologne. If ever the Church was in imminent danger, it is now.” f1447 Capito left Basle for Mentz on the 28th of April, and was succeeded by Hedio. Not content with the public assemblies in the church, where he continued the explanation of St. Matthew, Hedio proposed in the month of June (as he writes to Luther) to have private meetings in his house, for the more familiar communication of evangelical instruction to those who felt its necessity. This powerful means of edification in the truth and of exciting the interest and zeal of believers for Divine things, could not fail, then as in all times, to arouse opposition among worldly minded people and domineering priests, both which classes, though from different motives, are unwilling that God should be worshipped anywhere except within the boundary of certain walls. But Hedio was immovable.

At the period when he was forming this good resolution at Basle, there arrived at Zurich one of those characters who, in all revolutions, are thrown up, like a foul scum, on the surface of society.

The senator Grebel, a man highly respected in Zurich, had a son named Conrad, a youth of remarkable talents, a violent enemy of ignorance and superstition, which he attacked with the most cutting satire; he was blustering and passionate, caustic and ill-natured in his speech; void of natural affection, dissipated, speaking loudly and frequently of his own innocence, and seeing nothing but evil in his neighbors. We mention him here, because he was afterwards destined to play a melancholy part. Just at this time, Vadian married one of Conrad’s sisters. The latter, who was studying at Paris, where his misconduct had rendered him incapable of walking, feeling a desire to be present at the marriage, suddenly (about the middle of June) appeared in the midst of the family. The poor father received his prodigal son with a kind smile, his tender mother with a flood of tears. The affection of his parents could not change his unnatural heart.

His good but unhappy mother having some time afterwards been brought to the verge of the grave, Conrad wrote to his brother-in-law Vadian: “My mother has recovered; she is again ruler of the house; she sleeps, rises, scolds, breakfasts, quarrels, dines, disputes, sups, and is always a trouble to us. She trots about, roasts and bakes, heaps and hoards, toils and wearies herself to death, and will soon bring on a relapse.” Such was the man who somewhat later presumed to domineer over Zwingle, and became notorious as one of the chiefs of the fanatical enthusiasts of the day. It may be that Divine Providence allowed such characters to appear at the epoch of the Reformation, to form a contrast by their very excesses with the wise, christian, and regulated spirit of the reformers.

Everything seemed to indicate that the battle between the Gospel and popery was about to begin. “Let us stir up the temporizers,” wrote Hedio to Zwingle; “the truce is broken. Let us put on our breastplates; for we shall have to fight against the most formidable enemies.” Myconius wrote to Ulrich in the same strain; but the latter replied to these warlike appeals with admirable mildness: “I would allure these obstinate men,” said he, “by kindness and friendly proceedings, rather than overthrow them by violent controversy. For if they call our doctrine (which is in truth not ours) a devilish doctrine, it is all very natural, and by this I know that we are really ambassadors from God. The devils cannot be silent in Christ’s presence.”

CHAPTER -The Two Reformers — The Fall of Man — Expiation of the Man- God — No Merit in Works — Objections refuted — Power of Love for Christ — Election — Christ the sole Master — Effects of this Preaching — Dejection and Courage — First Act of the Magistrate — Church and State — Attacks — Galster.

Although Zwingle desired to follow a mild course, he did not remain inactive. After his illness, his preaching had become more profound and more vivifying. Upwards of two thousand persons in Zurich had received the Word of God in their hearts, confessed the evangelical doctrine, and were already qualified to announce it themselves. f1451 Zwingle held the same faith as Luther, but a faith depending on deeper reasoning. In Luther it was all impulse; in Zwingle, perspicuity of argument prevailed. We find in Luther’s writings an internal and private conviction of the value of the cross of Jesus Christ to himself individually; and this conviction, so full of energy and life, animates all that he says.

The same sentiment, undoubtedly, is found in Zwingle, but in a less degree. He was rather attracted by the harmony of the christian doctrine: he admired it for its exquisite beauty, for the light is sheds upon the soul of man, and for the everlasting life it brings into the world. The one is moved by the heart, the other by the understanding; and this is why those who have not felt by their own experience the faith that animated these two great disciples of the same Lord have fallen into the gross error of representing one as a mystic and the other as a rationalist. Possibly, the one is more pathetic in the exposition of his faith, the other more philosophical; but both believe in the same truths. It may be true that they do not regard secondary questions in the same light; but that faith which is one, — that faith which renews and justifies its possessor, — that faith which no confession, no articles can express, — exists in them alike.

Zwingle’s doctrines have been so often misrepresented, that it will not be irrelevant to glance at what he was then preaching to the people who daily thronged the cathedral of Zurich.

In the fall of the first man Zwingle found a key to the history of the human race. “Before the fall,” said he one day, “man had been created with a free will, so that, had he been willing, he might have kept the law; his nature was pure; the disease of sin had not yet reached him; his life was in his own hands. But having desired to be as God, he died......and not he alone, but all his posterity. Since then in Adam all men are dead, no one can recall them to life, until the Spirit, which is God himself, raises them from the dead.” f1452 The inhabitants of Zurich, who listened eagerly to this powerful orator, were overwhelmed with sorrow as he unfolded before their eyes that state of sin in which mankind are involved; but soon they heard the words of consolation, and the remedy was pointed out to them, which alone can restore man to life. “Christ, very man and very God,” said the eloquent voice of this son of the Tockenburg herdsman, “has purchased for us a never ending redemption. For since it was the eternal God who died for us, his passion is therefore an eternal sacrifice, and everlastingly effectual to heal; it satisfies the Divine justice for ever in behalf of all those who rely upon it with firm and unshaken faith. Wherever sin is,” exclaimed the reformer, “death of necessity follows. Christ was without sin, and guile was not found in his mouth; and yet he died!......This death he suffered in our stead! He was willing to die that he might restore us to life; and as he had no sins of his own, the all-merciful Father laid ours upon him. f1455 .....Seeing that the will of man,” said the christian orator again, “had rebelled against the Most High, it was necessary for the reestablishment of eternal order and for the salvation of man, that the human will should submit in Christ’s person to the Divine will.” He would often remark that the expiatory death of Jesus Christ had taken place in behalf of believers, of the people of God. f1457 The souls that thirsted after salvation in the city of Zurich found repose at the sound of these glad tidings; but there still existed in their minds some long-established errors which it was necessary to eradicate. Starting from the great truth that salvation is the gift of God, Zwingle inveighed powerfully against the pretended merit of human works. “Since eternal salvation,” said he, “proceeds solely from the merits and death of Jesus Christ, it follows that the merit of our own works is mere vanity and folly, not to say impiety and senseless impudence. If we could have been saved by our own works, it would not have been necessary for Christ to die. All who have ever come to God have come to him through the death of Jesus Christ.” f1459 Zwingle foresaw the objections this doctrine would excite among some of his hearers. They waited on him and laid them before him. He replied to them from the pulpit: “Some people, perhaps more dainty than pious, object that this doctrine renders men careless and dissolute. But of what importance are the fears and objections that the daintiness of men may suggest? Whosoever believes in Jesus Christ is assured that all that cometh from God is necessarily good. If, therefore, the Gospel is of God, it is good. And what other power besides could implant righteousness, truth, and love among men?......O God, most gracious, most righteous Father of all mercies,” exclaimed he in a transport of piety, “with what charity Thou has embraced us, thine enemies! f1461 ......With what lofty and unfailing hopes hast thou filled us, who deserved to feel nothing but despair! and to what glory hast thou called, in thy Son, our meanness and our nothingness!......Thou willest, by this unspeakable love, to constrain us to return thee love for love!”

Following out this idea, he proceeded to show that love to the Redeemer is a law more powerful than the commandments. “The Christian,” said he, “delivered from the law, depends entirely on Jesus Christ. Christ is his reason, his counsel, his righteousness, and his whole salvation. Christ lives and acts in him. Christ alone is his leader, and he needs no other guide.” And then making use of a comparison within the range of his hearers’ intelligence, he added: “If a government forbids its citizens under pain of death to receive any pension or largess from the hands of foreigners, how mild and easy is this law to those who, from love to their country and their liberty, voluntarily abstain from so culpable an action!

But, on the contrary, how vexatious and oppressive it is to those who consult their own interest alone! Thus the righteous man lives free and joyful in the love of righteousness, and the unrighteous man walks murmuring under the heavy burden of the law that oppresses him!” f1463 In the cathedral of Zurich there were many old soldiers who felt the truth of these words. Is not love the most powerful of lawgivers? Are not its commands immediately fulfilled? Does not He whom we love dwell in our hearts, and there perform all that he has ordained? Accordingly, Zwingle, growing bolder, proclaimed to the people of Zurich that love to the Redeemer was alone capable of impelling a man to perform works acceptable to God. “Works done out of Jesus Christ are worthless,” said the christian orator. “Since every thing is done of him, in him, and by him, what can we lay claim to for ourselves? Wherever there is faith in God, there God is; and wherever God abideth, there a zeal exists urging and impelling men to good works. Take care only that Christ is in thee, and that thou art in Christ, and doubt not that then he is at work with thee. “The life of a Christian is one perpetual good work which God begins, continues, and completes.” f1465 Deeply affected by the greatness of that love of God, which is from everlasting, the herald of grace raised his voice in louder accents of invitation to irresolute and timid souls. “Are you afraid,” said he, “to approach this tender Father who has elected you? Why has he chosen us of his grace? Why has he called us? Why has he drawn us to him? Is it that we should fear to approach him?” f1466 Such was Zwingle’s doctrine: the doctrine of Christ himself. “If Luther preaches Christ, he does what I am doing,” said the preacher Zurich; “those whom he has brought to Christ are more numerous than those whom I have led. But this matters not: I will bear no other name than that of Christ, whose soldier I am, and who alone is my chief. Never has one single word been written by me to Luther, nor by Luther to me. And why?......that it might be shown how much the Spirit of God is in unison with itself, since both of us, without any collusion, teach the same doctrine of Christ with such uniformity.” f1467 Thus did Zwingle preach with courage and enthusiasm. The vast cathedral could not contain the multitude of his hearers. All praised God for the new life that was beginning to reanimate the lifeless body of the Church. Many of the Swiss from every canton who came to Zurich either to attend the diet or for other motives, impressed by this new preaching, carried its precious seeds into all the valleys of their native country. A shout of rejoicing rose from every city and mountain. “Switzerland,” wrote Nicholas Hageus from Lucerne to Zurich, “Switzerland has hitherto given birth to such as Brutus, Scipio, and Caesar; but she has hardly produced a man who really knew Jesus Christ, and who nourished our souls, not with vain disputes, but with the Word of God. Now that Divine Providence has given Switzerland a Zwingle for preacher and an Oswald Myconius for teacher, virtue and sacred learning are reviving among us. O fortunate Helvetia! if at last thou wouldst rest from war, and, already illustrious by thy arms, become more illustrious still by righteousness and peace!” f1469 — “There was a report,” wrote Myconius to Zwingle, “that your voice could not be heard three paces off. But I see now that it was a falsehood, for all Switzerland hears you!” — “Thou hast armed thyself with an intrepid courage,” wrote Hedio from Basle; “I will follow thee as far as I am able.” — “I have heard thee,” wrote Sebastain Hofmeister of Schaffhausen from Constance. “Would to God that Zurich, which is at the head of our happy confederation, were healed of its disease, so that the whole body might be at length restored to health!” f1472 But Zwingle met with adversaries as well as admirers. “Why,” said some, “does he busy himself with the affairs of Switzerland?”......”Why,” said others, “does he repeat the same things in every sermon?” In the midst of all this opposition, dejection often came over Zwingle’s soul. Everything seemed in his eyes falling into confusion, and society to be on the eve of a general convulsion. He thought it impossible for any new truth to appear, without its antagonistic error springing up immediately. If any hope arose in his heart, fear grew up by its side. He soon, however, threw off his dejection. “The life of man here below is a continual war,” said he; “whoever desires to obtain glory must face the world, and like David force this haughty Goliath, so proud of his stature, to bite the dust. The Church,” said he, as Luther had done, “was purchased by blood, and by blood must be restored. The more numerous are its impurities, the more men like Hercules must we call up to cleanse these Augean stables. I am under no apprehensions for Luther,” added he, “even should he be struck by the thunderbolts of this (Romish) Jupiter.” f1477 Zwingle had need of repose, and repaired to the waters of Baden. The priest of this town, formerly one of the pope’s guards, a man of kindly disposition but of the greatest ignorance, had obtained his benefice by carrying the halberd. Faithful to the military habits, he used to pass the day and part of the night in jovial company, while his curate Staheli was indefatigable in performing all the duties of his charge. Zwingle sent for him and said: “I have need of Swiss helpers;” and from that moment Staheli was his fellow-laborer. Zwingle, Staheli, and Luti subsequently pastor at Winterthour, lived under the same roof.

