His work as a Reformer began almost at once. Bernhard Samson or Sanson, a seller of indulgences for Switzerland, came to Zurich to push his trade. Zwingli had already encountered him at Einsiedeln, and, prompted by the Bishop of Constance and his vicar-general, John Faber, both of whom disliked the indulgences, had preached against him. He now persuaded the Council of Zurich to forbid Samson's stay in the town. The papal treatment of the Swiss Reformer was very different from what had been meted out to Luther. Samson received orders from Rome to give no trouble to the Zurichers, and to leave the city rather than quarrel with them. The difference, no doubt, arose from the desire of the _Curia_ to do nothing to hinder the supply of Swiss soldiers for the papal wars; but it was also justified by the contrast in the treatment of the subject by the two Reformers. Luther struck at a great moral abuse, and his strokes cut deeply into the whole round of mediæval religious life, with its doctrine of a special priesthood; he made men see the profanity of any claim made by men to pardon sin, or to interfere between their fellow-men and God. Zwingli took the whole matter more lightly. His position was that of Erasmus and the Humanists. He could laugh at and ridicule the whole proceeding, and thought most of the way in which men allowed themselves to be gulled and duped by clever knaves. He never touched the deep practical religious question which Luther raised, and which made his challenge to the Papacy reverberate over Western Europe. From the outset Zwingli became a prominent figure in Zurich. He announced to the astonished Chapter of the Great Minster, to whom he owed his appointment, that he meant to give a series of continuous expositions of the Gospel of St. Matthew; that he would not follow the scholastic interpretation of passages in the Gospel, but would endeavour to make Scripture its own interpreter. The populace crowded to hear sermons of this new kind. In order to reach the country people, Zwingli preached in the market-place on the Fridays, and his fame spread throughout the villages. The Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinian Eremites tried to arouse opposition, but unsuccessfully. In his sermons he denounced sins suggested in the passages expounded, and found occasion to deny the doctrines of Purgatory and the Intercession of Saints.