ngle, nevertheless, continued his reforms, and sought to restore,
what he conceived to be, the earliest forms in which Christianity had
manifested itself. He designed to restore a worship purely spiritual.
He rejected all rites and ceremonies, not expressly enjoined in the
Bible. Luther insisted in retaining all that was not expressly
forbidden. And this was the main point of distinction between them and
their adherents.

But Zwingle contemplated political, as well as religious, changes,
and, as early as 1527, two years before his conference with Luther at
Marburg, had projected a league of all the reformers against the
political authorities which opposed their progress. He combated the
abuses of the state, as well as of the church. This opposition created
great enemies against him among the cantons, with their different
governments and alliances. He also secured enthusiastic friends, and,
in all the cantons, there was a strong democratic party opposed to the
existing oligarchies, which party, in Berne and Basle, St. Gall,
Zurich, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, and Glarus, obtained the ascendency.
This led to tumults and violence, and finally to civil war between the
different cantons, those which adhered to the old faith being assisted
by Austria. Lucerne, Uri Schwytz, Zug, Unterwalden took the lead
against the reformed cantons, the foremost of which was Zurich, where
Zwingle lived. Zurich was attacked. Zwingle, from impulses of
patriotism and courage, issued forth from his house, and joined the
standard of his countrymen, not as a chaplain, but as an armed
warrior. This was his mistake. "They who take the sword shall perish
with the sword." The intrepid and enlightened reformer was slain in
1531, and, with his death, expired the hopes of his party. The
restoration of the Roman Catholic religion immediately commenced in
Switzerland.

Luther, more wise than Zwingle, inasmuch as he abstained from
politics, continued his labors in Germany. And they were immense. The
burdens of his country rested on his shoulders. He was the dictator of
the reformed party, and his word was received as law. Moreover, the
party continually increased, and, from the support it received from
some of the most powerful of the German princes, it became formidable,
even in a political point of view. Nearly one half of Germany embraced
the reformed faith.

[Sidenote: Diet of Augsburg.]

The illustrious Charles V. had now, for some time, been emperor,