er to Zwingli--"appear to me not so
morally corrupt as our people of Zurich. Their dress and their manners
have a certain air of ancient Swiss simplicity." Bullinger also says,
"Before the preaching of the Gospel Zurich was almost like Corinth in
Greece. Much lewdness and frivolity prevailed, because diets were held
there and many strangers flocked in, where the embassies of lords and
princes were staying." George Mangolt of Constance tells us that he
heard Zwingli himself say from the pulpit in the year 1520, that on a
former visit to Zurich "he found so much wickedness there, that he
silently resolved never to become a pastor in that city and prayed God
to prevent it," and some years later, when reform began to gain ground,
one of his friends, Anthony Dublet, wrote to him from Leyden, "I cannot
tell you, what joy possessed me, what comfort stole into my heart, when
I heard, that the first state of the Confederacy, your men of Zurich,
till now, it seemed, born only for war and murder, more beasts than
men, have laid aside their godless avarice joined to a godless cruelty,
and in good faith pledged themselves to the simple Gospel and Christ,
the Lord, the true Mediator. Truly, God is mighty, who can from such
stones raise up children to Abraham!" The number of executions, one of
which occurred nearly every month, was not able to keep down outbreaks
of the lawless spirit, which ruled the nation, and the sentences of the
judges on the bench not seldom bore marks of the rudeness of the age.
In the second year of Zwingli's ministry, a witch was burnt, because
she confessed on the rack, that she had sold herself to the Devil, had
enjoyed connection with him, had ridden on a stick to Schaffhausen, and
to an assembly of wicked spirits on the Heuberg, lamed cattle, and
conjured up a frost and five hail-storms. New saints also were wantonly
manufactured. The journeyman-tailors proclaimed St. Goodman as their
patron, left off work, and went dancing about to the music of a drum.
The authorities were compelled to interfere with sternness. All this
shows the difficulties, that met the Reformer, on the part of the
people, to whom he was sent.

And as it regards the government and the clergy his path was in no
degree smoother. That some of the most distinguished members of the
council were honestly and decidedly national in their feelings cannot
be doubted. There is no evidence to show, that the burgomaster Mark
Roist ever preferred h