Other debates were commenced in the presence of the magistrates and of the people. At last, on the 12th of April, 1525, an ordinance for abolishing the Mass and celebrating the communion according to the simplicity of the Gospel appeared. The difference of the age and manners should be noticed here. In the sixteenth century, the civil power decided upon the change of religion; in the nineteenth century this would be thought an intolerable usurpation. As civilization advances, it gradually diminishes, in spiritual matters, the authority of the state, and increases that of the individual. The Helvetic cantons having taken different sides, some that of Rome, others that of the Reformation, a war of religion, the worst of all wars, broke out among them. It was an ancient custom for the chief pastor of Zurich to accompany the army. Zwinglius conformed to the practice. The historian Ruchat relates that he marched as if he were conducted to death, and that those who watched his demeanour observed that he ceased not to pray to God to guard in safe-keeping his soul and the church. On the 11th of October, 1531, he was struck down on the battle-field of Cappel. He regained his feet, but, pressed by the crowd of fugitives, he thrice fell. “Alas, what misfortune is this?” he cried. “Well! they may kill the body, but they cannot slay the soul.” These were the last words he could articulate. Stretched upon his back, with joined hands, and eyes bent on heaven, the motion of his lips alone showed that he prayed. Some soldiers having lifted him up without knowing who he was, asked if he wished to confess, and invoke the Virgin and the saints. He indicated his dissent by a sign of the head, and upraising his eyes, continued his silent prayers. “_It is an obstinate heretic!_” shouted the soldiers, and an officer stabbing him in the throat with a pike, put an end to his existence. According to some, Ulrich Zwinglius was forty-four years of age; according to others, forty-seven. Many different judgments have been passed upon this tragic end, and we may still see in them the change of opinions. Our times would, at least, deplore the death of a minister of the Gospel in the midst of a scene of carnage: such was not the manner of thinking three centuries ago. “Discharging the duties of his ministry in the army, Zwinglius,” says Theodore de Bèze, “was slain in battle, and his body was burnt by the enemy: God thus honouring his servant with a double crown, seeing that a man could not die after a more honourable and more holy fashion, than by losing this corruptible life for the safety of his country, and for the glory of God.”[6] In spite of checks of more than one kind, the Reformation spread rapidly throughout a great part of Europe, and took root.