Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/160

176 death, the splendid convent of Königsfelden, where she herself lived in an ostentatious sanctity, which attracted the admiration of the thoughtless; then it was, that a pious hermit, Berchtold Strobert, refused her the absolution which she desired, addressing to her these severe words:

“Lady, it is a miserable God's service, to shed innocent blood, and to build convents with the spoil! God has more delight in kindness and mercy!” And when, at the close of the fifteenth century, many of the Swiss Cantons, after long dissensions, were on the eve of coming to a bloody quarrel with each other, it was Brother Klaus, who, by his appearance in the Diet at Stanz, and his affecting and wise address to the Sworn-Confederates, succeeded in uniting them afresh. Berne, Lucerne, and Zürich, gave up their “Sonderbund,” all the Cantons made mutual concessions, and Freyburg and Soleure, came into the Confederacy. A few years after having rendered this important service to his native land, Nicholas de Flue died, at the age of seventy. During his hermit-life he was a general benefactor and good counselor for the whole country round. The pictures of him, represent him as a very meagre form, in a capuchin cloak, bare-headed, and bare-footed. He is thus painted in his entrance to the Diet-chamber at Stanz.

In these Cantons, Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwytz, the smallest and poorest in Switzerland, we have encountered very little poverty, and seen only one beggar, a proof that the government takes good care of the common-weal. The land is everywhere beautiful and well cultivated.