CHAPTER XIV

How Truth triumphs—Society at Einsidlen—Request to the Bishops—to the Confederates—The Men of Einsidlen separate—A Scene in a Convent—A Dinner by Myconius—The Strength of the Reformers—Effect of the Petitions to Lucerne—The Council of the Diet—Haller at the Town-House—Friburg—Destitution of Oswald—Zuinglius comforts him—Oswald quits Lucerne—First severity of the Diet—Consternation of the Brothers of Zuinglius—His Resolution—The Future—The Prayer of Zuinglius.

Meanwhile still higher interests occupied the friends of truth. The Diet, as we have seen, urged by the enemies of the Reformation, had ordered the evangelical preachers to desist from preaching the doctrines which troubled the people. Zuinglius felt that the moment for action had arrived, and with the energy which characterised him, called a meeting of the ministers of the Lord, the friends of the gospel, at Einsidlen. The strength of Christians is neither in carnal weapons, nor the flames of martyrdom—it is in a simple but unanimous and intrepid profession of these great truths to which the world must one day be subjugated. In particular, God calls upon those who serve him to hold these heavenly doctrines prominently forth in presence of the whole people without being dismayed by the clamour of adversaries. Those truths are able of themselves to secure their triumph, and as of old with the ark of God, idols cannot stand in their presence. The time had come when God willed that the great doctrine of salvation should be confessed in Switzerland. It was necessary that the gospel standard should be planted on some eminence. Providence was going to draw humble but intrepid men out of unknown retreats that they might bear a striking testimony in presence of the nation.

Towards the end of June and the beginning of July, 1522, pious ministers were seen proceeding in all directions towards the celebrated chapel of Einsidlen on a new pilgrimage. From Art, in the canton of Schwitz, came its curate, Balthasar Traschel; from Weiningen near Baden, curate Staheli; from Zug, Werner Steiner; from Lucerne, canon Kilchmeyer; from Uster, curate Pfister; from Hongg, near Zurich, curate Stumpff; from Zurich itself, canon Fabricius, chaplain Schmid, the preacher of the hospital, Grosmann, and Zuinglius. Leo Juda, curate of Einsidlen, most cordially welcomed all these ministers of Jesus Christ to the ancient abbey. Since the time when Zuinglius took up his residence in it, this place had been a citadel of truth, and a hotel of the just.² In like manner had thirty-three bold patriots, resolved to break the yoke of Austria, met two hundred years before in the solitary plain of Grutli. The object of the meeting at Einsidlen was to break the yoke of human authority in the things of God. Zuinglius proposed to his friends to present earnest addresses to the cantons, and to the bishop, praying for the free preaching of the gospel, and at the same time for the abolition of compulsory celibacy, the source of so many irregularities. The proposal was unanimously adopted. Ulric had himself prepared the addresses. That to the bishop was first read. It was dated 2nd July, 1522, and signed by all the evangelists we have mentioned. The preachers of the truth in Switzerland were united in cordial affection. Many others besides sympathised with the party at Einsidlen: such were Haller, Myconius, Hedio, Capito, Œcolampadius, Sebastian Meyer, Hoffmister, and Wanner. This harmony is one of the finest traits in the Swiss Reformation. These excellent persons always acted as one man, and remained friends till death. The men of Einsidlen were aware that it was only by the power of faith that the members of the Confederation, divided by foreign enlistments, could become one body. But their views were carried higher. “The celestial doctrine,” said they to their ecclesiastical head, in the address of 2nd July, “that truth which God the Creator has manifested by his Son to the human race now plunged in evil, has been long veiled from our eyes by the ignorance, not to say the malice of certain men. But God Almighty has resolved to re-establish it in its primitive condition. Join yourself to those who demand that the multitude of the faithful return to their head, who is Christ. For our part we have resolved to promulgate his gospel with indefatigable perseverance, and at same time with such wisdom that none can complain. Favour this enterprise; astonishing, perhaps, but not rash. Be like Moses on the march at the head of the people coming out of Egypt, and overthrow the obstacles which oppose the triumphant progress of truth.”

