try by adjournments and tricks to avoid the
necessity of sending out troops. Meanwhile the power of Antichrist
increases everyday." But the impotence was not so universal as
represented by the timid preacher. Courage revived; the Confederates
were written to for a faithful examination of affairs and help in the
hour of need, and a vanguard was sent to Thun; but the march of the
entire army was delayed, because the soldiers were not to be trusted in
all cases. This was to be expected. Conflicting religious views and the
boldly proclaimed resolution of the Oberlanders to risk everything for
their party, might seem to those, who had favored the Reformation more
from necessity than inward conviction, no sufficient reason to take up
arms against them. Something else had to be added to justify the
expedition. But it did not last. Even the lukewarm were compelled to
acknowledge that determined action had become just as much a duty as a
necessity. The insurgent Oberlanders themselves, though united for the
maintenance of the old faith, were no wise so in reference to their
position toward the government. Among a portion of them the feeling of
loyalty was not wholly extinct. They did not wish to separate
themselves from the state of Bern, nor refuse obedience in political
matters. It was otherwise with the more violent, who, for the time
being, had the upper hand. These latter desired a formal breach with
the government. They continued to believe in the possibility of forming
an independent canton of the Confederacy, under a constitution and laws
of their own making. Moreover, they hoped, should their Catholic
neighbors lend them aid, to secure and increase at the same time their
real power; and in the youthful heads of Obwalden especially such hopes
had found sympathy. In fact, eight hundred men set out for the
Oberland, and that under the banner of the canton, which was carried by
a grandson of the friar Nicholas von Flue, and six hundred men of Uri
were ready to follow them In spite of the disapprobation of their own
Council. This rash proceeding was a breach of the General Peace,
according to the spirit and letter of the Articles of Confederation,
and the Bernese government had henceforth a perfect right to resist it
by arms in the most energetic manner. And so it happened. Under the
command of the Schultheiss Von Erlach, five thousand men provided with
artillery and all, necessary supplies marched out. From the very
moment,