Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by Theo. F. Scheffer , in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania....

"Biographers should not busy themselves so much with deeds, as their moving causes; with what motives, by what means, for what ends and under what circumstances they were performed. If we limit ourselves to a simple detail of facts, our judgment is determined by success; and upright men are condemned as evil or imprudent, because of the unfavorable issue of their endeavors. To set forth the views of Zwingli and the high mark to which he strove to carry everything, were dangerous--would open a wi

The volume, here translated, was published in Zurich in the year 1842, and may be regarded as the fullest and most reliable history of Zwingli and his times that has yet appeared; for, in addition to the numerous works, in Latin and German, which relate to this particular period, the author has had free access to an immense mass of important and necessary state-papers, long buried in the archives of the Canton....

Zwingli in Zurich. Beginning of the Reformation. Political and ecclesiastical affairs up to the first Religious Conference,...

Religious Conference in Zurich. The government takes the place of the Bishop for the protection and superintendence of the National Church,...

Internal condition of Switzerland after the first campaign. The Abbot of St. Gall. Political results of the Marburg Conference,...

Vain attempts at reconciliation. Exportation of corn prohibited. Outbreak of War. Battle of Cappel. Zwingli's death,...

Near the source of the river Thur, in Wildhaus, a mountain-village of the Toggenburg, lived the bailiff Ulric Zwingli, with his wife Margaretta Meili, in moderate circumstances and universal esteem. Eight sons and two daughters were the fruit of their marriage. The third of these sons, born on the first of January 1484, seven weeks after Luther's birth-day, received the name of his father. A brother of the bailiff, Bartholomew Zwingli, was chosen by the burghers of Wildhaus, who a short time bef

Just as Zwingli began his reformation in Switzerland, Martin Luther made his appearance in the German Empire. Many in those times tried to disparage the work of Zwingli by asserting that he only took the words out of Luther's mouth.--Learned men are since divided, some attributing the first step to the one and some to the other. As far as religion is concerned the question is of little consequence. The corruption of the church was the same in Switzerland as in Germany. Both were men of independe

The breach, between the government of Zurich and those, who, up to this time, stood at the head of ecclesiastical affairs, was as yet by no means so decided as in the case of Zwingli. He doubtless wished it might become so. Public conferences on religious subjects had already taken place in Germany, and Zwingli himself had conducted such an one, held between him and Francis Lambert, a Franciscan monk, to a triumphant issue, though only before a narrow circle and in the Latin language. But now he

In our times we hear such frequent use of the word radicalism . What is its true meaning, according to its derivation? Action, that penetrates to the roots. We can imagine a good radicalism, which would tear out by the roots all the evil growth of life, and also a bad , which would uproot all that is good. The first strives to unite, the second to divide. Experience teaches that neither the one, nor the other, is continually prosperous. Why? Because new tares and wheat spring up anew; and again

To hold firmly to the existing order of things is not always proof of evil design, obstinacy or narrowness, as innovators are wont to assert; it may spring from strength of character, the experience of wisdom, and, if the existing order be good, even from a conviction of duty. Was this true of Catholicism? Let us apply the test. In the heart of man there lies a world full of rest and peace, full of blessed love, full of confidence in eternal duration and a God of power to uphold and protect; and

Not only was the reciprocal relation of the states within the Confederacy changed by the conclusion of the Buergerrecht ; but that of the entire nation toward foreign countries was just as much altered. Early in the beginning of February, 1528, a letter of the Emperor, written from Spire, reached Luzern, with complaints about this alliance; very similar ones were received from the authorities of the Austrian Government at Ensisheim and Inspruck, and still a fourth one from the captains of the Sw

Two primal forces live and move in man, the one more in this individual, the other more in that one; they both spring from above: Feeling and Understanding. Original, childlike Feeling is the inner law; but it does not know itself. The awakening Understanding seeks the law, but finds it not; for around them and between them settle the mist of earth, the smoke and vapors of passion. Power is needed to work their way up out of the mist; a celestial sun to scatter it. That sun is Love. In Love, as

Zwingli's absence had lasted seven weeks, from the 3d of September to the 19th of October, 1529. On his return home, he did not find the country in that peaceful condition, which the well-disposed and the short-sighted had hoped for from the conclusion of the Landfriede (General Peace), and his arrival in no wise tended to lessen the agitation. The Landfriede granted the choice of their own ecclesiastical system to the inhabitants of the Common Territories. Where the mass had been abolished and

The more rapid the advance of Zurich, the slower that of Bern became. She could count less on the support of her own subjects than the former. In the Oberland, the fire yet glowed beneath the ashes; discontent prevailed among the mass of those, who were punished on account of the rebellion of 1528. With that rude people, the Reformation, hastily carried out, and not as yet rooted in their minds and hearts, had tended to weaken the bonds of allegiance. Signs of war appeared also in the west. Gene