Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/58

32 the respect and attachment of his parishioners, and his virtues had gained him the friendship of the best men of the Canton."

Now, however lovely this picture may be of the virtuous Reformer, the authority for it is himself. His biographer whom I have quoted lived more than two centuries and a half after his death. In this account not one word is inserted, not one hint is dropped, that Zwingli's life in Glarus was the reverse of reputable. Yet this was so notorious that his friend Bullinger was forced to notice it in his memoir, and to own that Zwingli's unpopularity in Glarus was not solely due to his Protestantism. Bullinger's words are: "On this account was he held in disfavour and opposition by several honourable people in the county, that he was suspected of having seduced several women. As at that time the Papacy forbade priests to have wives, they were often suspected and even fell into incontinence, and harlotry; so Zwingli's musical powers and love of display made him to be suspected, and not without cause, for he did it through wantonness, and was guilty."

His friend Mycomius, who shared his opinions, was scandalized, and wrote to the Reformer on December 3, 1518, advising him to give up his music, and asks, "How about that girl whom you have seduced?"

Zwingli in his Archeteles draws a picture of his own pure soul striving after the truth, and thence his biographers have drawn their account of his life at Glarus.

Christoffel, in his ex parte life of the Reformer, excuses him, by showing that there existed much immorality among the Catholic clergy at the time. No doubt it was so, and it was precisely these debauched priests who became the most zealous Reformers; and there is abundant evidence to show that they remained immoral as Evangelical pastors.

Haller, the Bernese Reformer, was expelled from Thun for his licentiousness, and he sent one of his pastors, who had been convicted of adultery, to Zwingli to be given a cure of souls at Zürich. Ludwig Hetzer, a bosom friend of Zwingli, was executed at Constance in 1529 for having led both maidens and married women astray in large numbers. At Basle, the Evangelical