Zwingle’s devotion was not unrewarded. The Word of Christ, preached with so much energy, was destined to bear fruit. Many magistrates were gained over; they had found in God’s Word their consolation and their strength. Afflicted at seeing the priests, and above all the monks, uttering shamelessly from the pulpit whatever came into their heads, the council published a decree ordering them to preach nothing in their sermons “that they had not drawn from the sacred fountains of the Old and New Testaments.” It was in 1520 that the civil authority thus interfered for the first time in the work of the Reformation, acting as a christian magistrate to defend the Word of God and to protect the dearest interests of the citizens; — depriving the Church of its liberty (in the opinion of others), subjecting it to the secular power, and giving the signal of that long train of evils which the union of Church and State has since engendered.

We will not here decide on this great controversy, which in our own days is maintained with so much warmth in many countries. It is sufficient for us to mark its origin at the epoch of the Reformation. But there is still another thing to be pointed out; the act of these magistrates was of itself an effect of the preaching of the Word of God. The Reformation in Switzerland then emerged from simple individualities, and became a national work. Born in the hearts of a few priests and learned men, it extended, rose up, and took its station on higher ground. Like the waters of the sea, it rose gradually, until it had covered a vast expanse.

The monks were confounded: they had been ordered to preach the Word of God only, and most of them had never read it. One opposition provokes another. This decree became the signal of the most violent attacks against the Reformation. Plots began to be formed against the priest of Zurich: his life was in danger. One day, as Zwingle and his curates were quietly conversing in their house, some citizens entered hastily, saying: “Have you strong bolts to your doors? Be on your guard tonight.” — “We often had such alarms as these,” adds Staheli; “but we were well armed, and a patrol was stationed in the street to protect us.”

In other places recourse was had to still more violent measures. An aged man of Schaffhausen, named Galster, possessing a just spirit and a fervor rare at his age, and rejoicing in the light he had found in the Gospel, endeavored to communicate it to his wife and children; in his zeal, which may have been indiscreet, he openly attacked the relics, priests, and superstition with which his canton abounded. He soon became an object of hatred and terror even to his own family. The old man, anticipating evil designs, left his house broken-hearted, and fled to the neighboring forests.

Here he remained some days sustaining life upon what he could find, when suddenly, on the last night of the year 1520, torches flashed through the forest in every direction, and the shouts of men and the cry of savage dogs re-echoed through its gloomy shades. The council had ordered a grand chase in the forest to discover the wretched man. The hounds caught their prey. The unhappy Galster was dragged before the magistrate, and summoned to abjure his faith; as he continued steadfast, he was beheaded. f1481 CHAPTER -A new Combatant — The Reformer of Berne — Zwingle encourages Haller — The Gospel at Lucerne — Oswald persecuted — Zwingle’s Preaching — Henry Bullinger and Gerold of Knonau — Rubli at Basle — The Chaplain of the Hospital — War in Italy — Zwingle protests against the Capitulations.

The year thus inaugurated by this bloody execution had hardly begun, when Zwingle received a visit at Zurich from a young man about twentyeight years of age, of tall stature, and whose exterior denoted candor, simplicity, and diffidence. He introduced himself as Berthold Haller, and on hearing his name Zwingle embraced the celebrated preacher of Berne with that affability which imparted such a charm to his manners.

Haller was born at Aldingen in Wurtemberg, and had studied first at Rotwyl under Rubellus, and next at Pforzheim, where Simmler was his preceptor and Melancthon his fellow-pupil. The Bernese had about that time resolved on attracting literary men to their republic, which had already become so famous by its feats of arms. Rubellus and Berthold, who was then only twenty-one years old, repaired thither. Subsequently Haller was named canon and shortly after preacher of the cathedral. The Gospel taught by Zwingle had reached Berne; Haller believed, and from that hour desired to see the mighty man whom he already respected as a father. He went to Zurich, where Myconius had announced him. Thus did Haller and Zwingle meet. Haller, a man of meek, disposition, confided to Zwingle all his trials; and Zwingle, the strong man, inspired him with courage. “My soul,” said Berthold to Zwingle one day, “is overwhelmed;......I cannot support such unjust treatment. I am determined to resign my pulpit and retire to Basle, to employ myself wholly, in Wittembach’s society, with the study of sacred learning.” “Alas!” replied Zwingle, “and I too feel discouragement creep over me when I see myself unjustly assailed; but Christ awakens my conscience by the powerful stimulus of his terrors and promises. He alarms me by saying: Whosoever shall be ashamed of me before men, of him shall I be ashamed before my Father; and he restores me to tranquillity by adding: Whosoever shall confess me before men, him also will I confess before my Father. O my dear Berthold, take courage! Our names are written in imperishable characters in the annals of the citizens on high. I am ready to die for Christ. f1485 .....Oh! that your fierce bear-cubs,” added he, “would hear the doctrine of Jesus Christ, then would they grow tame. But you must undertake this duty with great gentleness, lest they should turn round furiously, and rend you in pieces.” Haller’s courage revived. “My soul,” wrote he to Zwingle, “has awakened from its slumber. I must preach the Gospel. Jesus Christ must be restored to this city, whence He has been so long exiled.” Thus did the flame that glowed so brightly in Zwingle’s bosom rekindle that of Berthold, and the timid Haller rushed into the midst of the savage bears, who, grinding their teeth (says Zwingle), sought to devour him.

It was in another quarter, however, that the persecution was to break out in Switzerland. The warlike Lucerne stood forward as an adversary armed cap-a-pie and lance in rest. The military spirit prevailed in this canton, the advocate of foreign service, and the leading men of the capital knit their brows whenever they heard one word of peace calculated to restrain their warlike disposition. When Luther’s works reached this city, some of the inhabitants began to read them, and were struck with horror. They appeared to have been penned by the hand of a demon; their imagination took fright, their eyes wandered, and they fancied their chambers were filled with devils, surrounding and gazing upon them with a sarcastic leer. f1488 .....They hastily closed the volume and flung it aside in terror. Oswald, who had heard of these singular visions, never spoke of Luther, except to his most intimate friends, and was content simply to announce the Gospel of Christ. Yet notwithstanding this moderation, loud cries were heard in the city: “We must burn Luther and the schoolmaster (Myconius)!” f1489 ......”I am assailed by my adversary, like a ship in a hurricane at sea,” said Oswald to one of his friends. f1490 One day at the beginning of the year 1520, he was suddenly called before the council. “You are enjoined,” said they, “never to read Luther’s works to your pupils, never to mention him before them, and never even to think of him.” The lords of Lucerne presumed, it will be seen, to extend their jurisdiction very widely. Shortly after this, a preacher declaimed from the pulpit against heresy. All the assembly was moved; every eye was turned on Oswald, for who could the preacher have had in view but him? Oswald remained quietly in his place, as if the matter did not concern him. But on leaving the church, as he was walking with his friend the Canon Xyloctect, one of the councilors, who had not yet recovered from his agitation, passed near them. “Well! you disciples of Luther,” said he angrily, “why do you not defend you master?” They made no reply. “I live,” said Myconius, “in the midst of savage wolves; but I have this consolation, that most of them have lost their teeth. They would bite if they could; but as they cannot, they merely howl.”

The senate was called together, for the tumult among the people kept increasing. “He is a Lutheran!” said one of the councilors. “He is a teacher of novelties!” said another. “He is a seducer of youth,” said a third......”Let him appear! let him appear!” cried all. The poor schoolmaster came before them, and heard fresh menaces and prohibitions. His simple spirit was wounded and depressed. His gentle wife could only console him by her tears. “Every one is against me,” exclaimed he in his anguish. “Assailed by so many tempests, whither shall I turn, or how shall I escape them?......If Christ were not with me, I should long ago have fallen beneath their blows.” f1492 ......“What matters it whether Lucerne will keep you or not?” wrote Dr. Sebastian Hofmeister, in a letter dated from Constance. “The earth is the Lord’s. Every country is the home of the brave. Even were we the vilest of men, our cause is just, for we teach the Gospel of Christ.”

While the truth thus met with so many obstacles at Lucerne, it was triumphant at Zurich. Zwingle labored unceasingly. Desirous of meditating on the whole of Scripture in the original languages, he applied himself diligently to the study of Hebrew under the direction of John Boschenstein, Reuchlin’s pupil. But his object in studying the Scriptures was to preach them. On Fridays, the peasants who came in crowds, bringing their produce to the market of the city, showed great eagerness for the Word of God. To satisfy their wants, Zwingle had begun, in the month of December 1520, to expound the Psalms every market-day, preparing his sermon by previous meditation on each particular text. The reformers always combined learned pursuits with their practical labors: these labors were their end, their studies were but the means. They were not less zealous in the closet than before the people. The union of learning and love is a characteristic feature of this epoch. With reference to his Sunday preachings, Zwingle, after having expounded the life of our Lord according to St. Matthew, proceeded to show, by explaining the Acts of the Apostles, how the doctrine of Christ had been propagated. He next set forth the rule of a christian life, as inculcated in the Epistles to Timothy; he made use of the Epistle to the Galatians to combat doctrinal errors, and combined with it the two Epistles of Peter, to demonstrate to the contemners of St. Paul how the same spirit animated both these apostles; he concluded with the Epistle to the Hebrews, that he might explain to their fullest extent all the blessings which flow from the gift of Jesus Christ, the great high-priest of the Christian.

But Zwingle did not confine himself to adult men alone; he endeavored to kindle in the young also a sacred fire by which they should be animated.

One day in the year 1521, as he was engaged in his closet studying the Fathers of the Church, extracting the most remarkable passages, and carefully classifying them in a thick volume, he saw a young man enter whose features strongly interested him. It was Henry Bullinger, who, having returned from Germany, had come to see him, impatient to know that teacher of his native land whose name was already celebrated in Christendom. The handsome youth fixed his eyes successively on the reformer and his books, and felt a call to follow Zwingle’s example. The latter welcomed him with that cordiality which won every heart. This first visit had a powerful influence over the whole life of the student, after he had returned to his father’s hearth. Another young man had also gained Zwingle’s affection; this was Gerold Meyer von Knonau. His mother, Anna Reinhardt, who subsequently occupied an important place in the life of the reformer, had been a great beauty, and was still distinguished by her virtues. A young man of noble family, John Meyer von Knonau, who had been brought up at the court of the Bishop of Constance, to whom he was related, had conceived an ardent affection for Anna; but she belonged to a plebeian family. The elder Meyer von Knonau had refused his consent to their union, and disinherited his son after the marriage. In 1513, Anna was left a widow with one son and two daughters, and she now lived solely for the education of the poor orphans. Their grandfather was inexorable. One day, however, the widow’s servant took young Gerold out with her, a lively and graceful boy, then only three years old, and as she stopped with him in the fish-market, the elder Meyer, who chanced to be at the window, noticed him, watched every movement, and asked to whom this beautiful child, so buoyant with life and freshness, belonged. “It is your son’s,” was the reply. The old man’s heart was touched — the ice was melted — everything was forgotten, and he clasped in his arms the wife and the children of his son. Zwingle had become attached as if he were his own child to the young, noble, and courageous Gerold, who was destined to expire in the flower of his age at the reformer’s side, his hand upon the sword, and surrounded, alas! by the dead bodies of his enemies. Thinking that Gerold could not find in Zurich sufficient resources for study, Zwingle in 1521 sent him to the Basle.

The young Von Knonau did not find Hedio, Zwingle’s friend, in that city.

As Capito was obliged to accompany the Archbishop Albert to the coronation of Charles V, he had engaged Hedio to supply his place at Mentz. Basle thus successively lost her most faithful preachers; the Church seemed abandoned, but other men appeared. Four thousand hearers crowded the church of William Rubli, priest of St. Alban’s. He attacked the doctrine of the mass, purgatory, and the invocation of saints. But this man, who was turbulent and greedy of public applause, inveighed against error rather than contended for the truth. On the festival of Corpus Christi he joined the great procession, but instead of the relics, which it was customary to parade through the streets, there was carried before him a copy of the Holy Scriptures, handsomely bound, and with this inscription in large letters: “THE BIBLE; this is the true relic, all others are but dead men’s bones.” Courage adorns the servant of God: ostentation disfigures him. The work of an evangelist is to preach the Bible, and not to make a pompous display of it. The enraged priests accused Rubli before the council. A crowd immediately filled the square of the Cordeliers. “Protect our preacher,” said the citizens to the council. Fifty ladies of distinction interposed in his favor, but Rubli was compelled to leave Basle. Somewhat later he was implicated, like Grebel, in the fanatical disorders of the time.

