Gospel. The whisperings soon grew into accusations. At last they burst out in fierce threats. "I live among ravenous wolves," we find him writing in December, 1520. He was summoned before the council. "He is a Lutheran," said one accuser; "he is a seducer of youth," said another. The council enjoined him not to read anything of Luther's to his scholars-not even to mention his name-nay, not even to admit the thought of him into his mind." The lords of Lucerne set no narrow limits to their jurisdiction. The gentle spirit of the schoolmaster was ill-fitted to buffet the tempests that assailed him on every side. He had offered the Gospel to the citizens of Lucerne, and although a few had accepted it, and loved him for its sake, the great majority had thrust it from them. There were other cities and cantons that, he knew, would gladly welcome the truth which Lucerne had rejected. He resolved, therefore, to shake off the dust from his feet as a witness against it, and depart. Before he had carried his resolution into effect, the council furnished him with but too good evidence that the course he had resolved upon was the path of duty. He was suddenly stripped of his office, and banished from the canton. He quitted the ungrateful city, where his cradle had been placed, and in 1522 he returned to Zwingle at Zurich. Lucerne failed to verify the augury of its name, and the light that departed with its noblest son has never since returned.

Bern knew to choose the better part which Lucerne had rejected. Its citizens had won renown in arms; their city had never opened its gates to an enemy, but in the morning of the sixteenth century it was conquered by the Gospel, and the victory which truth won at Bern was the more important that it opened a door for the diffusion of the Gospel throughout Western Switzerland.

5

It was the powerful influence that proceeded from Zurich which originated the Reformed movement in the warlike city of Bern. Sebastian Meyer had "by little and little opened the gates of the Gospel" to the Bernese.' But eminently the Reformer of this city was Berthold Haller. He was born in Roteville, Wurtemberg, and studied at Pforzeim, where he was a fellow-student of Melancthon. In 1520 he came to Bern, and was made Canon and Preacher in the cathedral. He possessed in ample measure all the requisites for influencing public assemblies. He had a noble figure, a graceful manner, a mind richly endowed with the gifts of nature, and yet more richly furnished with the acquisitions of learning. After the example of Zwingle, he expounded from the pulpit the Gospel as contained in the evangelists. But the Bernese partook not a little of the rough and stubborn nature of the animal that figures in their cantonal shield. The clash of halberds and swords had more attraction for their ears than the sound of the Gospel. Haller's heart at times grew faint. He would pour into the bosom of Zwingle all his fears and griefs. He should perish one day by the teeth of these bears: so he wrote. "No,"

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would Zwingle reply, in ringing words that made him ashamed of his timidity, "you must tame these bear-cubs by the Gospel. You must neither be ashamed nor afraid of them. For whosoever is ashamed of Christ before men, of him will Christ be ashamed before his Father." Thus would Zwingle lift up the hands that hung down, and set them working with fresh vigour. The sweetness of the Gospel doctrine was stronger than the sternness of Bernese nature. The bear-cubs were tamed. Reanimated by the letters of Zwingle, and the arrival from Nuremberg of a Carthusian monk named Kolb, with hoary head but a youthful heart, fired with the love of the Gospel, and demanding, as his only stipend, the liberty of preaching it, Haller had his zeal and perseverance

rewarded by seeing in 1528 the city and powerful canton of Bern, the first after Zurich of all the cantons of Helvetia, pass over to the side of Protestantism."

The

The establishment of the Protestant worship at Bern formed an epoch in the Swiss Reformation. That event had been preceded by a conference which was numerously attended, and at which the distinctive doctrines of the two faiths were publicly discussed by the leading men of both sides. deputies had their views cleared and their zeal stimulated by these discussions, and on their return to their several cantons, they set themselves with fresh vigour to complete, after the example of Bern, the work of reformation. For ten years previously it had been in progress in most of them.

2

THE light radiating from Zurich is touching the mountain-tops of Eastern Switzerland, and Protestantism is about to make great progress in this part of the land. At this time Joachim Vadian, of a noble family in the canton of St. Gall, returning from his studies in Vienna, put his hand to the plough of the Reformation. Although he filled the office of burgomaster, he did not disdain to lecture to his townsmen on the Acts of the Apostles, that he might exhibit to them the model of the primitive Church-in simplicity and uncorruptedness, how different from the pattern of their own day! A contemporary remarked, "Here in St. Gall it is not only allowed to hear the Word of God, but the magistrates themselves preach it." Vadian kept up an uninterrupted correspondence with Zwingle, whose eye continually watched the progress of the work in all parts of the field, and whose pen was ever ready to minister encouragement and direction to those engaged in it. A sudden and violent outburst of Anabaptism endangered the cause in St. Gall, but the fanaticism

1 Gerdesius, tom. ii., p. 322. 2 Ibid., p. 239. 3 Ibid., p. 246. 4 Christoffel, p. 180.

soon spent itself; and the preachers returning from a conference at Baden with fresh courage, the reformation of the canton was completed. The images were removed from the Church of St. Lawrence, and the robes, jewels, and gold chains which adorned them sold to found alms-houses. In 1528 we find Vadian writing, "Our temples at St. Gall are purged from idols, and the glorious foundations of the building of Christ are being more laid every day."s

In the canton of Glarus the Reformed movement had been begun by Zwingle himself. On his removal to Einsiedeln, three evangelists who had been trained under him came forward to carry on the work. Their names were-Tschudi, who laboured in the town of Glarus; Brunner, in Mollis ; and Schindler, in Schwanden. Zwingle had sown the seed: these three gathered in the harvest."

