What was done to turn aside Berne from the Reformation, was the very cause of precipitating it into the new way. The haughtiness with which the five primitive cantons arrogated the guardianship of their confederates, the secret conferences to which Berne was not even invited, and the threat of addressing the people in a direct manner, deeply offended the Bernese oligarchs. Thomas Murner, a Carmelite of Lucerne, one of those rude men who act upon the populace, but who inspire disgust in elevated minds, made the cup run over. Furious against the Zurich calendar, in which the names of the saints had been purposely omitted, he published in opposition to it the "Almanack of Heretics and Church-robbers," a tract filled with lampoons and invectives, in which the portraits of the Reformers and of their adherents, among whom were many of the most considerable men of Berne, were coupled with the most brutal inscriptions.[884] Zurich and Berne in conjunction demanded satisfaction, and from this time the union of these two states daily became closer. [884] Quum nudus-tertius _Murneri_ Calendarium legissem, partim ridendo hominis stultissimam impudentiam. (Œcolamp. to Zwingle, Febr. 1527, Epp. ii. p. 26.) This change was soon perceived at Berne. The elections of 1527 placed a considerable number of friends of the Reform in the Great Council; and this body, forthwith resuming its right to nominate the members of the Smaller Council, which had been usurped for twenty years by the Bannerets and the Sixteen, removed from the government the most decided partisans of the Roman hierarchy, and among others Gaspard de Mulinen and Sebastian de Stein,[885] and filled the vacancies with members of the Evangelical majority. The union of Church and State, which had hitherto checked the progress of the Reform in Switzerland, was now about to accelerate its movements. [885] Mullinen e Senatoria dignitate protrusus est. Lapides quoque. (Haller to Zwingle, April 25, 1527. Ibid. p. 49.) [Sidenote: ANABAPTISTS IN BERNE.] The Reformer Haller was not alone in Berne. Kolb had quitted the Carthusian monastery at Nuremberg, in which he had been compelled to take refuge, and had appeared before his compatriots, demanding no other stipend than the liberty of preaching Jesus Christ. Already bending under the weight of years, his head crowned with hoary locks, Kolb, young in heart, full of fire, and of indomitable courage, presented boldly before the chiefs of the nation that Gospel which had saved him. Haller, on the contrary, although only thirty-five years old, moved with a measured step, spoke with gravity, and proclaimed the new doctrines with unusual circumspection. The old man had taken the young man's part, and the youth that of the graybeard.