As the Reformation was evolved, it everywhere rejected the chaff that was mixed up with the good grain.

At this time, from the lowliest of chapels was heard an humble voice distinctly proclaiming the Gospel doctrines. It was that of the youthful Wolfgang Wissemburger, the son of a councillor of state, and chaplain to the hospital. All the inhabitants of Basle who felt new desires, experienced a deeper affection for the meek chaplain than they had for the haughty Rubli himself. Wolfgang began to read mass in German. The monks renewed their clamors; but this time they failed, and Wissemburger was enabled to continue preaching the Gospel; “for,” says an old chronicler, “he was a citizen and his father a councillor.” This first success of the Reformation at Basle was an omen of still greater. At the same time, it was of much importance to the progress of the work throughout the confederation. Zurich was not alone. The learned Basle began to be charmed at the sound of the new doctrine. The foundations of the new temple were extending. The Reformation in Switzerland was attaining a higher stage of development.

Zurich was, however, the center of the movement. But in the year 1521, important political events, that grieved Zwingle’s heart, in some measure diverted men’s minds from the preaching of the Gospel. Leo X, who had offered his alliance simultaneously to Charles V and Francis I, had at length decided for the emperor. The war between these two rivals was about to burst forth in Italy. “The pope shall have nothing left but his ears,” said the French general Lautrec. This ill-timed jest increased the pontiff’s anger. The King of France claimed the support of the Swiss cantons, which, with the exception of Zurich, were in alliance with him: his call was obeyed. The pope flattered himself with the hope of engaging Zurich in his cause, and the Cardinal of Sion, who was always intriguing, in full confidence in his dexterity and eloquence, hastened to this city to procure soldiers for his master. But he met with a resolute opposition from his old friend Zwingle. The latter was indignant at the thought of seeing the Swiss sell their blood to the foreigner; his imagination already conjured up the sight of the Zurichers under the standards of the pope and the emperor crossing their swords in the plains of Italy with the confederates assembled under the banner of France; and at this fratricidal picture his patriotic and christian soul thrilled with horror. He thundered from the pulpit: “Will you,” exclaimed he, “tear in pieces and destroy the confederation? f1497 ......We hunt down the wolves that ravage our flocks, but we make no resistance to those who prowl around us to devour men!......It is not without reason that the mantles and the hats they wear are red; shake these garments, and down will fall ducats and crowns; but if you wring them, you will see them dripping with the blood of your brothers, your fathers, your sons, and your dearest friends!” f1498 ......In vain did Zwingle raise his manly voice. The cardinal with his red hat succeeded, and two thousand seven hundred Zurichers departed under the command of George Berguer. Zwingle’s heart was wrung. His influence was not, however, lost. For many years after the banners of Zurich were not unfolded and carried through the gates of the city in behalf of foreign princes.

CHAPTER -Zwingle opposes Human Tradition — Commotion during Lent — Truth triumphs amidst Opposition — The Bishop’s Deputies — Accusation before the Clergy and the Council — Appeal to the Great Council — The Coadjutor and Zwingle — Zwingle’s Reply — Decree of the Great Council — Posture of Affairs — Hoffman’s Attack.

Wounded in his feelings as a citizen, Zwingle devoted himself with fresh zeal to the preaching of the Gospel. His sermons increased in energy. “I will never cease laboring to restore the primitive unity of the Church of Christ,” said he. He began the year 1522 by showing the difference between the precepts of the Gospel and those of men. When the season of Lent came round, he preached with still greater vigor. After having laid the foundations of the new building, he was desirous of sweeping away the rubbish of the old. “For four years,” said he to the crowd assembled in the cathedral, “you have eagerly received the holy doctrine of the Gospel.

Glowing with the fire of charity, fed with the sweets of the heavenly manna, it is impossible you can now find any saviour in the wretched nutriment of human traditions.” And then attacking the compulsory abstinence from meat at certain seasons, he exclaimed with his artless eloquence: “There are some who maintain that to eat meat is a fault, and even a great sin, although God has never forbidden it, and yet they think it not a crime to sell human flesh to the foreigner, and drag it to slaughter!” f1501 ......At this daring language the partisans of the military capitulations, who were present in the assembly, shuddered with indignation and anger, and vowed never to forget it.

While Zwingle was preaching thus energetically, he still continued to say mass; he observed the established usages of the Church, and even abstained from meat on the appointed days. He was of opinion that the people should be enlightened previously. But there were some turbulent persons who did not act so prudently. Rubli, who had taken refuge at Zurich, permitted himself to be led astray by an extravagant zeal. The former curate of Saint Alban’s, a Bernese captain, and Conrad Huber, a member of the great council, were accustomed to meet at the house of the latter to eat meat on Friday and Saturday. On this they greatly prided themselves. The question of fasting engrossed every mind. An inhabitant of Lucerne having come to Zurich, said to one of his friends in this city: “You worthy confederates of Zurich are wrong in eating meat during Lent.” — The Zuricher replied: “You gentlemen of Lucerne, however, take the liberty to eat meat on the prohibited days.” — “We have purchased it from the pope.” — “And we, from the butcher......If it be an affair of money, one is certainly as good as the other.” The council having received a complaint against the transgressors of the ecclesiastical ordinances, requested the opinion of the parish priest. Zwingle replied that the practice of eating meat every day was not blamable of itself; but that the people ought to abstain from doing it until a competent authority should have come to some decision on the matter. The other members of the clergy concurred in his sentiments.

The enemies of the truth took advantage of this fortunate circumstance.

Their influence was declining; the victory would remain with Zwingle, unless they made haste to strike some vigorous blow. They importuned the Bishop of Constance. “Zwingle,” exclaimed they, “is the destroyer and not the keeper of the Lord’s fold.” f1503 The ambitious Faber, Zwingle’s old friend, had just returned from Rome full of fresh zeal for the papacy. From the inspirations of this haughty city were destined to proceed the first religious troubles in Switzerland. A decisive struggle between the evangelical truth and the representatives of the Roman pontiff was now to take place. Truth acquires its chief strength in the attacks that are made upon it. It was under the shade of opposition and persecution that Christianity at its rise acquired the power that eventually overthrew all its enemies. At the epoch of its revival, which forms the subject of our history, it was the will of God to conduct His truth in like manner through these rugged paths. The priests then stood up, as in the days of the apostles, against the new doctrine. Without these attacks, it would probably have remained hidden and obscure in a few faithful souls. But God was watching the hour to manifest it to the world.

Opposition opened new roads for it, launched it on a new career, and fixed the eyes of the nation upon it. This opposition was like a gust of wind, scattering the seeds to a distance, which would otherwise have remained lifeless on the spot where they had fallen. The tree, that was destined to shelter the people of Switzerland, had been deeply planted in her valleys, but storms were necessary to strengthen its roots and extend its branches.

The partisans of the papacy, seeing the fire already smoldering in Zurich, rushed forward to extinguish it, but they only made the conflagration fiercer and more extensive.

In the afternoon of the 7th of April 1522, three ecclesiastical deputies from the Bishop of Constance entered Zurich; two of them had an austere and angry look; the third appeared of milder disposition; they were Melchior Battli, the bishop’s coadjutor, Doctor Brendi, and John Vanner, preacher of the cathedral, an evangelical man, and who preserved silence during the whole of the business. It was already dark when Luti ran to Zwingle and said: “The bishop’s commissioners have arrived; some great blow is preparing; all the partisans of the old customs are stirring. A notary is summoning all the priests for an early meeting tomorrow in the hall of the chapter.”

The assembly of the clergy accordingly took place on the following day, when the coadjutor rose and delivered a speech which his opponents described as haughty and violent; he studiously refrained, however, from uttering Zwingle’s name. A few priests, recently gained over to the Gospel, were thunderstruck; their pallid features, their silence, and their sighs betrayed their total loss of courage. Zwingle now stood up and answered in a manner that effectually silenced his adversaries. At Zurich, as in the other cantons, the most violent enemies of the new doctrine were to be found in the Smaller Council. The deputation, worsted before the clergy, laid their complaints before the magistrates; Zwingle was absent, and accordingly they had no reply to fear. The result appeared decisive.

They were about to condemn the Gospel without its defender being heard.

Never had the Reformation of Switzerland been in greater danger. It was on the point of being stifled in its cradle. The councilors who were friendly to Zwingle, then appealed to the jurisdiction of the Great Council; this was the only remaining chance of safety, and God made use of it to save the cause of the Gospel. The Two Hundred were convened. The partisans of the papacy made every exertion to prevent Zwingle’s admission; he struggled hard to obtain a hearing, knocking at every door, and leaving not a stone unturned, to use his own expression; but in vain!......”It is impossible,” said the burgomasters; “the council has decided to the contrary.” — “Upon this,” says Zwingle, “I remained tranquil, and with deep sighs laid the matter before Him who heareth the groans of the captive, beseeching him to defend his Gospel.” The patient and submissive expectation of the servants of God has never deceived them.

On the 9th of April, the Two Hundred met. “We desire to have our pastors here,” immediately said the friends of the Reformation who belonged to it. The Smaller Council resisted: but the Great Council decided that the pastors should be present at the accusation, and even reply if they thought fit. The deputies of Constance were first introduced, and next the three priests of Zurich; Zwingle, Engelhard, and the aged Roeschli.

After these antagonists, thus brought face to face, had scrutinized each other’s appearance, the coadjutor stood up. “If his heart and head had only been equal to his voice,” says Zwingle, “he would have excelled Apollo and Orpheus in sweetness, and the Gracchi and Demosthenes in power.” “The civil constitution,” said this champion of the papacy, “and the christian faith itself are endangered. Men have recently appeared who teach novel, revolting, and seditious doctrines.” At the end of a long speech, he fixed his eyes on the assembled senators, and said, “Remain in the Church! — remain in the Church! — Out of it no one can be saved. Its ceremonies alone are capable of bringing the simple to a knowledge of salvation; and the shepherds of the flock have nothing more to do than explain their meaning to the people.”

As soon as the coadjutor had finished his speech, he prepared to leave the council-room with his colleagues, when Zwingle said earnestly: “Most worthy coadjutor, and you, his companions, stay, I entreat you, until I have vindicated myself.” The Coadjutor. — “We have no commission to dispute with any one.” Zwingle . — “I have no wish to dispute, but to state fearlessly what I have been teaching up to this hour.”

The Burgomaster Roust, addressing the deputation from Constance. — “I beseech you to listen to the reply the pastor desires to make.” The Coadjutor . — “I know too well the man I have to deal with.

Ulrich Zwingle is too violent for any discussion to be held with him.” Zwingle . — “How long since has it been customary to accuse an innocent man with such violence, and then refuse to hear his defense?

In the name of our common faith, of the baptism we have both received, of Christ the author of salvation and of life, listen to me. f1510 If you cannot as deputies, at least do so as Christians.”

After firing her guns in the air, Rome was hastily retreating from the field of battle. The reformer wanted only to be heard, and the agents of the papacy thought of nothing but running away. A cause thus pleaded was already gained by one side and lost by the other. The Two Hundred could no longer contain their indignation; a murmur was heard in the assembly; again the burgomaster entreated the deputies to remain. Abashed and speechless, they returned to their places, when Zwingle said: — “The reverend coadjutor speaks of doctrines that are seditious and subversive of the civil laws. Let him learn that Zurich is more tranquil and more obedient to the laws than any other city of the Helvetians, — a circumstance which all good citizens ascribe to the Gospel. Is not Christianity the strongest bulwark of justice among a nation? What is the result of all ceremonies, but shamefully to disguise the features of Christ and of his disciples? Yes! — there is another way, besides these vain observances, to bring the unlearned people to the knowledge of the truth. It is that which Christ and his apostles followed......the Gospel itself! Let us not fear that the people cannot understand it. He who believes, understands. The people can believe, they can therefore understand. This is a work of the Holy Ghost, and not of mere human reason. As for that matter, let him who is not satisfied with forty days, fast all the year if he pleases: it is a matter of indifference to me. All that I require is, that no one should be compelled to fast, and that for so trivial an observance the Zurichers should not be accused of withdrawing from the communion of Christians.” “I did not say that,” exclaimed the coadjutor. — “No,” said his colleague Dr. Brendi, “he did not say so.” But all the senate confirmed Zwingle’s assertion. “Excellent citizens,” continued the latter, “let not his charge alarm you! The foundation of the Church is that rock, that Christ, who gave Peter his name because he confessed him faithfully. In every nation whoever sincerely believes in the Lord Jesus is saved. It is out of this Church that no one can have everlasting life. To explain the Gospel and to follow it is our whole duty as ministers of Christ. Let those who live upon ceremonies undertake to explain them!” This was probing the wound to the quick.

