We willingly acknowledge that the middle ages had not ignored the wonderful work of redemption: truth was then covered with a veil rather than destroyed, and if the noxious weeds be plucked up with which the field had gradually been filled, the primitive soil is laid bare. Take away the worship paid to the Virgin, the saints, and the host; take away meritorious, magical, and supererogatory works, and other errors besides, and we arrive at simple faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is not the same when we come to the manner in which God enters again into man. Roman catholicism had gone astray in this respect; there were a few mystics in her fold who pretended to tread this mysterious way; but their heated imaginations misled them, while in the place of this inward worship the Roman doctors substituted certain ecclesiastical formalities mechanically executed. The only means of recovering this royal road was to return to the apostolical times and seek for it in the Gospel. Three acts are necessary to unite man again with God. Religion penetrates into man by the depths of his conscience; thence it rises to the height of his knowledge, and finally pervades the activity of his whole life. The conscience of man had been seared not only by the sin which clings to our nature, but also by the indulgences and mortifications imposed by the Church. It required to be vivified by faith in the atoning blood of Christ. Tradition, scholasticism, papal infallibility, mingling their confused questions and numerous superstitions with the natural darkness of the heart, man’s understanding had been completely obscured. It needed to be enlightened by the torch of God’s word. A society of priests, exercising absolute dominion, had enslaved christendom. For this theocratic and clerical society it was necessary to substitute a living society of the children of God. With Luther began the awakening of the human conscience. Terrified at the sin he discovered in himself, he found no other means of peace but faith in the grace of Christ Jesus. This starting-point of the German reformer was also that of every Reformation. To Zwingle belongs in an especial manner the work of the understanding. The first want of the Swiss reformer was to know God. He inquired into _the false and the true, the reason of faith_. Formed by the study of the Greek classics, he had the gift of understanding and interpreting Scripture, and as soon as he reached Zurich he began his career as a reformer by explaining the New Testament.