The rays of truth penetrated into Zwingle's

5 Gerdesius, tom. ii., p. 238. Christoffel, pp. 186-192. D'Aubigné, vol. ii., p. 359; vol. iii., pp. 259-261.

6 See summary of Disputation in Gerdesius, tom. ii., sec. 118.

7 D'Aubigné, vol. iii., p. 320.

9 Gerdesius, tom. ii., p. 367, foot-note.

9 Christoffel, pp. 173, 174.

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native valley of the Tockenburg. With intense interest did he watch the issue of the struggle between the light and the darkness on a spot to which he was bound by the associations of his youth, and by many ties of blood and friendship. Knowing that the villagers were about to meet to decide whether they should embrace the new doctrine, or continue to worship as their fathers had done, Zwingle addressed a letter to them, in which he said, "I praise and thank God, who has called me to the preaching of his Gospel, that he has led you, who are so dear to my heart, out of the Egyptian darkness of false human doctrines, to the wondrous light of his Word;" and he goes on earnestly to exhort them to add to their profession of the Gospel doctrine the practice of every Gospel virtue, if they would have profit, and the Gospel praise. This letter decided the victory of Protestantism in the Reformer's native valley. The council and the community in the same summer, 1524, made known their will to the clergy,

that the Word of God be preached with one accord." The Abbot of St. Gall and the Bishop of Coire sought to prevent effect being given to these instructions. They summoned three of the preachers -Melitus, Doering, and Farer-before the chapter, and charged them with disobedience. The accused answered in the spirit of St. Peter and St. John before the council, "Convince us by the Word of God, and we will submit ourselves not only to the chapter, but to the least of our brethren; but contrariwise we will submit to no one-no, not even to the mightiest potentate." The two dignitaries declined to take up the gage which the three pastors had thrown down. They retired, leaving the valley of the Tockenburg in peaceful possession of the Gospel.1

In the ancient canton of Schwitz, which lay nearer to Zurich than the places of which we have just spoken, there were eyes that were turned in the direction of the light. Some of its citizens addressed Zwingle by letter, desiring him to send men to them who might teach them the new way. "They had begun to loathe," they said, "the discoloured stream of the Tiber, and to thirst for those waters whereof they who had once tasted wished evermore to drink." Schwitz, however, did not intend to take her stand by the side of her sister Zurich, in the bright array of cantons that had now begun to march under the Reformed banner.

The majority of her citizens, content to drink at the muddy stream from which some had turned away, were not yet prepared to join in the request, "Give us of this water, that we may go no more to

1 Gerdesius, tom. ii., pp. 368, 394. Christoffel, pp. 175, 178.

Rome to draw." Their opportunity was let slip. They spurned the advice of Zwingle not to sell their blood for gold, by sending their sons to fight for the Pope, as he was now soliciting them not to do. Schwitz became one of the most hostile of all the Helvetic cantons to the Reformer and his work.

But though the cloud still continued to rest on Schwitz, the light shone on the cantons around and beyond it.

Appenzell opened its mountain fastnesses for the entrance of the heralds of the Reformed faith. Walter Klarer, a native of the canton, who had studied at Paris, and been converted by the writings of Luther, began in 1522 to preach here with great zeal. He found an efficient coadjutor in James Schurtanner, minister at Teufen. We find Zwingle writing to the latter in 1524 as follows: "Be manly and firm, dear James, and let not yourself be overcome, that you may be called Israel. We must con. tend with the foe till the day dawn, and the powers of darkness hide themselves in their own black night. It is to be hoped that, although

2

your canton is the last in the order of the Confederacy, it will not be the last in the faith. For these people dwell not in the centre of a fertile country, where the dangers of selfishness and pleasure ar: greatest, but in a mountain district where a pious simplicity can be better preserved, which guileless simplicity, joined to an intelligent piety, affords the best and surest abiding-place for faith." The audiences became too large for the churches to contain. The Gospel needs neither pillared aisle nor fretted roof, said they; let us go to the meadow. They assembled in the open fields, and their worship lost nothing of impressiveness, or sublimity, by the change. The echoes of their mountains awoke responsive to the voice of the preacher proclaiming the "good tidings," and the psalm with which their service was closed blended with the sound of the torrents as they rolled down from the summits.3 Out of the eight parishes of the canton, six embraced the reform.