After this warm appeal, the evangelists met at Einsidlen came to celibacy. Zuinglius had no longer any demand to make on this head for himself, having already one answering the description given by Paul of what a minister’s wife ought to be, grave, sober, faithful in all things. (1 Timothy 3:2) But he thought of his brethren, whose consciences were not yet like his, emancipated from human ordinances. He sighed moreover for the time when all the servants of God might live openly and without fear in the bosom of their own family, keeping their children, says the apostle, in subjection, with all gravity (1 Timothy 3:4) “You are not ignorant,” said the men of Einsidlen, that hitherto chastity has been deplorably violated by the priests. When on the consecration of the servants of the Lord he who speaks for all is asked, ‘Are those whom you present righteous? He answers—They are righteous. Are they learned? They are learned. But when he is asked—Are they chaste? he answers: As far as human weakness permits. Everything in the New Testament condemns licentiousness: every thing in it sanctions marriage.” Then follows the quotation of a great number of passages. “Wherefore,” they continued, “we implore you by the love of Christ, by the liberty which he has purchased for us, by the misery of so many weak and wavering souls, by the wounds of so many ulcerated consciences, by every thing human and divine; … allow that which was rashly done to be wisely repealed, lest the majestic edifice of the Church fall with fearful uproar, and drag boundless ruin after it.³ See with what storms the world is threatened. If wisdom interpose not it is all over with the priesthood.” The petition to the Confederation was of greater length. The band of Einsidlen, addressing the Confederates, thus conclude: “Honoured Sirs,—we are all Swiss, and you are our fathers. There are some among us who have shown themselves faithful in combat, in plague, and other calamities. It is in the name of true chastity that we speak to you. Who knows not that we could satisfy sensual appetite far better by not submitting to the laws of a legitimate union? But it is necessary to put an end to the scandals which afflict the church of Christ. If the tyranny of the Roman pontiff would oppress us, fear nothing, brave heroes! The authority of the Word of God, the rights of Christian liberty, and the sovereign power of grace, guard around us. We have the same country, we have the same faith, we are Swiss, and the valour of our illustrious ancestors always manifested its power by an indomitable defence of those oppressed by injustice.”

Thus in Einsidlen itself, in this old rampart of superstition, which is still, in our day, one of the most famous sanctuaries of Roman superstition, Zuinglius and his friends boldly raised the standard of truth and freedom. They appealed to the heads of the State and the Church. They fixed their thesis, like Luther, both on the gate of the episcopal palace and on that of the national council. The friends met at Einsidlen parted calm, joyful, full of hope in that God to whom they had committed their cause. Some passing near the battle-field of Morgarten, others over the chain of the Albis, and others again by different valleys or mountains, all returned to their posts. “There was truly something grand in these times,” says Henry Bullinger, “in men thus daring to put themselves forward, rallying around the gospel, and exposing themselves to all dangers. But God defended them so, that no evil reached them: for God preserves his people at all times.” It was indeed something grand, it was a great step in the progress of the Reformation, one of the brightest days of religious revival in Switzerland. A holy confederation was formed at Einsidlen. Humble and courageous men had seized the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and the shield of faith. The gauntlet was thrown down, and the challenge given, not by a single man, but by men of different cantons, ready to sacrifice their lives. It only remained to await the battle.