The coadjutor blushed and remained silent. The council of the Two Hundred then broke up. On the same day they came to the resolution that the pope and the cardinals should be requested to explain the controverted point, and that in the meanwhile the people should abstain from eating meat during Lent. This was leaving the matter in statu quo, and replying to the bishop by seeking to gain time.

This discussion had forwarded the work of the Reformation. The champions of Rome and those of the new doctrine had met face to face, as it were, in the presence of the whole people; and the advantage had not remained on the side of the pope. This was the first skirmish in a campaign that promised to be long and severe, and alternated with many vicissitudes of mourning and joy. But the first success at the beginning of a contest gives courage to the whole army and intimidates the enemy. The Reformation had seized upon a ground from which it was never to be dislodged. If the council thought themselves still obliged to act with caution, the people loudly proclaimed the defeat of Rome. “Never,” said they in the exultation of the moment, “will she be able to rally her scattered and defeated troops.” “With the energy of St. Paul,” said they to Zwingle, “you have attacked these false apostles and their Ananiahs — those whited walls......The satellites of Antichrist can never do more than gnash their teeth at you!” From the farthest parts of Germany came voices proclaiming him with joy — “the glory of reviving theology.” f1517 But at the same time the enemies of the Gospel were rallying their forces.

There was no time to lose if they desired to suppress it; for it would soon be beyond the reach of their blows. Hoffman laid before the chapter a voluminous accusation against the reformer. “Suppose,” he said, “the priest could prove by witnesses what sins or what disorders had been committed by ecclesiastics in certain convents, streets, or taverns, he ought to name no one! Why would he have us understand (it is true I have scarcely ever heard of him myself) that he alone derives his doctrine from the fountain-head, and that others seek it only in kennels and puddles? f1518 Is it not impossible, considering the diversity of men’s minds, that every preacher should preach alike?”

Zwingle answered this accusation in a full meeting of the chapter, scattering his adversaries’ charges, “as a bull with his horns tosses straw in the air.” The matter which had appeared so serious, ended in loud bursts of laughter at the canon’s expense. But Zwingle did not stop there; on the 16th of April he published a treatise on the free use of meats. f1520 CHAPTER -Mourning and Joy in Germany — Plots against Zwingle — The Bishop’s Mandate — Archeteles — The Bishop’s Appeal to the Diet — Injunctions against attacking the Monks — Zwingle’s Declaration — The Nuns of Oetenbach — Zwingle’s Address to Schwytz.

Zwingle’s indomitable firmness delighted the friends of truth, and particularly the evangelical Christians of Germany, so long deprived, by his captivity in the Wartburg, of the mighty apostle who had first arisen in the bosom of the Church. Already many pastors and believers, exiled in consequence of the merciless decree which the papacy had extorted from Charles V at Worms, had found an asylum at Zurich. Nesse, the professor of Frankfort, whom Luther had visited on his road to Worms, wrote to Zwingle: “Oh! the joy that I feel at hearing with what authority you proclaim Jesus Christ! Strengthen by your exhortations those whom the cruelty of wicked bishops has compelled to flee far from our desolate churches.” f1521 But it was not in Germany alone that the adversaries were plotting against the friends of the Reformation. Not an hour passed in which the means of getting rid of Zwingle were not discussed. One day he received an anonymous letter, which he communicated immediately to his two curates. “Snares surround you on every side,” wrote his secret friend; “a deadly poison has been prepared to take away your life. Never eat food but in your own house, and only what has been prepared by your own cook.

The walls of Zurich contain men who are plotting your destruction. The oracle that has revealed this to me is more worthy of credit than that of Delphi. I am your friend; you shall know me hereafter.” f1524 On the next day after that in which Zwingle had received this mysterious epistle, just as Staheli was entering the Water-church, a chaplain stopped him and said; “Leave Zwingle’s house forthwith; a catastrophe is at hand!”

Certain fanatics, who despaired of seeing the Reformation checked by words, were arming themselves with poniards. Whenever mighty revolutions are taking place in society, assassins ordinarily spring from the foul dregs of the agitated people. God watched over Zwingle.

While the murderers were beholding the failure of their plots, the legitimate organs of the papacy were again in commotion. The bishop and his councilors resolved to renew the war. Intelligence of this reached Zwingle from every quarter. The reformer, in full reliance on the Word of God, said with noble intrepidity: “I fear them......as a lofty rock fears the roaring waves......sun to theo, with the aid of God!” added he. On the 2nd of May, the Bishop of Constance published a mandate, in which, without naming either Zwingle or Zurich, he complained that speculative persons were reviving doctrines already condemned, and that both learned and ignorant were in the habit of discussing in every place the deepest mysteries. John Vanner, preacher of the cathedral at Constance, was the first attacked: “I prefer,” said he, “being a Christian with the hatred of many, to abandoning Christ for the friendship of the world.” f1526 But it was Zurich that the rising heresy required to be crushed. Faber and the bishop knew that Zwingle had many enemies among the canons. They resolved to take advantage of this enmity. Towards the end of May a letter from the bishop arrived at Zurich: it was addressed to the provost and chapter. “Sons of the Church,” wrote the prelate, “let those perish who will perish! but let no one seduce you from the Church.” At the same time the bishop entreated the canons to prevent those culpable doctrines, which engendered pernicious sects, from being preached or discussed among them, either in private or in public. When this letter was read in the chapter, all eyes were fixed on Zwingle. The latter, understanding the meaning of this look, said to them: “I see that you think this letter refers to me; please to give it me, and, God willing, I will answer it.”

Zwingle replied in his Archeteles, a word which signifies “the beginning and the end;”......”for,” said he, “I hope this first answer will also be the last.” In this work he spoke of the bishop in a very respectful manner, and ascribed all the attacks of his enemies to a few intriguing men. “What have I done?” said he; “I have endeavored to conduct them to the only true God and to Jesus Christ his Son. To this end, I have not made use of captious arguments, but plain and sincere language, such as the children of Switzerland can understand.” And then, passing from a defensive to an offensive attitude, he added with great beauty: “When Julius Caesar felt the mortal wound, he folded his garments around him, that he might fall with dignity. The downfall of your ceremonies is at hand! see at least that they fall decently, and that light be everywhere promptly substituted for darkness.” f1528 This was the sole result of the bishop’s letter to the chapter of Zurich.

Since every friendly remonstrance had proved vain, it was necessary to strike a more vigorous blow. Upon this, Faber and Landenberg cast their eyes around them, fixing them at last on the diet, the supreme council of the Helvetic nation. Deputies from the bishop appeared before this body, stating that their master had issued a mandate forbidding the priests in his diocese to make any innovation in matters of doctrine; that his authority had been despised, and that he now invoked the support of the chiefs of the confederation to aid him in reducing the rebels to obedience, and in defending the true and ancient faith. The enemies of the Reformation had the majority in this first assembly of the nation. Not long before, it had published a decree interdicting all those priests from preaching, whose sermons, in its opinion, were a cause of dissension among the people. This injunction of the diet, which then for the first time interfered with the Reformation, fell to the ground; but now, being resolved to act with severity, this assembly summoned before them Urban Weiss, pastor of Fislispach near Baden, whom the general report accused of preaching the new faith and rejecting the old. Weiss was set at liberty for a season at the intercession of several individuals, and under bail of a hundred florins offered by his parishioners.

But the diet had taken its position: of this we have just been witnesses; everywhere the monks and priests began to recover their courage. At Zurich they had shown themselves more imperious immediately after the first decree of this assembly. Several members of the council were in the habit of visiting the three convents night and morning, and even of taking their meals there. The monks tampered with these well-meaning guests, and solicited them to procure an injunction from the government in their favor. “If Zwingle will not hold his tongue,” said they, “we will bawl louder than he.” The diet had sided with the oppressors. The council of Zurich knew not what to do. On the 7th of June they voted an ordinance forbidding any one to preach against the monks; but this decree had scarcely been passed “when a sudden noise was heard in the councilchamber,” says Bullinger’s chronicle, “which made them all look at one another.” Tranquillity was not restored; the battle that was fought from the pulpit every day grew hotter. The council nominated a deputation before which the pastors of Zurich and the readers and preachers of the convents were summoned to appear in the provost’s house; after a lively debate, the burgomaster enjoined both parties to preach nothing that might endanger the public peace. “I cannot comply with this injunction,” said Zwingle; “I am resolved to preach the Gospel freely and unconditionally, in conformity with the previous ordinance. I am bishop and pastor of Zurich; to me has been confided the cure of souls.

It is I who have taken oath, and not the monks. They ought to yield, and not I. If they preach lies, I will contradict them, even in the pulpits of their own convents. If I myself teach a doctrine contrary to the holy Gospel, then I desire to be rebuked, not only by the chapter, but by any citizen whatsoever; and moreover to be punished by the council.” — “We demand permission,” said the monks, “to preach the doctrines of St.

Thomas.” The committed of the council determined, after proper deliberation, “That Thomas (Aquinas), Scotus, and the other doctors should be laid aside, and that nothing should be preached but the Gospel.”

Thus did the truth once more prevail. But the anger of the papal partisans was augmented. The ultramontane canons could not conceal their rage.

They stared insolently at Zwingle in the chapter, and seemed to be thirsting for his blood. f1533 These menaces did not check Zwingle. There was still one place in Zurich where, thanks to the Dominicans, the light had not yet penetrated: this was the nunnery of Oetenbach. Here the daughters of the first families of Zurich were accustomed to take the veil. It seemed unjust that these poor women, shut up within the walls of their convent, should be the only persons that did not hear the Word of God. The Great Council ordered Zwingle to visit them. The reformer went into that pulpit which had hitherto been confined to the Dominicans, and preached “on the clearness and certainty of the Word of God.” He subsequently published this remarkable discourse, which did not fall on barren ground, and which still further exasperated the monks.

A circumstance now occurred that extended this hostility, and communicated it to many other hearts. The Swiss, under the command of Stein and Winkelreid, had just suffered a bloody defeat at the Bicocca.

They had made a desperate charge upon the enemy, but Pescara’s artillery and the lansquenets of that Freundsberg whom Luther had met at the door of the hall of assembly at Worms, had overthrown both commanders and standards, while whole companies had been mown down and suddenly exterminated. Winkelreid and Stein, with members of the noble families of Mulinen, Diesbach, Bonstetten, Tschudi, and Pfyffer, had been left of the field of battle. Schwytz especially had been decimated. The bloody relics of this frightful combat had returned to Switzerland, carrying mourning in their train. A cry of woe resounded from the Alps to the Jura, and from the Rhone to the Rhine.

But no one felt so keen a pain as Zwingle. He immediately wrote an address to Schwytz dissuading the citizens of this canton from foreign service. “Your ancestors,” said he with all the warmth of a patriot’s heart, “fought with their enemies in defense of liberty; but they never put Christians to death for mere gain. These foreign wars bring innumerable calamities on our country. The scourge of God chastises our confederate nations, and Helvetian liberty is on the verge of expiring between the interested caresses and the deadly hatred of foreign princes.” Zwingle gave the hand to Nicholas de Flue, and followed up the exhortations of this man of peace. This address having been presented to the assembly of the people of Schwytz, produced such an effect, that they resolved to abstain provisionally from every foreign alliance for the next twenty-five years. But erelong the French party procured the repeal of this generous resolution, and Schwytz, from that hour, became the canton most opposed to Zwingle and his work. Even the disgrace that the partisans of these foreign treaties brought upon their native land only served to increase the hatred of these men against the intrepid minister who was endeavoring to avert from his country so many misfortunes and such deep shame. An opposition, growing more violent every day, was formed in the confederation against Zwingle and Zurich. The usages of the Church and practices of the recruiting officers, as they were attacked conjointly, mutually supported each other in withstanding the impetuous blast of that reform which threatened to overthrow them both. At the same time enemies from without were multiplying. It was not only the pope, but other foreign princes also, who vowed a pitiless hostility to the Reformation. Did it not pretend to withdraw from their ranks those Helvetian halberds to which their ambition and pride had been indebted for so many triumphs? But on the side of the Gospel there remained......God and the most excellent of the people: this was enough. Besides, from different countries, Divine Providence was bringing to its aid men who had been persecuted for their faith.

