CHAPTER X

A new Combatant—The Reformer of Berne—Zuinglius encourages Haller—The Gospel at Lucerne—Oswald Persecuted—Preaching of Zuinglius—Henry Bullinger and Gerold of Knonan—Rubli at Bâle—The Chaplain of the Hospital—War in Italy—Zuinglius against Foreign Service. The year, the first day of which was signalised by this bloody execution, had scarcely commenced when Zuinglius was waited on in his house at Zurich by a young man, of about twenty-eight years of age, tall in stature, and with an exterior which bespoke candour, simplicity, and diffidence. He said his name was Berthold Haller. Zuinglius, on hearing the name, embraced the celebrated preacher of Berne, with that affability which made him so engaging. Haller, born at Aldingen in Wurtemberg,³ had first studied at Rotweil under Rubellus, and afterwards at Pforzheim, where Simler was his teacher, and Melanethon his fellow-student. The Bernese, who had already distinguished themselves by arms, at this time resolved to invite literature into the bosom of their republic. Rubellus, and Berthold, not twenty-one years of age, repaired thither. Sometime after, the latter was appointed canon, and ultimately preacher of the cathedral. The gospel which Zuinglius preached had extended to Berne; Haller believed, and thenceforth longed to see the distinguished man, whom he now looked up to as his father. He went to Zurich after Myconius had announced his intended visit. Thus met Haller and Zuinglius. The former, a man of great meekness, unbosomed his griefs; and the latter, a man of might, inspired him with courage. One day, Berthold said to Zuinglius, “My spirit is overwhelmed … I am not able to bear all this injustice. I mean to give up the pulpit and retire to Bâle beside Wittembach, and there occupy myself exclusively with sacred literature.” “Ah!” replied Zuinglius, “I too have my feelings of despondency, when unjust attacks are made upon me; but Christ awakens my conscience, and urges me on by his terrors and his promises. He alarms me when he says, ‘Whoso shall be ashamed of me before men, of him will I be ashamed before my Father;’ and he sets my mind at case when he adds, ‘Whoso shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father.’ My dear Berthold, rejoice! Our name is written in indelible characters in the register of citizenship on high. I am ready to die for Christ.² Let your wild cubs,” added he, “hear the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and you will see them become tame. But this task must be performed with great gentleness, lest they turn again and rend you.” Haller’s courage revived. “My soul,” said he to Zuinglius, “is awakened out of its sleep. I must preach the gospel. Jesus Christ must again be established in this city, from which he has been so long exiled.”⁴ Thus the torch of Berthold was kindled at the torch of Zuinglius, and the timid Haller threw himself into the midst of the ferocious bears, who, as Zuinglius expresses it, “were gnashing their teeth, and seeking to devour him.”

It was in another part of Switzerland, however, that persecution was to begin. Warlike Lucerne came forward, like a foe in full armour couching his lance. In this canton, which was favourable to foreign service, a martial spirit predominated, and the leading men knit their brows when they heard words of peace fitted to curb their warlike temper. Meanwhile the writings of Luther having found their way into the town, some of the inhabitants began to examine them, and were horrified. It seemed to them that an infernal hand had traced the lines; their imagination was excited, their senses became bewildered, and their rooms seemed as if filled with demons, flocking around them, and glaring upon them with a sarcastic smile. They hastily closed the book, and dashed it from them in dismay. Oswald, who had heard of these singular visions, did not speak of Luther to any but his most intimate friends, and contented himself with simply preaching the gospel of Christ. Nevertheless, the cry which rung through the town was, “Luther and the schoolmaster (Myconius) must be burnt.”⁶ “I am driven by my adversaries like a ship by the raging billows,” said Oswald to one of his friends. One day, in the beginning of the year 1520, he was unexpectedly summoned to appear before the council, and told, “Your orders are, not to read the writings of Luther to your pupils, not to name him in their presence, and not even to think of him.” The lords of Lucerne pretended, it seems, to have a very extensive jurisdiction. Shortly after, a preacher delivered a sermon against heresy. The whole audience was moved, and every eye was turned on Myconius; for whom but he could the preacher have in his eye? Oswald kept quietly in his seat, as if the matter had not concerned him. But on leaving the church, as he was walking with his friend, Canon Xylotect, one of the counsellors, still under great excitement, passed close to them, and passionately exclaimed, “Well, disciples of Luther, why don’t you defend your master?” They made no answer. “I live,” said Myconius, “among fierce wolves; but I have this consolation, that the most of them are without teeth. They would bite if they could, but not being able, they bark.” The senate assembled: for the people began to be tumultuous. “He is a Lutheran,” said one of the counsellors: “he is a propagator of new doctrines,” said another: “he is a seducer of youth,” said a third. “Let him appear, let him appear.” The poor schoolmaster appeared and again listened to prohibitions and menaces. His unsophisticated soul was torn and overwhelmed. His gentle spouse could only console him by shedding tears. “Every one is rising up against me,” exclaimed he in his agony. “Assailed by so many tempests, whither shall I turn, how shall I escape?… Were it not for Christ I would long ago have fallen under these assaults.” “What matters it,” wrote Doctor Sebastian Hofmeister of Constance to him, “whether Lucerne chooses to keep you or not? The whole earth is the Lord’s. Every land is a home to the brave. Though we should be the most wicked of men our enterprise is just, for we teach the Word of Christ.”