Everything announced that it was to be fierce. Five days after (7th July), the magistracy of Zurich, wishing to give some satisfaction to the Roman party, summoned before them Conrad Grebel and Claus Hottinger, two of those extreme men who seemed desirous to go beyond the bounds of a wise Reformation. “We forbid you,” said Burgomaster Roust, “to speak against the monks or on controverted points.” At these words, a loud noise was heard in the chamber, says an ancient chronicle. God was so manifestly in favour of the work, that people were everywhere anticipating signs of his interposition. All present looked around in astonishment, without being able to discover the cause of this mysterious circumstance. But indignation was carried to its greatest height in convents. Every meeting held in them, whether for discipline or festivity, witnessed some new attack. One day, when a great festival was celebrated in the convent of Fraubrunn, the wine having got into the heads of the guests, they began to shoot the most envenomed arrows at the gospel. What especially excited the rage of these priests and monks was the evangelical doctrine—that in the Christian Church there ought to be no sacerdotal caste above believers. Only one friend of the Reformation, a simple layman, Macrin, schoolmaster at Solcure, was present. He at first shunned the contest by changing his seat to another table. But at last, no longer able to endure the furious invectives of the guests, he stood up boldly, and exclaimed, “Yes, all true Christians are priests, and offer sacrifice according to the words of St. Peter, ‘

You are a royal priesthood.’ ” At these words, one of the most intrepid bawlers, the dean of Burgdorff, a tall, stout man, with a stentorian voice, uttered a loud laugh. “You little Greeks and school rats! You a royal priesthood!… Beautiful priesthood!… Mendicant kings!… priests without prebends and benefices!” And instantly all the priests and monks fell with one accord on the impudent laic. But it was in Lucerne that the bold step of the men of Einsidlen was to produce the strongest sensation. The Diet had met in this town, and complaints arrived from all quarters against the rash preachers who were preventing Helvetia from quietly selling the blood of her sons to the stranger. On the 22nd July, as Oswald Myconius was entertaining canon Kilchmeyer, and several other friends of the gospel, at dinner, a boy, sent by Zuinglius, knocked at the door. He was the bearer of the two famous petitions from Einsidlen, and of a letter from Zuinglius, which requested Oswald to circulate them in Lucerne. “My advice is, that the thing be done quietly, by degrees, rather than all at once; but, for the love of Christ, it is necessary to forsake everything, even wife.”

Thus the crisis approached in Lucerne: the shell had fallen, and could not but burst. The guests read the petitions. “May God bless this beginning,” said Oswald, looking up to heaven, and then added, “This prayer must, from this moment, be the constant occupation of our hearts.” The petitions were forthwith circulated, perhaps with more ardour than Zuinglius had requested. But the moment was singular. Eleven individuals, the flower of the clergy, had placed themselves in the breach: it was necessary to enlighten men’s minds, to fix the irresolute, and gain over the most influential members of the Diet.

Oswald, in the midst of this labour, did not forget his friend. The young messenger had told him of the attacks which Zuinglius had to endure from the monks at Zurich. Writing him the same day, he says, “The truth of the Holy Spirit is invincible. Armed with the shield of the Holy Scriptures you have remained conqueror, not in one combat only, nor in two, but in three, and the fourth is now commencing.… Seize those powerful weapons which are harder than diamond! Christ, in order to protect his people, has need only of his Word. Your struggles give indomitable courage to all who have devoted themselves to Jesus Christ.” At Lucerne, the petitions did not produce the result anticipated. Some pious men approved of them, but these were few in number. Several, fearing to compromise themselves, were unwilling either to praise or blame. “These folks,” said others, “will never bring this affair to a good end!” All the priests murmured, grumbled, and muttered between their teeth. As to the people, they were loud against the gospel. A rage for war was awakened in Lucerne after the bloody defeat of Bicoque, and engrossed all thoughts.³ Oswald, who was an attentive observer of these different impressions, felt his courage shaken. The evangelical future which he had anticipated for Lucerne and Switzerland seemed to vanish. “Our people,” said he, uttering a deep sigh, “are blind to the things of heaven. In regard to the glory of Christ, there is no hope of the Swiss.”