CHAPTER -A French Monk — He teaches in Switzerland — Dispute between Zwingle and the Monk — Discourse of the Commander of the Johannites — The Carnival at Berne — The Eaters of the Dead — The Skull of St.

Anne — Appenzel — The Grisons — Murder and Adultery — Zwingle’s Marriage.

On Saturday the 12th of July there appeared in the streets of Zurich a monk of tall, thin, and rigid frame, wearing the gray frock of the Cordeliers, of foreign air, and mounted on an ass, which hardly lifted his bare feet off the ground. In this manner he had journeyed from Avignon, without knowing a word of German. By means of his Latin, however, he was able to make himself understood. Francis Lambert, for such was him name, asked for Zwingle, and handed him a letter from Berthold Haller. “This Franciscan father,” said the Bernese parish priest, “who is no other than the apostolical preacher of the convent-general of Avignon, has been teaching the christian truth for these last five years; he has preached in Latin before our priests at Geneva, at Lausanne before the bishop, at Friburg, and lastly at Berne, touching the church, the priesthood, the sacrifice of the mass, the traditions of the Romish bishops, and the superstitions of the religious orders. It seems most astonishing to me to hear such things from a gray friar and a Frenchman......characters that presuppose, as you are aware, a whole sea of superstitions.” The Frenchman related to Zwingle how Luther’s writings having been discovered in his cell, he had been compelled to quit Avignon without delay; how, at first, he had preached the Gospel in the city of Geneva, and afterwards at Lausanne, on the shores of the same lake. Zwingle, highly delighted, opened the church of Our Lady to the monk, and made him sit in the choir on a seat in front of the high altar. In this church Lambert delivered four sermons, in which he inveighed forcibly against the errors of Rome; but in the fourth, he defended the invocation of Mary and the saints. “Brother! thou art mistaken,” immediately exclaimed an animated voice. It was Zwingle’s. Canons and chaplains thrilled with joy at the prospect of a dispute between the Frenchman and the heretical priest. “He has attacked you,” said they all to Lambert, “demand a public discussion with him.” The monk of Avignon did so, and at ten o’clock on the 22nd of July the two champions met in the conference hall of the canons. Zwingle opened the Old and New Testament in Greek and Latin; he continued discussing and explaining until two o’clock, when the French monk, clasping his hands and raising them to heaven, exclaimed: “I thank thee, O God, that by means of such an illustrious instrument thou has brought me to so clear a knowledge of the truth! Henceforth,” added he, turning to the assembly, “in all my tribulations I will call on God alone, and will throw aside my beads. Tomorrow I shall resume my journey; I am going to Basle to see Erasmus of Rotterdam, and from thence to Wittenberg to visit Martin Luther, the Augustine monk.” And accordingly he departed on his ass. We shall meet with him again. He was the first man who, for the cause of the Gospel, went forth from France into Switzerland and Germany; the humble forerunner of many thousands of refugees and confessors.

Myconius had no such consolations: on the contrary, he was destined to see Sebastian Hofmeister, who had come from Constance to Lucerne, and there boldly preached the Gospel, forced to leave the city. Upon this Oswald’s sorrow increased. The humid climate of Lucerne was against him; a fever preyed upon him; the physicians declared that unless he removed to some other place, he would die. “Nowhere have I a greater desire to be than near you,” wrote he to Zwingle, “and nowhere less than at Lucerne. Men torment me, and the climate is wasting me away. My malady, they say, is the penalty of my iniquity: alas! whatever I say, whatever I do, turns to poison with them......There is ONE in heaven on whom all my hopes repose.” f1541 This hope was not delusive. It was about the end of March, and the feast of the Annunciation was approaching. The day before the eve of this anniversary a great festival was observed in commemoration of a fire which in 1340 had reduced the greater part of the city to ashes. The streets of Lucerne were already crowded with a vast concourse of people from the surrounding districts, and several hundreds of priests were assembled. The sermon at this solemn feast was usually delivered by some celebrated preacher. The commander of the Johannites, Conrad Schmidt of Kussnacht, arrived to perform this duty. An immense congregation filled the church. Who shall describe the general astonishment, when the commander, laying aside the custom of preaching in Latin, spoke in German, so that all might understand him, explaining with authority and holy fervor the love of God in sending his Son, and proving eloquently that mere external works have no power to save, and that the promises of God are truly the essence of the Gospel! “God forbid,” exclaimed Conrad before the astonished people, “that we should acknowledge for our head a chief so full of sin as the Bishop of Rome, and reject Christ! If the Bishop of Rome distributes the nourishment of the Gospel, let us acknowledge him as our pastor, but not as chief; and if he distribute it not, let us in nowise acknowledge him.” Oswald could not contain himself for joy.” “What a man!” cried he, “what a sermon! what majesty! what authority! how full of the spirit of Christ!” The effect was general. A solemn silence succeeded the agitation that filled the city; but this merely transient. If the people stop their ears to the voice of God, his calls becomes less frequent every day, and even cease entirely. This was the case with Lucerne.

While the truth was thus proclaimed from the pulpit at Berne, the papacy was attacked in the festive meetings of the people. Nicholas Manuel, a distinguished layman, celebrated for his poetical talents, and who had reached the highest offices of state, indignant at seeing his fellowcountrymen so unmercifully plundered by Samson, composed some carnival dramas, in which he assailed the covetousness, pomp, and haughtiness of the pope and clergy with the stinging weapons of satire. On the Shrove Tuesday “of the lords” (the lords were then the clergy, and began their Lent eight days before the people), nothing was talked of in Berne but a drama or mystery, entitled, The Eaters of the Dead, which some young persons were to act in the Rue de la Croix. The citizens crowded to the show. As a matter of art, these dramatic sketches at the commencement of the sixteenth century possess some interest; but it is with a very different view that we quote them in this place. We should prefer, doubtless, not to be obliged to quote, on the part of the Reformation, attacks of this nature; it is by other arms that truth prevails.

But history does not create, she can only adduce what she finds.

At last the show begins, to the great delight of the impatient crowd assembled in the Rue de la Croix. First appears the pope, covered with glittering robes, and sitting on a throne. Around him stand his courtiers, his guards, and a motley crowd of priests of every degree; behind them are nobles, laymen, and mendicants. Soon a funeral procession appears; it is a wealthy farmer they are carrying to his last home. Two of his relatives walk slowly in front of the coffin, with handkerchiefs in their hands. When the procession came before the pope, the bier was placed at his feet, and the acting began: — FIRST RELATION, IN A SORROWFUL TONE. Noble army of the saints!

Hear, oh! hear our sad complaints:

Our cousin’s dead......the yawning tomb Has swallow’d him in life’s first bloom.

SECOND RELATION. No cost to monk or priest we’ll spare; We’ve a hundred crowns for mass and prayer, If thus from purgatorial fire We can but save our ‘parted sire. f1544 THE SEXTON, COMING OUT OF THE CROWD AROUND THE POPE, AND RUNNING HASTILY TO THE PARISH PRIEST, ROBERT MORE-AND-MORE. A trifle to drink, sir priest, I crave!

A farmer stout now goes to his grave.

THE PRIEST. But one!......I only thirst the more!

One dead!......would it were half a score!

The more the merrier then live we! f1545 Death is the best of games for me.

THE SEXTON. Would it were so! ‘twould then be well!

I’d rather toll a dead man’s knell Than from morn to night a field be tilling:

He never complains, and to pay is willing.

THE PRIEST. If the death-knell opes the gate of heaven I know not. — But what’s that to me?

With salmon and pike, with barbel and trout, It fills my house right merrily.

THE PRIEST’S NIECE. F1546 ‘Tis well! But, look ye, I claim my share; Today this soul must for me prepare A gown of white, black, green, or red, And a pretty kerchief to deck my head.

CARDINAL HIGH-PRIDE, WEARING A RED HAT, AND STANDING NEAR THE POPE. Did we not love the heritage of death, Could we sweep off in life’s young prime On corpse-encumbered field such countless bands, Lured by intrigue, or else by envy urged? f1547 On Christian blood Rome fattens. Hence my hat And robe derive their sanguinary hue.

My honors and my wealth are gain’d from death.

BISHOP WOLF’S-BELLY. In the pope’s laws firm will I live and die My robes are silken and my purse is full; The tournament and chase are my delight.

In former times, when yet the Church was young, Clothed as simple villagers we went. f1548 We priests were shepherds — now, the peers of kings.

And yet at times a shepherd’s life I love.

A VOICE. A shepherd’s life!

BISHOP WOLF’S BELLY. Ay! at shearing time. — Shepherds and wolves are we:

They, the poor sheep; and if they feed us not, They fall unpitied, by our ruthless fangs.

Connubial sweets we are forbid to taste. ‘Tis well! — beneath this heavy yoke The purest falter: — this is better still.

Scandals! — I heed him not: they fill my purse, And serve but to augment my princely train.

The smallest profit never comes amiss.

A priest with money only has to choose Among the fair — pays florins four — I’m blind.

Has he a child? — again his purse must bleed. ‘Tis thus a good round sum I net each year, — Two thousand florins; but not e’en two pense f1549 Would fall to me, were they discreet and wise.

All honor to the pope! With bended knee I bow before him. In his faith I’ll live, Defend his church, and own him as my god.

THE POPE. Now doth the faithless world at last believe That an ambitious priest can ope or shut At will the gates of heaven. Preach faithfully The ordinances of the conclave’s choice.

Now are we kings — the layman, a dull thrall.

Wave but the Gospel standard in the air, And we are lost. To offer sacrifice Or fee the priest, the Gospel teacheth not.

Did we obey its precepts, we should live — Alas! — in poverty, and meanly die.

Ah! then farewell to richly harness’d steeds, To sumptuous chariots — than a sullen ass Would bear the portly majesty of Rome. f1550.....

No! — firmly Saint Peter’s rights I’ll guard, And rash intruders with my thunders blast.

Let us but will — the universe is ours, And prostrate nations worship us as God.

I walk upon their bodies to my throne.

Avaunt, ye unclean laymen, from our treasure......

Three drops of holy water fill your measure.

We will not continue our translation of Manuel’s drama. The anguish of the clergy on discovering the efforts of the reformers, and their anger against those who threatened to put a stop to their disorders, are painted in the liveliest colors. The dissolute manners, of which this mystery presents so vivid an image, were too common for each one not to be struck with the truth of the representation. The people were excited. Many were their jests as they departed from the show in the Rue de la Croix; but some individuals were more seriously affected; they spoke of christian liberty and of the papal despotism; they contrasted the simplicity of the Gospel with the pomp of Rome. The contempt of the people soon went beyond all bounds. On Ash Wednesday the indulgences were paraded through the streets, accompanied with satirical songs. A heavy blow had been struck in Berne and in all Switzerland at the ancient edifice of Popery.

Not long after this representation, another comedy was acted at Berne; but in this there was nothing invented. The clergy, council, and citizens were assembled in front of the Upper Gate, awaiting the skull of Saint Anne, which the famous knight Albert of Stein had gone to fetch from Lyons. At length Stein appeared, carrying the holy relic enveloped in a silken cloth, before which the Bishop of Lausanne had humbly bend the knee as it passed through his city. The precious skull was borne in procession to the Dominican church; the bells rang out; the train filed into the temple; and with great solemnity the skull of Mary’s mother was placed on an altar specially consecrated to it, and behind a sumptuous trellis work. But in the midst of these rejoicings, a letter was received from the abbot of the convent of Lyons, in which reposed the relics of the saint, announcing that the monks had sold the knight a profane skull taken from the cemetery, from among the scattered fragments of the dead. This mystification deeply incensed the inhabitants of the illustrious city of Berne.

The Reformation was advancing in other parts of Switzerland. In 1521, a young man of Appenzel, Walter Klarer by name, returned from the university of Paris to his native canton. Luther’s works fell into his hands, and in 1522 he preached the evangelical doctrine with all the energy of a youthful Christian. An innkeeper named Rausberg, member of the council of Appenzel, a rich and pious man, opened his house to all the friends of the truth. A famous captain, Bartholomew Berweger, who had fought for Julius II and Leo X, having returned from Rome about this time, persecuted the evangelical ministers. One day, however, remembering what wickedness he had seen at Rome, he began to read his Bible, and to attend the sermons of the new preachers: his eyes were opened, and he embraced the Gospel. On witnessing the crowds that could not find room in the churches, he said: “Let the ministers preach in the fields and public places;” and despite a violent opposition, the meadows, hills, and mountains of Appenzel often afterwards re-echoed with the tidings of salvation.

