he ship of state is clear from
the fact, that in this same sketch he even designates the individuals,
who might be safely entrusted with the command of the different
batalions as well as with seats in the council of war, adding, it is
true: "But a muster can hurt nobody." From such labors he hurried off
to write letters to theologians, to study the Holy Scriptures, to mount
the pulpit, to draw up ecclesiastical regulations and formulas of
worship. Only such a man was able to carry out the Reformation in a
free state. Instead of condemning him, we must keep this steadily in
view, and be careful not to form our judgment according to the ideas of
the nineteenth, but of the sixteenth century.

Over against this activity of the Reformed, that of the Catholic party
now developed itself in silence, but with no less energy. This became
manifest at the close of the year 1529. At the same time the adherents
of the Reformation had already gained so great a preponderance in
Glarus, that there, as in Bern, the sealed promise, given to the Five
Cantons, of fidelity to the old faith could no longer be upheld as a
law of the land. A number of parishes in the Thurgau and the valley of
the Rhine had applied to Zurich for Evangelical preachers. In spite of
the _landvogt_ of the Five Cantons, who had gone to prevent them, they
made their appearance there, and the church-regulations of Zurich were
introduced under the very eyes of the Catholic envoys. The
Toggenburgers also, through the undeniable influence of Zwingli, rose
up against the ecclesiastical supremacy of their liege-lord, the Abbot
of St. Gall. He sick and deserted by a portion of the members of his
convent had been carried to Rorschach, whilst the burghers of the city
began more freely to exercise a control and gradually to assume the
command in the monastery, and even in the cathedral. In Graubuenden, the
Abbot of St. Lucien, one of the most powerful supports of the Bishops
and the Catholic party, had been executed for bribery and criminal
intrigues, and in Schaennis, in the very presence of a threatening
embassy from Schwyz, the wooden images of the Saints were brought out
into the street. "See," cried the excited youth to them, "here is the
road to Schwyz; here to Glarus; here Zurich. Choose which you will
take; you have a safe-conduct. If you cannot travel you must burn."
When the Catholic rulers wished to avenge this outrage, the burghers of
Wesen sought aid from Zurich, w