the heart, so
that victory might be rendered more sure and easy to the cunning
talker, who strove, not for the cause of truth, but for his own private
advantage. In the school of the clear-seeing, free-speaking Romans
Zwingli soon learned how to sift the scandalous game, carried on under
the banners of wisdom, to distinguish fallacy from truth, and to
despise from the bottom of his soul this false philosophy, the art of
passing off black for white, and of leading both parties by the nose
with the same blinding torrent of words, in brief, the whole brood of
lies and everything belonging to it.

Although it could only have been through the medium of translations or
abridgments, he already seems to have made some acquaintance with the
works of the Greeks. In profound speculation and in matters of art and
taste they were the teachers of the Romans, who, in spite of national
pride, were willing to acknowledge them as such. Even to this day,
their sages, Plato and Aristotle, must be studied by all, who are not
content with a mere superficial knowledge of philosophy. Their
historians entered fully into the character of the persons and of the
times, which they portrayed, and in their poets a loftier inspiration
ruled. One of these, Pindar, is thus described by Zwingli at a later
period: "He is the prince of poets. He has a true, holy, incorruptible
mind. Every expression, that he uses, be it ever so common, he makes
noble. No one can either give to him or take from him without injury.
In him is found a worthy, powerful representation of antiquity. It
lives again before our eyes. His poetry flows like a clear stream; all
is noble, charming, perfect. In a lofty style he discourses of the
gods, and it can be easily seen that he meant thereby the one, divine,
heavenly power. No Grecian author serves so well for the interpretation
of Holy Scripture, especially of the Psalms and Job, which rival him in
sublimity."

The young men turned their attention also to the mysteries of nature,
the discoveries in geography and the illimitable kingdom of worlds,
revealed to us by a glance at the darkened heavens. In after life
Glareanus won for himself considerable fame by his researches in the
department of ancient geography, and Vadianus, when quite an old man,
gathered around him a troop of burghers from St. Gall, full of wonder
and a desire to learn, as they lay encamped, one starry night, on the
summit of the Freudenberg, and spoke to th