Following the course of the Upper Rhine, the Protestant movement penetrated to Coire, which nestles at the foot of the Splugen pass. The soil had been prepared here by the schoolmaster Salandrinus, a friend of Zwingle. In 1523 the Diet met at Coire to take into consideration the abuses in the Church, and to devise means for their removal. Eighteen articles were drawn up and

2 Appenzell joined the Swiss league in 1513, and was the last in order of the so-called old cantons. 3 Christoffel, pp. 179–181.

confirmed in the year following, of which we give only the first as being the most important: "Each clergyman shall, for himself, purely and fully preach the Word of God and the doctrine of Christ to his people, and shall not mislead them by the doctrines of human invention. Whoever will not or cannot fulfil this official duty shall be deprived of his living, and draw no part of the same." In virtue of this decision, the Dean of St. Martin's, after a humiliating confession of his inability to preach, was obliged to give way to Zwingle's friend, John Dorfman, or Comander-a man of great courage, and renowned for his scholarship-who now became the chief instrument in the reform of the city and canton. Many of the priests were won to the Gospel those who remained on the side of Rome, with the bishop at their head, attempted to organise an opposition to the movement. Their violence was so great that the Protestant preacher, Comander, had to be accompanied to the church by an armed guard, and defended, even in the sanctuary, from insult and outrage. In the country districts, where more than forty Protestant evangelists, "like fountains of living water, were refreshing hill and dale," the same precautions had to be taken. Finding that the work was progressing nevertheless, the bishop complained of the preachers to the Diet, as "heretics, insurrectionists, sacrilegists, abusers of the holy Sacraments, and despisers of the mass-sacrifice," and besought the aid of the civil power to put them down. When Zwingle heard of the storm that was gathering, he wrote to the magistrates of Coire with apostolic vigour, pointing to the sort of opposition that was being offered to the Gospel and its preachers in their territories, and he charged them, as they valued the light now beginning to illuminate their land, and dreaded being plunged again into the old darkness, in which the Truth had been held captive, and its semblance palmed upon them, to the cozening them of their worldly goods, and, as he feared he had ground to add, of their souls' salvation, that they should protect the heralds of the Gospel from insult and violence. Zwingle's earnest appeal produced a powerful effect in all the councils and communities of the Grisons; and when the bishop, through the Abbot of St. Luzi, presented his accusation against the Protestant preachers, in the Diet which met at Coire on Christmas Day, 1525, craving that they should be condemned without a hearing, that assembly answered with dignity, "The law which demands that no one be condemned unheard, shall also be observed in this instance." There followed a public disputation at Ilanz, and the conversion of seven

1

more mass-priests. The issue was that the canton was won. "Christ waxed strong everywhere in these mountains," writes Salandrinus to Zwingle, "like the tender grass in spring." "

Nor did the reform find here its limits. Napoleon had not yet cut a path across these glacier-crowned mountains for his cannon to pass into Italy, but the Gospel, without waiting for the picks and blasting agencies of the conqueror to open its path, climbed these mighty steeps and took possession of the Grisons, the ancient Rhotia. The bishop fled to the Tyrol; religious liberty was proclaimed in the territory; the Protestant faith took root, and here where are placed the sources of those waters which, rushing down the mountains' sides, form rivers in the valleys below, were opened fountains of living waters. From the crest of the Alps, where it had now seated itself, the Gospel may be said to have looked down upon Italy. Not yet, however, was that land to be given to it.3

It is interesting to think that the light spread on the east as far as to Constance and its lake, where a hundred years before John Huss had poured out his blood. After various reverses the movement of reform was at last crowned, in the year 1528, by the removal of the images and altars from the churches, and the abolition of all ceremonies, including that of the mass itself. All the districts that lie along the banks of the Thur, of the Lake of Constance, and of the Upper Rhine, embraced the Gospel. At Mammeren, which adjoins the spot where the Rhine issues from the lake, the inhabitants flung their images into the water. The statue of St. Blaise, on being thrown in, stood upright for a short while, and casting a reproachful look at the ungrateful and impious men who had formerly worshipped and were now attempting to drown it, swam across the lake to Catahorn on the opposite shore. So does a monk named Lang, whom Hottinger quotes, relate.

After a protracted struggle, Protestantism gained the victory over the Papacy in Schaffhausen. The chief labourers there were Sebastian Hoffmeister, Sebastian Hoffman, and Erasmus Ritter. On the Reformed worship being set up there, after the model of Zurich in 1529, the inhabitants of Eastern Switzerland generally may be said to have enjoyed the light of Protestant truth. The change that had passed over their land was like that which spring

1 Ruchat, tom. i., pp. 228–230. Christoffel, pp. 183, 185. 2 Scultet., Annal., Dec. i., p. 290; apud Gerdesius, tom. ii., pp. 292 and 304, 306. Christoffel, pp. 182-185. 3 Gerdesius, tom. ii., pp. 292, 293.

4 Hottinger, Helv., pp. 380–384. Sleidan, lib. vi.; apud Gerdesius, tom. ii., p. 363.

5 D'Aubigné, vol. iv., p. 306.