History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, &c., Volume 4Merle d'Aubigné, J. H. (Jean Henri)
History
History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, &c., Volume 4
Merle d'Aubigné, J. H. (Jean Henri)
Reformation
Such discoveries unfortunately excited the passions of the multitude.
One evening some evil disposed persons, wishing to alarm the poor nuns
of St. Catherine, who had obstinately resisted the Reform, surrounded
the convent with loud cries. In vain did the nuns barricade the doors;
the walls were soon scaled, and the good wine, meat, confectionaries,
and all the far from ascetic delicacies of the cloister became the
prey of these rude jesters. Another persecution awaited them: Doctor
Schappeler having been appointed their catechist, they were
recommended to lay aside their monastic dress, and to attend his
heretical sermons "clothed like all the world," said the sister
Wiborath. Some of them embraced the Reform, but thirty others
preferred exile.[942] On the 5th February 1528, a numerous synod
framed the constitution of the church of St. Gall.
[942] Arx. Gesch. St. Gall, ii. p. 529. J. J. Hottinger, p. 416.
Müller; Hottinger, ii. p. 91.
[Sidenote: CONTESTS.]
The struggle was more violent at Glaris. The seeds of the Gospel
truth, which Zwingle had scattered there, had prospered but little.
The men in power anxiously rejected every innovation, and the people
loved better "to leap and dance, and work miracles, _glass in hand_,"
as an old chronicle says, "than to busy themselves about the Gospel."
The Landsgemeinde having pronounced, on the 15th May 1528, in favour
of the Mass by a majority of thirty-three voices, the two parties were
marked out with greater distinctness: the images were broken at Matt,
at Elm, at Bettschwanden, and as each man remained aloof in his own
house and village, there was no longer in the canton either council of
state or tribunal of justice. At Schwanden, the minister Peter
Rumelin, having invited the Roman-catholics to a disputation with him
in the church, the latter, instead of discussing, marched in
procession to the sound of drums round the place of worship in which
the Reformed were assembled, and then rushing into the pastor's house,
which was situated in the middle of the city, destroyed the stoves and
the windows: the irritated Reformed took their revenge and broke the
images. On the 15th April 1529, an agreement was concluded, by virtue
of which every man was free to choose between the Mass and the Sermon.
[Sidenote: SPREAD OF REFORM.]
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