This doctrine, proceeding upwards along the banks of the Rhine, spread even as far as the ancient Rhaetia. One day a stranger coming from Zurich crossed the stream, and entered the house of a saddler in Flasch, the first village of the Grisons. The saddler, Christian Anhorn, listened with astonishment to the language of his guest. The whole village invited the stranger, whose name was Jacques Burkli, to preach to them. He took his station in front of the altar; a troop of armed men, with Anhorn at their head, stood round to protect him from any sudden attack while he was proclaiming the Gospel. The rumor of this preaching spread far and wide, and on the following Sunday an immense crowd flocked to the church. In a brief space a large proportion of the inhabitants of these districts demanded the Eucharist according to our Lord’s institution. But on a sudden the tocsin rang in Mayenfeldt; the affrighted people ran together to know the cause; the priests described the danger that threatened the Church; and then at the head of this fanatic crowd, ran hastily to Flasch.

Anhorn, who was working in the fields, surprised at hearing the sound of bells at so unusual a time, returned home immediately, and hid Burkli in a deep hole in his cellar. The house was surrounded, the doors burst in; they sought for the heretical preacher, but in vain: at last, the persecutors left the place. f1551 The Word of God spread through the whole league of the ten jurisdictions.

The priest of Mayenfeldt, having returned from Rome, whither he had gone in his irritation at the progress of the Gospel, exclaimed: “Rome has made me evangelical!” and he became a fervent reformer. Erelong the Reformation extended over the league of “the house of God:” “Oh! that you could see how the dwellers in the Rhaetian mountains are throwing off the yoke of the Babylonian captivity!” wrote Salandronius to Vadian.

Disorders of a revolting character hastened the time when Zurich and the neighboring cantons snapped asunder the Roman yoke. A married schoolmaster, desiring to enter holy orders, obtained his wife’s consent with this view, and they separated. The new priest, finding it impossible to observe his vow of celibacy, and unwilling to wound his wife’s feelings, quitted the place where she lived, and went into the see of Constance, where he formed a criminal connection. His wife heard of this, and followed him. The poor priest had compassion on her, and dismissing the woman who had usurped her rights, took his lawful spouse into his house.

The procurator-fiscal immediately drew up a complaint; the vicar-general was in a ferment; the councilors of the consistory deliberated......and ordered the curate either to forsake his wife or his benefice. The poor wife left her husband’s house in tears, and her rival re-entered it in triumph. The Church declared itself satisfied, and from that time the adulterous priest was left undisturbed. f1552 Not long after, a parish priest of Lucerne seduced a married woman and lived with her. The husband, having returned to Lucerne, availed himself of the priest’s absence to recover his wife. As he was taking her home, the seducer met them; fell upon the injured husband, and inflicted a wound of which the latter died. All pious men felt the necessity of reestablishing the law of God, which declares marriage honorable in all. f1554 The evangelical ministers had discovered that the law of celibacy was of human origin, imposed by the pontiffs, and contrary to the Word of God, which, describing a faithful bishop, represents him as a husband and father (1 Timothy 3:2,4). At the same time they observed, that of all abuses that had crept into the Church, none had been a cause of more vice and scandal.

They thought, therefore, that it was not only lawful, but, even more, a duty to God to reject it. Many of them now returned to this ancient usage of apostolical times. Xyloctect was married. Zwingle also took a wife about this period.

No woman had been more respected in Zurich than Anna Reinhardt, the widow of Meyer von Knonau, Gerold’s mother. From Zwingle’s arrival, she had been one of his most attentive hearers; she lived near him, and he had noticed her piety, her modesty, and affection for her children. They young Gerold, who had become, as it were, his adopted son, drew him still closer to the mother. The sufferings undergone by this christian woman, who was one day to be more cruelly tried than any of her sex recorded in history, had communicated a seriousness that contributed to show forth her evangelical virtues more brightly. At this time she was about thirty-five years old, and her fortune only amounted to four hundred florins. It was on her that Zwingle fixed his eyes as a companion for life.

He comprehended all the sacredness and sympathy of the conjugal state.

He entitled it “a most holy alliance.” — “In like manner,” said he, “as Christ died for his followers, and gave himself entirely for them, so should married persons do all and suffer all for one another.” But Zwingle, when he took Anna Reinhardt to wife, did not make his marriage known. This is undoubtedly a blamable weakness in a man at other times so resolute. The light that he and his friends had acquired on the question of celibacy was not general. Weak minds might have been scandalized. He feared that his usefulness in the Church would be paralyzed, if his marriage were made public. He sacrificed a portion of his happiness to these fears, excusable perhaps, but which he ought to have shaken off. f1558 CHAPTER -How the Truth triumphs — Meeting at Einsidlen — Petition to the Bishop and Confederates — The Men of Einsidlen separate — Scene in a Convent — Dinner with Myconius — The Strength of the Reformers — Effect of the Petitions to Lucerne — The Council of the Diet — Haller at the Town-hall — Friburg — Oswald’s Destitution — Zwingle consoles him — Oswald quits Lucerne — The Diet’s first Act of Severity — Consternation of Zwingle’s Brothers — Zwingle’s Resolution — The Future — Zwingle’s Prayer.

But far higher interests than these occupied the minds of the friends of truth. The diet, as we have seen, pressed by the enemies of the Reformation, had enjoined the evangelical preachers to preach no doctrines likely to disturb the people. Zwingle felt that the moment for action had arrived; and with his characteristic energy convened a meeting at Einsidlen of the ministers of the Lord who were friendly to the Gospel. The Christian’s strength consists neither in the power of arms, nor in the flames of the burning pile, nor in factious intrigues, nor in the support of the mighty ones of the earth; it is a simple, but bold and unanimous confession of those great truths to which the world must one day be subjected. God especially calls those who serve him to uphold these doctrine firmly before the people, without permitting themselves to be alarmed by the cries of their adversaries. These truths have in themselves an assurance of their triumph; and idols fall before them, as in former times before the ark of God. The hour was come in which God willed the great truth of salvation to be thus confessed in Switzerland; it was requisite that the Gospel standard should be planted on some high place. Providence was about to draw from their secluded retreats many humble but intrepid men, and cause them to give a noble testimony in the presence of the nation.

Towards the end of June and the beginning of July 1522, pious ministers were seen from every side journeying towards the celebrated chapel of Einsidlen on a new pilgrimage. From Art in the canton of Schwytz, came its priest Balthasar Trachsel; from Weiningen, near Baden, the priest Staheli; from Zug, Werner Steiner; from Lucerne, the canon Kilchmeyer; from Uster, the incumbent Pfister; from Hongg, near Zurich, the priest Stumpff; and from Zurich itself, the canon Fabricius, the chaplain Schmidt, Grossman, the preacher of the hospital, and Zwingle. Leo Juda, the priest of Einsidlen, joyfully received all these ministers of Jesus Christ into the old abbey. Subsequently to Zwingle’s residence, this place had become the stronghold of truth, and a dwelling-place for the righteous. Thus, two hundred and fifteen years before, thirty-three brave patriots had met in the solitary plain of the Grutli, resolved to break the yoke of Austria. At Einsidlen they met to burst in sunder the yoke of human authority in Divine things. Zwingle proposed that his friends should address an urgent petition to the cantons and the bishop, with a view of obtaining the free preaching of the Gospel, and at the same time the abolition of compulsory celibacy, the source of such criminal disorders. All concurred in his opinion. Ulrich had himself prepared the address. The petition to the bishop was read first: this was on the 2nd of July, and it was signed by all the evangelists named above. A cordial affection knit together the preachers of the Gospel truth in Switzerland. There were many others who sympathized with the men who had met at Einsidlen; such were Haller, Myconius, Hedio, Capito, Oecolampadius, Sebastian Meyer, Hoffmeister, and Vanner. This harmony is one of the most beautiful features of the Swiss Reformation. These excellent persons ever acted as one man, and remained friends until death.

The men of Einsidlen felt that it was only by the power of faith that the members of the Confederation, divided by the foreign capitulations, could become a single body. But their eyes were directed to heaven. “The heavenly teaching,” said they to their ecclesiastical superior in the address of the 2nd of July, “that truth which God the Creator has manifested by his Son to the human race immersed in sin, has been long veiled from our eyes by the ignorance, not to say the wickedness, of a few men. But this same Almighty God has resolved to re-establish it in its primitive estate.

Unite, then, with those who desire the whole body of Christians should return to their Head, which is Christ. f1562 ......On our part, we are determined to proclaim his Gospel with indefatigable perseverance, and at the same time with such discretion that no one shall complain of it. f1563 Favor this — astonishing it may be, but not rash undertaking. Be like Moses, in the way, at the head of the people when they went out of Egypt, and with your own hands overthrow every obstacle that opposes the triumphant progress of the truth.”

After this spirited appeal, the evangelists assembled at Einsidlen came to the question of celibacy. Zwingle had nothing to ask in this respect; he had such a wife as, according to Saint Paul’s description, the wife of a minister of Christ should be — grave, sober, faithful in all things. (1 Timothy 3:11.)

But he thought of his brethren, whose consciences were not as yet, like his own, emancipated from human ordinances. He longed, moreover, for that time when all the servants of God might live openly and fearlessly in the bosom of their families, having their children in subjection with all gravity. (1 Timothy 3:4.) “You cannot be ignorant,” said the men of Einsidlen, “how deplorably the laws of chastity have hitherto been violated by the priests. When in the consecration of the ministers of the Lord, they ask of him who speaks for all the rest: Are those whom you present to us righteous men? — he answers: They are righteous. — Are they learned? — They are learned. But when he is asked: Are they chaste? He replies: As far as human weakness permits. The New Testament everywhere condemns licentious intercourse; everywhere it sanctions marriage.” Here follows a great number of quotations. “It is for this reason,” continued they, “we entreat you, by the love of Christ, by the liberty he has purchased for us, by the wretchedness of so many feeble and wavering souls, by the wounds of so many ulcerated consciences, by all divine and human motives......to permit what has been rashly enacted to be wisely repealed; for fear the majestic edifice of the Church should fall with a frightful crash, and spread destruction far and wide. Behold with what storms the world is threatened! If wisdom does not interfere, the ruin of the priestly order is certain.”

The petition to the confederation was longer still. “Excellent sirs,” thus spoke the allies of Einsidlen to the confederates at the end of their appeal, “we are all Swiss, and you are our fathers. There are some among us who have been faithful in the field of battle, in the chambers of pestilence, and in the midst of other calamities. It is in the name of sincere chastity that we address you. Who is unaware that we should better satisfy the lust of the flesh by not submitting to the regulations of lawful wedlock? But we must put an end to the scandals that afflict the Church of Christ. If the tyranny of the Roman pontiff is resolved to oppress us, fear nothing, brave heroes! The authority of the Word of God, the rights of christian liberty, and the sovereign power of grace, will surround and protect us. We have all the same country, the same faith; we are Swiss, and the virtue of our illustrious ancestors has always displayed its power by an invincible defense of those who are unjustly oppressed.”

Thus in Einsidlen itself, in that ancient stronghold of superstition, and which in our days is one of the most famous sanctuaries of Roman observances, did Zwingle and his friends boldly uplift the banner of truth and liberty. They appealed to the heads of the state and of the Church.

They placarded their theses like Luther, but at the gates of the episcopal palace and of the national council. The band of friends at Einsidlen separated calm, rejoicing, and full of hope in that God in whose hands they had placed their cause; and retiring, some by the battle-field of Morgarten, others over the chain of the Albis, and the rest by different valleys and mountains, returned each man to his post. “It was something really sublime for those times,” says Henry Bullinger, “that these men should have thus dared stand forth, and rallying round the Gospel, expose themselves to every danger. But God preserved them all, so that no harm befell them; for God always preserves his own.”

It was indeed sublime: it was a bold step in the progress of the Reformation, one of the brightest days of the religious regeneration of Switzerland. A holy confederation was formed at Einsidlen. Humble but intrepid men had grasped the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and the shield of faith. The Gauntlet was thrown down — the challenge was given — not only by one man, but by men of different cantons, prepared to sacrifice their lives: they must await the struggle.

