"signifies," that they were only
parables, whilst the Supper was a transaction so solemn, that such an
arbitrary, audacious mode of interpretation could in no wise be
admitted. How Zwingli was at first embarrassed by this objection, and
how he afterward succeeded in refuting it, he may tell us in his own
language.

"Undoubtedly," says he in one of his works,[4] "no easy task was before
me, namely, to cite an example for my mode of interpretation, derived
from no parable. I began to think over it, to look for it everywhere;
in vain! I could find nothing. The 13th of April was at hand;[5] I tell
the truth; (willingly would I keep silent, for I well know many will
make a mock of it; but it is God's finger; my conscience constrains me
to speak), early in the morning, before the break of day, I dreamed
that I, yet full of chagrin, was once more attacked in battle with the
under-clerk, and so beaten that I could discover no way of escape, and
my tongue refused to do its office. This anguish tormented me in an
incredible manner, as such things do in dreams, during the deceitful
night. (I wish to tell it only as a dream, although it concerns me
much; although that is important enough for me; which I have learned,
thanks be to God! through whose power alone anything is possible). As
by the stroke of an enchanter's wand, I saw a comforter stand before
me, (whether he was white or black, I cannot say; I relate a dream).
'Wherefore, thou awkward one,' he asks, 'dost thou not oppose him with
the passage in the twelfth chapter of the second book of Moses? It _is_
the Lord's passover.' I awoke, sprang out of bed, looked at the
passage, thought over it and preached from it in the morning before
the congregation, and, as I hope with sufficient power. The sermon
swept the mists from the eyes of all those, who, on account of the
above-mentioned difficulty, had not been able to obtain a clear view,
and three days after, on the festival of the resurrection, such a
passover of the Lord was celebrated, as I have never yet seen, and the
number of those, who hankered after the flesh-pots of Egypt was less
than any one would have ventured to hope."

In the beginning, Luther also had looked at this mode of
interpretation, but discovered in the bias of his mind greater
difficulties, to which others of an external nature were added. As
early as the year 1524, he had written to the "Christians at
Strassburg:" "This I confess--if any one had been a