lained of him to his superiors at the diet, and new indignation
broke loose in their midst. The pastor would have been led off
immediately to prison, had not several of the clergy in connection with
the congregation prevented it by heavy bail. But, on their return home
the deputies found the petition of Zwingli, and this made the prospects
of the pastor rather worse, so that at the next sitting of the diet, in
the beginning of winter, it was actually resolved to send him to
Constance.

But the Confederates gave matter for serious thought to the Council of
Zurich not by this act alone. In spite of every refusal of the French
alliance, in spite of all the vigilance of the authorities, there were
still seventeen captains in that service, who succeeded by cunning arts
in enticing to themselves several troops of inveterate deserters and
disobedient youth, partly citizens of Zurich and partly of other
places, and leading them to the army, for which so severe a
chastisement was kept in store at Biocca. Justly indignant, the Council
ordered all its officers to bring these seducers captive to Zurich,
whenever they would again enter the canton; only if they came of their
own accord, to answer for their deeds, a safe conduct should be
promised to them. The Confederates declared this proceeding to be a
violation of the compact. Zurich appealed to the fourth article of the
treaty of Stanz, which was certainly in her favor. But the exasperation
increased the more. It rose to a still higher pitch, when Zwingli took
occasion from the defeat at Biocca to address a written exhortation "to
the oldest Confederates at Schwyz, to beware of foreign lords and to
get rid of them." He counted on the aid of his friends there at
Einsiedeln, and the clerk of the court, Balthasar Staffer, was his
devoted adherent, having at an earlier period received assistance from
him during a season of trial in his family. With a perception at once
intuitive and full of power he contrasts in this letter the strength of
even a small nation, that trusts in God and a good conscience, with
the windy boasts of the reigning corruption. "Our ancestors"--says
he--"overcame their enemies and established their liberty, by no other
power, than that of God. For this end they never slew Christian people
for pay, but fought for freedom alone, that their persons, lives,
women, children might not be so painfully subject to a licentious
nobility. Therefore has God multiplied to t