While the truth encountered so many obstacles at Lucerne it was victorious at Zurich. Zuinglius was incessant in his labours. Wishing to examine the whole sacred volume in the original tongues, he zealously engaged in the study of Hebrew, under the direction of John Boschenstein, a pupil of Reuchlin. But if he studied Scripture, it was to preach it. The peasants who flocked to the market on Friday to dispose of their goods, showed an eagerness to receive the Word of God. To satisfy their longings, Zuinglius had begun, in December 1520, to expound the Psalms every Friday after studying the original. The Reformers always combined learned with practical labours—the latter forming the end, the former only the means. They were at once students and popular teachers. This union of learning and charity is characteristic of the period. In regard to his services on Sunday, Zuinglius, after lecturing from St. Matthew on the life of our Saviour, proceeded afterwards to show from the Acts of the Apostles how the gospel was propagated. Thereafter he laid down the rules of the Christian life according to the Epistles to Timothy, employed the Epistle to the Galatians in combating doctrinal errors, combined with it the two Epistles of St. Peter, in order to show to the despisers of St. Paul that both apostles were animated by the same spirit, and concluded with the Epistle to the Hebrews, in order to give a full display of the benefits which Christians derive from Jesus Christ their sovereign priest. But Zuinglius did not confine his attention to adults; he sought also to inspire youth with the sacred flame by which his own breast was animated. One day in 1521, while he was sitting in his study reading the Fathers of the Church, taking extracts of the most striking passages, and carefully arranging them into a large volume, his door opened, and a young man entered whose appearance interested him exceedingly. It was Henry Bullinger, who was returning from Germany, and impatient to become acquainted with the teacher of his country, whose name was already famous in Christendom. The handsome youth fixed his eye first on Zuinglius, and then on the books, and felt his vocation to do what Zuinglius was doing. Zuinglius received him with his usual cordiality which won all hearts. This first visit had great influence on the future life of the student, who was on his return to the paternal hearth. Another youth had also won Zuinglius’ heart: this was Gerold Meyer of Knonau. His mother, Anna Reinhardt, who afterwards occupied an important place in the Reformer’s life, had been a great beauty, and was still distinguished for her virtues. John Meyer of Knonau, a youth of a noble family, who had been brought up at the court of the bishop of Constance, had conceived a strong passion for Anna, who, however, belonged to a plebeian family. Old Meyer of Knonau had refused his consent to their marriage, and after it took place disinherited his son. In 1513 Anna was left a widow with a son and two daughters, and devoted herself entirely to the education of her poor orphans. The grandfather was inexorable. One day, however, the widow’s maid-servant having in her arms young Gerold, then a beautiful sprightly child of three years of age, stopped at the fish market, when old Meyer, who was looking out at a window, observed him, and, continuing to gaze after him, asked to whom that beautiful lively child belonged. “It is your son’s child,” was the answer. The heart of the old man was moved—the ice immediately melted—all was forgotten, and he clasped in his arms the widow and children of his son. Zuinglius loved, as if he had been his own son, the noble and intrepid youth Gerold, who was to die in the flower of his age side by side with the Reformer, with his sword in his hand, and surrounded alas! with the dead bodies of his enemies. Thinking that Gerold would not be able to prosecute his studies at Zurich, Zuinglius, in 1521, sent him to Bâle.