Wrath prevailed, especially in the Council and the Diet. The pope, France, England, and the empire, all around Switzerland, was in agitation after the defeat of Bicoque, and the evacuation of Lombardy by the French under Lautrec. Were not political interests at that moment complicated enough before these eleven men came with their petitions to mingle religious questions with them? The deputies of Zurich alone were favourably disposed to the gospel. Canon Xylotect, afraid for his own life and that of his wife, (he had married into one of the first families in the country,) had refused, with tears of regret, to repair to Einsidlen and sign the addresses. Canon Kilchmeyer had shown greater courage. He, too, had everything to fear. “Condemnation threatens me,” he writes to Zuinglius, on the 13th August; “I await it without fear …” As he was writing these words, an officer of the council entered the room, and cited him to appear next day.” “If they put me in irons,” said he, continuing his letter, “I claim your help; but it will be easier to transport a rock from our Alps than to move me a finger’s breadth from the word of Jesus Christ.” The regard which was deemed due to his family, and the resolution which they had taken to let the storm fall upon Oswald, saved the canon.

Berthold Haller, probably because he was not a Swiss, had not signed the petitions. But full of courage, he, like Zuinglius, expounded the gospel according to Matthew. A vast 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 House; the people accompanied their good-natured pastor, and remained around the spot. The council was divided. “This concerns the bishop,” said the leading men. “The preacher must be handed over to my lord of Lausanne.” The friends of Haller trembled at these words, and told him to withdraw as quickly as possible. The people flocked round, and accompanied him to his house, where a great number of burghers remained in arms prepared to make a rampart of their bodies in defence of their humble pastor. The bishop and council were overawed by this energetic demonstration, and Haller was saved. Haller was not the only combatant at Berne. Sebastian Meyer at this time refuted the pastoral letter of the Bishop of Constance, and in particular the formidable charge, “that the gospellers teach a new doctrine, but that the old doctrine is the true.” “To be wrong for two thousand years,” said Meyer, “is not to be right for a single hour; otherwise the heathen ought to have adhered to their belief. If the most ancient doctrines must carry the day, fifteen hundred years are more than five hundred years, and the gospel is more ancient than the ordinances of the pope.” At this period the magistrates of Friburg intercepted letters addressed to Haller and Meyer by a canon of Friburg, named John Hollard, a native of Orb. They imprisoned, then deposed, and at last banished him. John Vannius, a chorister in the cathedral, shortly after embraced the evangelical doctrine; for in the Christian warfare one soldier no sooner falls than another takes his place. “How could the muddy water of the Tiber,” said Vannius, “subsist beside the pure water which Luther has drawn from the spring of St. Paul.” But the chorister’s mouth was also closed. Myconius wrote to Zuinglius, “Scarcely will you find in Switzerland men more averse to the gospel than the Friburghers.”

Lucerne ought to have been stated as an exception. This Myconius knew. He had not signed the famous petitions, but his friends had if he had not, and a victim was required. The ancient literature of Greece and Rome began, thanks to him, to shed some light in Lucerne; numbers arrived from different quarters to attend the learned professor, and the friends of peace were charmed with sounds sweeter than those of halberds, swords, and cuirasses, which alone had hitherto resounded in the warlike city. Oswald had sacrificed everything for his country. He had quitted Zurich and Zuinglius; he had lost his health; his wife was pining; his son was in childhood; if even Lucerne rejected him he could nowhere hope for an asylum. But no matter; factions have no pity, and the thing which ought to excite their compassion stimulates their rage. Herbenstein, burgomaster of Lucerne, an old and valiant warrior who had gained a distinguished name in the wars of Suabia and Burgundy, followed up the deposition of the teacher, and wished, to banish, from the canton, with himself, his Greek, his Latin, and his gospel. He succeeded. On coming out of the Council, after the sederunt at which Myconius had been deposed, Herbenstein met the Zurich deputy, Berguer. “We are sending you back your schoolmaster,” said he to him ironically, “get a good lodging for him.” “We wont let him sleep in the open air,”³ immediately replied the courageous deputy. But Berguer promised more than he could perform. The news given by the burgomaster were but too true, and were soon intimated to the unhappy Myconius. He is deposed and banished, and the only crime laid to his charge is that of being a disciple of Luther. He looks all around but nowhere finds a shelter. He sees his wife, his son, and himself, all three feeble and sickly, exiled from their country, and Switzerland, all around agitated by a whirlwind, which breaks and destroys every thing that stands in its way. “Here,” said he then to Zuinglius, “is poor Myconius banished by the council of Lucerne.

