Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/177

Rh far above the prejudices and superstitious of the people. The poor people!——

But is it not the people's own fault if they remain in the dark? It was at Einsiedeln that Ulrich Zwingli, pastor of that place from 1515 to 1519, first commenced his powerful preaching against the sale of indulgences, the abuse of which he became well acquainted with at Einsiedeln. It was here that he began to preach the gospel, and the new life in Christ, in conformity with the Holy Scriptures. He preached at this very festival of the angels' consecration, so powerfully against indulgences, pilgrimages, and monastic vows, that the monks abandoned their cells and the convent was empty for a time. The mild and cheerful man became violent, and his language sometimes coarse, as indeed it usually was at this time, when he saw the failing of the church and the sins of the people.

“I know it,” he said, in palliation of himself, “those great sinners kindle my wrath. But Christ, Peter, and Paul also, attacked them with violence. I am very far from finding any pleasure in abuse; I am generally of so gentle, conceding, and good-tempered a character, that it troubles me!”

It was at Einsiedeln, that Zwingli saw the same criminal persons return year after year, laden with the same and renewed crime, to seek for absolution by kissing the holy relics, or by the purchase of indulgences, and learned more deeply to comprehend the wants of the people and the age. “In truth,” said he, “the greatest villains come hither merely to get fresh courage, and not one is ever reformed!”