Young Knonau did not find Hedio the friend of Zuinglius there. Capito being obliged to accompany the archbishop Albert to the coronation of Charles V, had procured Hedio to supply his place. Bâle having thus, one after another, lost her most faithful preachers, the church there seemed forsaken; but other men appeared. Four thousand hearers squeezed into the church of William Roubli, curate of St. Alban. He attacked the mass, purgatory, and the invocation of saints; but this turbulent man who was eager to draw the public attention upon himself, declaimed more against error than in support of truth. On Corpus Christi day he joined the public procession, but in place of the customary relics, caused the Holy Scriptures to be carried before him, splendidly bound, and bearing this inscription:—“The Bible; this is the true relic, the others are only dead bones.” Courage adorns the servant of God; affectation disgraces him. The work of an evangelist is to preach the Bible, and not to make a presumptuous display of it. The enraged priests accused Roubli before the council. A mob immediately gathered in Cordelier Square. “Protect our preacher,” said the citizens to the council. Fifty Ladies of distinction interceded in his behalf; but Roubli was obliged to quit Bâle. At a later period he took part like Grebel in Anabaptist disorders. The Reformation, in the course of its development, every where threw off the chaff which mingled with the good grain. At this period a modest voice was heard from the humblest of the chapels, clearly proclaiming the evangelical doctrine. It was that of young Wolfgang Wissemberger, son of a counsellor of state and chaplain of the hospital. All in Bâle who felt new religious wants attached themselves to the gentle chaplain, preferring him to the presumptuous Roubli. Wolfgang began to read the mass in German. The monks renewed their clamour, but this time they failed, and Wissemberger continued to preach the gospel; “for,” says an old chronicler, “he was a burgess and his father a counsellor.” This first success of the Reformation in Bâle, while it was the prelude of still greater success, at the same time tended greatly to promote the progress of the work throughout the Confederation. Zurich no longer stood alone. Learned Bâle began to be charmed with the new doctrine. The foundations of the new temple were enlarged. The Reformation in Switzerland obtained a fuller development. The centre of the movement was, however, at Zurich. But, to the deep grief of Zuinglius, important political events occurred in 1521, and in some measure distracted men’s minds from the preaching of the gospel. Leo X, who had offered his alliance at once to Charles V and Francis I, had at last declared for the emperor. War between the two rivals was on the point of breaking out in Italy. The French general Lautrec had said, “There will be nothing left of the pope but his ears.” This bad jest increased the pontiff’s anger. The king of France claimed the aid of the Swiss cantons, all of which, with the exception of Zurich, had formed an alliance with him; he obtained it. The pope flattered himself he would gain Zurich, and the cardinal of Sion, ever given to intrigue, and confident in his ability and his finesse, hastened thither to obtain soldiers for his master. But from his old friend Zuinglius he encountered a vigorous opposition. He was indignant that the Swiss should sell their blood to strangers, and his imagination figured to itself the swords of the Zurichers under the standard of the pope and the emperor in the plains of Italy crossing the swords of the confederates united under the colours of France. At such scenes of fratricide his patriotic and Christian soul shuddered with horror. Thundering from the pulpit he exclaimed, “Would you rend and overthrow the confederation?³ … We attack the wolves which devour our flocks, but offer no resistance to those who prowl around seeking to devour men.… Ah! it is not without cause that these hats and mantles are of scarlet. Shakes their robes and ducats and crowns will tumble out of them, twist them and you will see the blood of your brother, your father, your son, and your dearest friend trickling down from them.” The energetic voice of Zuinglius was heard in vain. The cardinal with the red hat succeeded, and two thousand seven hundred Zurichers set out under the command of George Berguer. Zuinglius was heart-broken. Still, however, his influence was not lost. For a long time the banners of Zurich were not again to be unfurled, and pass the gates of the town in the cause of foreign powers.