⁵ … Whither shall I go? I know not … Assailed yourself by these furious-storms how could you shelter me? I cry then in my distress to that God who is the first in whom I hope, who is ever bountiful, ever kind, and who never calls upon any to seek his face in vain. May He supply my wants!”

Thus spoke Oswald, and he was not obliged to wait long for a word of consolation. There was one in Switzerland inured to the battles of the faith. Zuinglius drew near to his friend, and comforting him, thus expressed himself, “The blows by which men attempt to overthrow the house of God are so violent, and the assaults which they make upon it so frequent that not only do the wind and rain beat upon it, as our Saviour predicted, (Matthew 7:27) but the hail and the thunder. Had I not perceived the Lord guiding the ship I should, long ere now, have cast the helm into the sea, but I see him amid the tempest, strengthening the tackling, arranging the yards, stretching the sails, what do I say? commanding the very winds … Should I not then be a coward unworthy of the name of a man if I abandoned my post and fled to a shameful death? I confide entirely in his sovereign goodness. Let him govern, transport, hasten, retard, precipitate, arrest, break down, let him even plunge us to the bottom of the abyss, we fear nothing.

² We are vessels which belong to him. He can use us as he pleases, for honour or disgrace.” After words thus full of faith Zuinglius continues. “As to your case this is my opinion. Present yourself before the council, and there deliver an address worthy of Christ and of yourself, that is to say, proper to touch and not to irritate men’s hearts. Deny that you are a disciple of Luther, declare that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Let your pupils surround you, and let them speak, and if all this does not succeed, come to your friend, come to Zuinglius, and consider our home as your own fireside.”

Oswald, strengthened by these words, followed the noble counsel of the Reformer, but all his efforts were useless. The witness to the truth behoved to quit his country. His enemies in Lucerne were so loud against him, that the magistrates would not allow any one to give him an asylum. Broken-hearted at the sight of so much enmity, the confessor of Jesus Christ exclaimed, “All that now remains for me is to beg from door to door to sustain my miserable life.” Shortly after, the friend and most powerful assistant of Zuinglius, the first man in Switzerland who had united literary instruction with the love of the gospel, the reformer of Lucerne, and at a later period one of the leaders of the Helvetic church, was obliged, with his sickly wife and little boy, to quit this ungrateful city, where, out of all his family, the only one who had received the gospel was a sister. He crossed its ancient bridges, and bade adieu to those mountains which seem to rise from the bosom of the lake of Waldstetten up to the clouds. Canons Xylotect and Kilchmeyer, the only friends whom the Reformation yet numbered among his countrymen, followed shortly after. And, at the moment when this poor man, with two feeble companions, whose existence depended on him, with his eye turned towards its lake, and shedding tears for his deluded country, took leave of those sublime scenes which had surrounded his cradle, the gospel itself took leave of Lucerne, and Rome reigns in it to this day.

Shortly after the Diet itself, which was assembled at Baden, stung by the petitions of Einsidlen, (which, being printed, produced a great sensation,) and urged by the Bishop of Constance to strike a blow at innovations, had recourse to measures of persecution, ordered the authorities of the villages to bring before it all priests and laymen who should speak against the faith, seized, in its impatience, on the evangelist, who happened to be nearest at hand, Urban Weiss, pastor of Filispach, who had been previously released on caution, made him be brought to Constance, and then gave him up to the bishop, by whom he was long kept in prison. “Thus,” says the Chronicle of Bullinger, “the persecution of the gospel by the confederates commenced, and that at the instigation of the clergy, who have at all times delivered Jesus Christ to Herod and Pilate.”