Everything seemed to forebode that the contest would be severe. Already five days after, on the 7th of July, the magistrates of Zurich, desirous of offering some satisfaction to the Roman party, had summoned before them Conrad Grebel and Claus Hottinger, two of those violent men who appeared desirous of overstepping the bounds of a prudent Reformation. “We forbid you,” said the burgomaster Roust, “to speak against the monks and on the controverted questions.” At these words a loud noise was heard in the chamber, says an old chronicle. God so manifested himself throughout all this work, that the people saw signs of his intervention in everything. Each man looked around him in astonishment, without being able to discover the cause of this mysterious circumstance. f1569 But it was in the convents especially that the indignation was greatest.

Every meeting that was held in them either for discussion or amusement, saw some new attack burst forth. One day there was a great banquet at the convent of Fraubrunn; and as the wine had got into the heads of the guests, they began to launch the most envenomed darts against the Gospel. f1570 What most incensed the priests and monks was the evangelical doctrine that, in the Christian Church there ought not be any sacerdotal caste raised above the believers. One single friend of the Reformation was present, Macrinus, a layman, and master of the school at Soleure. At first he avoided the discussion, passing from one table to the other. But at length, unable to endure the violent language of the guests, he rose boldly and said aloud: “Yes! all true Christians are priests and sacrificers, as St. Peter says:

Ye are priests and kings.” At these words one of the loudest bawlers, the Dean of Burgdorff, a tall strong man with a voice of thunder, burst out laughing: “So then, you Greeklings and pedagogues are the royal priesthood?......a pretty priesthood, forsooth!......beggarly kings......priests without prebends or livings!” And at the very instant priests and monks with one accord fell on the imprudent layman.

It was Lucerne, however, that the bold step of the men of Einsidlen was destined to produce the greatest commotion. The diet had met in this city, and complaints arrived from every quarter against these daring preachers, who would prevent Helvetia from quietly selling the blood of her children to the stranger. On the 22nd of July 1522, as Oswald Myconius was at dinner in his own house with the canon Kilchmeyer and others favorably disposed to the Gospel, a youth sent by Zwingle stood at the door. f1572 He brought the two famous petitions of Einsidlen, and a letter from Zwingle, calling upon Oswald to circulate them in Lucerne. “It is my advice,” added the reformer, “that this should be done quietly, gradually, rather than all at once; for we must learn to give up everything — even one’s wife — for Christ’s sake.”

The critical moment was approaching in Lucerne; the shell had fallen in the midst of the city, and was about to explode. Oswald’s guests read the petitions. “May God prosper this beginning!” exclaimed Oswald, looking up to heaven, and adding immediately: “From this very hour this prayer should be the constant occupation of our hearts.” The petitions were circulated immediately, perhaps with more ardor than Zwingle had required. But the moment was extraordinary. Eleven men, the flower of the clergy, had placed themselves in the breach; it was desirable to enlighten men’s minds, to decide the wavering, and to win over the most influential members of the diet.

Oswald, in the midst of his exertions, did not forget his friends. The youthful messenger had told him of the attacks Zwingle had to put up with on the part of the monks of Zurich. “The truth of the Holy Ghost is invincible,” wrote Myconius to him on the same day. “Shielded with the buckler of Scripture, you have conquered not only in one contest, nor in two, but in three, and the fourth is now beginning......Grasp those powerful arms which are harder than adamant! Christ, to protect his followers, requires nothing but his Word. Your struggles impart unflinching courage to all who have devoted themselves to Jesus Christ.” f1574 The two petitions did not produce the desired effect in Lucerne. Some pious men approved of them; but their numbers were few. Many, fearing to compromise themselves, would neither praise nor blame them. f1575 “These folks,” said others, “will never succeed in this business!” All the priests murmured, and whispered against them; and the people became violent against the Gospel. The passion for a military life had been revived in Lucerne after the bloody defeat of the Bicocca, and war alone filled every mind. Oswald, who watched attentively these different impressions, felt his courage sinking. The Gospel future that he had pictured in Lucerne and Switzerland, seemed to vanish. “Our countrymen are blind as regards heavenly things,” said he with a deep sigh: “We can hope nothing from the Swiss, which concerns the glory of Christ.” f1577 In the council and the diet the irritation was greatest. The pope, France, England, the empire — all were in commotion around Switzerland after the defeat of the Bicocca and the evacuation of Lombardy by the French, under the orders of Lautrec. Were not the political affairs complicated enough, that these eleven men should come with their petitions and superadd mere religious questions? The deputies of Zurich alone inclined in favor of the Gospel. The canon Xyloctect, fearing for the safety of himself and his wife (for he had married a daughter of one of the first families in the country), had shed tears of regret, as he refused to go to Einsidlen and sign the addresses. The canon Kilchmeyer was bolder, and he had everything to fear. On the 13th of August he wrote to Zwingle: “Sentence threatens me, but I await it with courage”......As his pen was tracing these words, the usher of the council entered his room, and summoned him to appear on the morrow. “If they throw me into prison,” said he, continuing his letter, “I shall claim your help; but it will be easier to transport a rock from our Alps than to remove me a finger’s breadth from the Word of Jesus Christ.” The respect due to his family, and the determination of the council to make the storm burst on Oswald, saved the canon.

Berthold Haller had not signed the petitions, perhaps because he was not a Swiss. But with unyielding courage he explained the Gospel of St.

Matthew, after Zwingle’s example. A great crowd filled the cathedral of Berne. The Word of God operated more powerfully on the people than Manuel’s dramas. Haller was summoned to the town-hall; the people escorted this meek man thither, and remained assembled in the square in front. The council were divided in their sentiments. “It is a matter that concerns the bishop,” said the most influential members. “We must give him up to Monseigneur of Lausanne.” Haller’s friends trembled at these words, and besought him to withdraw as son as possible. The people surrounded him, and accompanied him home, and a great body of armed citizens remained before his house, determined to form a rampart for their humble pastor with their bodies. The bishop and council shrunk back at this spirited demonstration, and Haller was saved. He did not, however, combat alone in Berne. Sebastian Meyer refuted the pastoral letter of the Bishop of Constance, and especially the hackneyed charge, “that the disciples of the Gospel teach a new doctrine; and that the old is the true one.” — “To have been a thousand years wrong,” said he, “will not make us right for one single hour; or else the pagans should have kept to their creed. If the most ancient doctrines ought to be preferred, fifteen hundred years are more than five hundred, and the Gospel is older than the decrees of the pope.” f1579 About this time, the magistrates of Friburg intercepted some letters addressed to Haller and Meyer by a canon of that town, named John Hollard, a native of Orbe. They imprisoned him, deprived him of his office, and finally banished him. John Vannius, a chorister of the cathedral, soon declared in favor of the evangelical doctrine; for in this war no soldier fell whose place was not immediately filled by another. “How can the muddy water of the Tiber,” said Vannius, “subsist beside the pure stream that Luther has drawn from the springs of St. Paul?” But the mouth of the chorister also was shut. “In all Switzerland you will hardly find men more unfavorably disposed towards sound doctrine than the Friburgers,” wrote Myconius to Zwingle. f1580 An exception must however be made as regards Lucerne; and this Myconius knew well. He had not signed the famous petitions; but if he did not, his friends did, and a victim was wanted. The ancient literature of Greece and Rome was beginning, through his exertions, to shed its light upon Lucerne; students resorted thither from various quarters to hear the learned professor; and the friends of peace listened with delight to milder sounds than the clash of halberds, swords, and breastplates, that as yet had re-echoed alone in this warlike city. Oswald had sacrificed everything for his country; — he had quitted Zurich and Zwingle; — he had lost his health; — his wife was ailing; — his child was young; — should Lucerne once cast him forth, he could nowhere look for an asylum. But this they heeded not: factions are pitiless, and what should excite their compassion does but inflame their anger. Hertenstein, burgomaster of Lucerne, an old and valiant warrior, who had become celebrated in the Swabian and Burgundian wars, proposed the schoolmaster’s dismissal, and wished to drive him from the canton with his Greek, his Latin, and his Gospel. He succeeded. As he left the meeting of the council in which Myconius had been deprived of his post, Hertenstein met Berguer the Zurich deputy: “We send you back your schoolmaster,” said he ironically: “prepare a comfortable lodging for him.” — “We will not let him sleep in the open air,” immediately replied the courageous deputy. But Berguer promised more than he could perform.

The burgomaster’s tidings were but too true, and they were soon made known to the unhappy Myconius. He is stripped of his appointment,......banished; and the only crime with which he is reproached is being Luther’s disciple. He turns his eyes around him, and nowhere finds a shelter. He beholds his wife, his son, and himself, — weak and sickly creatures, — driven from their country......and around him Switzerland agitated by a violent tempest, breaking and shattering all that resists it. “Here,” said he then to Zwingle, “here is your poor Myconius banished by the council of Lucerne. f1584 .....Whither shall I go?......I know not......Assailed yourself by such furious storms, how can you shelter me?

In my tribulation I cry to that God who is my chief hope. Ever rich, ever kind, He does not permit any who call upon him to turn away unheard.

May He provide for my wants!”

Thus wrote Oswald. He had not long to wait for the word of consolation.

There was one man in Switzerland inured to the battles of faith. Zwingle drew nigh to his friend and raised him up. “So rude are the blows by which men strive to overthrow the house of God,” said Zwingle, “and so frequent are their attacks, that it is not only the wind and rain that burst upon it, as our Lord predicts (Matthew 7:27), but also the hail and the thunder. If I did not see that the Lord kept watch over the ship, I should long since have abandoned the helm; but I see him, through the storm, strengthening the tackling, handing the yards, spreading the sails; nay more, commanding the very winds......Should I not be a coward and unworthy the name of a man if I abandoned my post and sought a disgraceful death in flight? I confide entirely in his sovereign goodness. Let Him govern, — let Him carry us forward, — let Him hasten or delay, — let Him plunge us even to the bottom of the deep......we will fear nothing. We are vessels that belong to Him. He can make use of us as he pleases, for honor or dishonor.” After these words, so full of the sincerest faith, Zwingle continues: “As for yourself, this is my advice. Appear before the council, and deliver an address worthy of you and of Christ; that is to say, calculated to melt and not irritate their feelings. Deny that you are Luther’s disciple; confess that you are Christ’s. Let your pupils surround you and speak too; and if this does not succeed, then come to your friend, — come to Zwingle, — and look upon our city as your home!

Encouraged by this language, Oswald followed the noble advice of the reformer; but all his efforts were unavailing. This witness to the truth was compelled to leave his country; and the people of Lucerne decried him so much that in every quarter the magistrates prevented his finding an asylum. “Nothing remains for me but to beg my bread from door to door,” exclaimed this confessor of Christ, whose heart was crushed at the sight of so much hostility. But erelong the friend of Zwingle and his most powerful auxiliary, the first man in Switzerland who had combined learning with a love to the Gospel, the reformer of Lucerne, and subsequently one of the heads of the Helvetian Church, was with his sick wife and infant child compelled to leave that ungrateful city, where, of all his family, one only of his sisters had received the Gospel. He crossed its ancient bridge; he bade farewell to those mountains which appear to rise from the bosom of the Walstatter lake into the clouds. The canons Xyloctect and Kilchmeyer, the only friends whom the Reformation yet counted among his fellow-countrymen, followed him not long after. And at the moment when this poor man, accompanied by two feeble creatures, whose existence depended upon him, with eyes turned towards the lake, and shedding tears over his blinded country, bade adieu to those sublime scenes of nature, the majesty of which had surrounded his cradle, the Gospel itself departed from Lucerne, and Rome reigns there even to this day.