Zuinglius was not to escape his share of trial. Blows to which he was most sensible were then struck at him. The rumour of his doctrines and his contests had passed Santis, penetrated the Tockenburg, and reached the heights of Wildhaus. The pastoral family from whom the Reformer had sprung were moved. Of the four brothers of Zuinglius, some had continued peacefully to occupy themselves with their mountain toils, whilst others, to the great grief of their brother, had quitted then flocks and served foreign princes. All were alarmed at the news which rumour brought as far as their chalets. They already saw their brother seized, dragged perhaps to Constance to his bishop, and a pile erected for him at the same place which had consumed the body of John Huss. These proud shepherds could not bear the idea of being called the brother of a heretic. They wrote to Ulric, describing their sorrow and their fears. Zuinglius replied, “So long as God permits, I will perform the task which he has entrusted to me, without fearing the world and its proud tyrants. I know the worst that can happen to me. There is no danger, no misfortune which I have not long carefully weighed. My own strength is mere nothingness, and I know the power of my enemies, but I know also that I can do everything through Christ strengthening me. Were I silent, some other would be constrained to do what God now does by me, and I would be punished by God. Cast far from you all your anxiety, my dear brothers. If I have a fear, it is that I have been gentler and more easily persuaded than is suitable for this age. What shame, you say, will be cast on all our family if you are burnt, or put to death in some other way!² O, dearly beloved brethren! the gospel derives from the blood of Christ this wondrous nature, that the most violent persecutions far from arresting, only hasten its progress. Those only are true soldiers of Christ who fear not to bear in their body the wounds of their Master. All my labours have no other end than to make men know the treasures of happiness which Christ has acquired for us, in order that all may flee to the Father through the death of his Son. If his doctrine offends you, your anger cannot stop me. You are my brothers, yes, my own brothers, the sons of my father, and the offspring of the same mother … but if you were not my brethren in Christ, and in the work of faith, my grief would be so extreme that nothing could equal it. Adieu. I will never cease to be your true brother, provided you do not yourselves cease to be the brethren of Jesus Christ.” The confederates seemed to rise against the gospel as one man. The petitions of Einsidlen had been the signal. Zuinglius, concerned for the lot of his dear Myconius, saw in this misfortune only the beginning of calamity. Enemies in Zurich: enemies abroad—a man’s own relatives becoming his enemies,—a furious opposition on the part of monks and priests,—violent measures of the Diet and the councils,—rude, perhaps bloody, assaults on the part of the partisans of foreign service,—the highest valleys of Switzerland, the cradle of the confederation, sending forth phalanxes of invincible soldiers to save Rome, and, at the sacrifice of life, annihilating the growing faith of the sons of the Reformation—such was the prospect at which the penetrating mind of the Reformer shuddered when he beheld it in the distance. What a prospect! Was not the work, scarcely well begun, on the point of being destroyed? Zuinglius, thoughtful and agitated, spread all his anguish before his God. “O Jesus,” said he, “you see how wicked men and blasphemers stun the ears of thy people with their cries. Thou knowest that from my infancy I have hated disputes, and yet in spite of myself thou hast ceased not to urge me on to the combat … Wherefore, I confidently call upon thee, as thou hast, begun so to finish. If in any thing I have built up improperly, beat it down with thy mighty hand. If I have laid some other foundation beside thine let thy powerful arm overthrow it.² O most beloved vine, of which the Father is the vine-dresser, and of which we are the branches, forsake not thy offsping. For thou hast promised to be with us, even to the end of the world!”

It was on the 22nd of August, 1522, that Ulrich Zuinglius, the Reformer of Switzerland, when he saw violent storms descending from the mountains on the frail bark of faith, thus expressed the troubles and hopes of his soul in the presence of his God.