Shortly after, the diet then sitting at Baden, excited by the severity shown to Myconius, incensed by the petitions from Einsidlen, which were now printed and everywhere producing a great sensation, and solicited by the Bishop of Constance, who called upon them to crush the reformer, had recourse to persecution, ordered the authorities of the common bailiwicks to denounce all the priests and laymen who should dare speak against the faith, caused the preacher who happened to be nearest to be immediately arrested, namely Urban Weiss, pastor of Fislispach, who had been previously liberated on bail, and had him taken to Constance, where he was delivered up to the bishop, who detained him a long while in prison. “It was thus,” says Bullinger’s chronicle, “that the persecutions of the confederates against the Gospel began: and this took place at the instigation of the clergy, who in every age have dragged Jesus Christ before the judgment-seat of Herod and of Pilate.” f1588 Nor did Zwingle himself escape trial. About this time he was wounded in his tenderest point. The rumor of his doctrines and of his struggles had passed the Sentis, penetrated the Tockenburg, and reached the heights of Wildhaus. The family of herdsmen from which the reformer had sprung, was deeply moved. Of Zwingle’s five brothers, some had continued their peaceful mountain labors; others, to their brother’s great regret, had taken up arms, quitted their herds, and served a foreign prince. Both were alike astonished at the reports that reached their chalets. Already they pictured to themselves their brother dragged to Constance before the bishop, and a pile erected for his destruction on the same spot where John Huss had perished in the flames. These proud herdsmen could not endure the idea of being called the brothers of a heretic. They wrote to Zwingle, describing their pain and their fears. Zwingle replied to them as follows: “So long as God shall permit me, I will execute the task, which he has confided to me, without fearing the world and its haughty tyrants. I know every thing that can befall me. There is no danger, no misfortune that I have not carefully weighed long ago. My own strength is nothingness itself, and I know the power of my enemies; but I know also that I can do every thing in Christ, who strengthens me. Though I should be silent, another would be constrained to do what God is now doing through me, and I should be punished by the Almighty. Banish all anxiety, my dear brothers. If I have any fear, it is lest I have been milder and gentler than suits our times. f1589 What reproach (say you) will be cast upon our family, if you are burnt, or put to death in any other way! Oh, by beloved brothers, the Gospel derives from the blood of Christ this remarkable property, that the most violent persecutions, far from checking its progress, serve but to accelerate it. Those alone are the true soldiers of Christ, who do not fear to bear in their body the wounds of their Master. All my labors have no other aim than to proclaim to men the treasures of happiness that Christ hath purchased for us, that all might take refuge in the Father, through the death of his Son. If this doctrine scandalizes you, your anger cannot stop me.

You are my brothers — yes! — my own brothers, sons of the same father, fruit of the same womb;......but if you were not my brothers in Christ and in the work of faith, then my grief would be so violent, that nothing could equal it. Farewell. — I shall never cease to be your affectionate brother, if only you will not cease yourselves to be the brethren of Jesus Christ.” f1591 The confederates appeared to rise, like one man, against the Gospel. The addresses of Einsidlen had given the signal. Zwingle, agitated at the fate of Myconius, saw, in his misfortunes, the beginning of calamities. Enemies in Zurich, enemies without; a man’s own relatives becoming his opponents; a furious opposition on the part of the monks and priests; violent measures in the diet and councils; coarse and perhaps bloody attacks from the partisans of foreign service; the highest valleys of Switzerland, that cradle of the confederation, pouring forth its invincible phalanxes, to save Rome, and annihilate at the cost of their lives the rising faith of the sons of the Reformation: — such was the picture the penetrating eye of the reformer discovered in the distance, and he shuddered at the prospect. What a future! Was the work, hardly begun, about to be destroyed? Zwingle, thoughtful and agitated, laid all his anguish before the throne of God: “O Jesus,” said he, thou seest how the wicked and the blasphemers stun thy people’s ears with their clamors. Thou knowest how from my childhood I have hated all dispute, and yet, in despite of myself, Thou hast not ceased to impel me to the conflict......Therefore do I call upon Thee with confidence to complete what Thou hast begun. If I have built up any thing wrongly, do Thou throw it down with thy mighty hand. If I have laid any other foundation than Thee, let thy powerful arm destroy it. O vine abounding in sweetness, whose husbandman is the Father, and whose branches we are, do not abandon thy shoots! For Thou hast promised to be with us until the end of the world!”

It was on the 22nd of August 1522 that Ulrich Zwingle, the reformer of Switzerland, seeing the storms descending from the mountains on the frail bark of the faith, thus poured forth before God the troubles and desires of his soul.

PREFACE TO VOLUME THIRD A spirit of examination and inquiry is in our days continually urging the literary men of France, Switzerland, Germany, and England to search after the original documents which form the basis of Modern History. I desire to add my might to the accomplishment of the important task which our age appears to have undertaken. Hitherto I have not been content simply with reading the works of contemporary historians: I have examined eyewitnesses, letters, and original narratives; and have made use of some manuscripts, particularly that of Bullinger, which has been printed since the appearance of the Second Volume of this Work in France. f1595 But the necessity of having recourse to unpublished documents became more urgent when I approached (as I do in the Twelfth Book) the history of the Reformation in France. On this subject we possess but few printed memoirs, in consequence of the perpetual trials in which the Reformed Church of that country has existed. In the spring of 1838 I examined, as far as was in my power, the manuscripts preserved in the public libraries of Paris, and it will be seen that a manuscript in the Royal Library, hitherto I believe unknown, throws much light on the early stages of the Reformation; and in the autumn of 1839 I consulted the manuscripts in the library belonging to the consistory of the pastors of Neufchatel, a collection exceedingly rich with regard to this period, as having inherited the manuscripts of Farel’s library; and through the kindness of the Chatelain of Meuron I obtained the use of a manuscript life of Farel written by Choupard, into which most of these documents have been copied. These materials have enabled me to reconstruct an entire phasis of the Reformation in France. In addition to these aids, and those supplied by the Library of Geneva, I made an appeal, in the columns of the Archives du Christianisme, to all friends of history and the Reformation who might have any manuscripts at their disposal; and I here gratefully acknowledge the different communications that have been made to me, in particular by M. Ladeveze, pastor at Meaux. But although religious wars and persecutions have destroyed many precious documents, a number still exist, no doubt, in various parts of France, which would be of vast importance for the history of the Reformation; and I earnestly call upon all those who may possess or have any knowledge of them, kindly to communicate with me on the subject. It is felt now-a-days that these documents are common property; and on this account I hope my appeal will not be made in vain.

It may be thought that in writing a general History of the Reformation, I have entered into an unnecessary detail of its first dawnings in France. But these particulars are almost unknown, the events that form the subject of my Twelfth Book, occupying only four pages in the Histoire Ecclesiastique des Eglises reformees au Royaume de France, by Theodore Beza; and other historians have confined themselves almost entirely to the political progress of the nation. Unquestionably the scenes that I have discovered, and which I am now about to relate, are not so imposing as the Diet of Worms. Nevertheless, independently of the christian interest that is attached to them, the humble but heaven-descended movement that I have endeavored to describe, has probably exerted a greater influence over the destinies of France than the celebrated wars of Francis I and Charles V.

In a large machine, not that which makes the greatest show is always the most essential part, but the most hidden springs.

Complaints have been made of the delay that has taken place in the publication of this third volume; and some persons would have had me keep back the first until the whole was completed. There are, possibly, certain superior intellects to which conditions may be proscribed; but there are others whose weakness must give them, and to this number the author belongs. To publish a volume at one time, and then a second whenever I was able, and after that a third, is the course that my important duties and my poor ability allow me to take. Other circumstances, moreover, have interposed; severe afflictions have on two occasions interrupted the composition of this third volume, and gathered all my affections and all my thoughts over the graves of beloved children. The reflection that it was my duty to glorify that adorable Master who addressed me in such powerful appeals, and who vouchsafed me such Divine consolation, could alone have given me the courage required for the completion of my task.

I thought these explanations were due to the kindness with which this Work has been received both in France and England, and especially in the latter country. The approbation of the Protestant Christians of Great Britain, the representatives of evangelical principles and doctrines in the most distant parts of the world, is most highly valued by me; and I feel a pleasure in telling them that it is a most precious encouragement to my labors.

The cause of truth recompenses those who embrace and defend it, and such has been the result with the nations who received the Reformation. In the eighteenth century, at the very moment when Rome thought to triumph by the Jesuits and the scaffold, the victory slipped from her grasp. Rome fell, like Naples, Portugal, and Spain, into inextricable difficulties; and at the same time two Protestant nations arose and began to exercise an influence over Europe that had hitherto belonged to the Romancatholic powers. England came forth victorious from those attacks of the French and Spaniards which the pope had so long been stirring up against her, and the Elector of Brandenburg, in spite of the wrath of Clement XI, encircled his head with a kingly crown. Since that time England has extended her dominion in every quarter of the globe, and Prussia has taken a new rank among the continental states, while a third power, Russia, also separated from Rome, has been growing up in her immense deserts. In this manner have evangelical principles exerted their influence over the countries that have embraced them, and righteousness hath exalted the nations (Proverbs 14:34). Let the evangelical nations be well assured that to Protestantism they are indebted for their greatness. From the moment they abandon the position that God has given them, and incline again towards Rome, they will lose their glory and their power. Rome is now endeavoring to win them over, employing flattery and threats by turns; she would, like Delilah, lull them to sleep upon her knees,......but it would be to cut off their locks, that their adversaries might put out their eyes and bind them with fetters of brass.

Here, too, is a great lesson for that France with which the author feels himself so intimately connected by the ties of ancestry. Should France, intimating her different governments, turn again towards the papacy, it will be, in our belief the signal of great disasters. Whoever attaches himself to the papacy will be compromised in its destruction. France has no prospect of strength or of greatness but by turning towards the Gospel. May this great truth be rightly understood by the people and their leaders!

It is true that in our days popery is making a great stir. Although laboring under an incurable consumption, she would by a hectic flush and feverish activity persuade others and herself too that she is still in full vigor. This a theologian in Turin has endeavored to do in a work occasioned by this History, and in which we are ready to acknowledge a certain talent in bringing forward testimonies, even the most feeble, with a tone of candor to which we are little accustomed, and in a becoming style, with the exception, however, of the culpable facility with which the author in his twelfth chapter revives accusations against the reformers, the falsehood of which has been so authentically demonstrated and so fully acknowledged. f1596 As a sequel to his Biography of Luther, M. Audin has recently published a Life of Calvin, written under the influence of lamentable prejudices, and in which we can hardly recognize the reformers and the Reformation.

Nevertheless, we do not find in this author the shameful charges against Calvin to which we have alluded; he has passed them over in praiseworthy silence. No man that has any self-respect can now venture to bring forward these gross and foolish calumnies.

Perhaps on some other occasion we shall add a few words to what we have already said in our First Book on the origin of popery. They would here be out of place.

I shall only remark, in a general way, that it is precisely the human and very rational causes that so clearly explain its origin, to which the papacy has recourse to prove its divine institution. Thus christian antiquity declares that the universal episcopacy was committed to all the bishops, so that the bishops of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Rome, Carthage, Lyons, Arles, Milan, Hippo, Caesarea, etc., were interested and interfered in all that took place in the christian world. Rome immediately claims for herself that duty which was incumbent on all, and reasoning as if no one but herself were concerned in it, employs it to demonstrate her primacy.

Let us take another example. The christian churches, established in the large cities of the empire, sent missionaries to the countries with which they were connected. This was done first of all by Jerusalem; then by Antioch, Alexandria, and Ephesus; afterwards by Rome: and Rome forthwith concludes from what she had done after the others, and to a less extent than the others, that she was entitled to set herself above the others.

These examples will suffice.

Let us only remark further, that Rome possessed alone in the West the honor that had been shared in the East by Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Antioch, and in a much higher degree by Jerusalem; namely, that of having one apostle or many among its first teachers. Accordingly, the Latin Churches must naturally have felt a certain respect towards Rome. But the Eastern Christians, who respected her as the Church of the political metropolis of the empire, would never acknowledge her ecclesiastical superiority. The famous General Council of Chalcedon ascribed to Constantinople, formerly the obscure Byzantium, the same privileges (ta isa presbeia) as to Rome, and declared that she ought to be elevated like her. And hence when the papacy was definitively formed in Rome, the East would not acknowledge a master of whom it had never heard mention; and, standing on the ancient footing of its catholicity, it abandoned the West to the power of the new sect which had sprung up in its bosom. The East even to this day calls herself emphatically catholic and orthodox; and whenever you ask one of the Eastern Christians, whom Rome has gained by her numerous concessions, whether he is a catholic? “No,” replies he directly, “I am papistian (a papist).” f1598 If this History has been criticized by the Romish party, it seems also to have met with others who have regarded it in a purely literary light. Men for whom I feel much esteem appear to attach greater importance to a literary or political history of the Reformation, than to an exposition grounded on its spiritual principles and its interior springs of action. I can well understand this way of viewing my subject, but I cannot participate in it. In my opinion, the very essence of the Reformation is its doctrines and its inward life. Every work in which these two things do not hold the chief place may be showy, but it will not be faithfully and candidly historical. It would be like a philosopher who, in describing a man, should detail with great accuracy and picturesque beauty all that concerns his body, but should give only a subordinate place to that divine inhabitant, the soul.