Zuinglius has marked out this period (1516) as the commencement of the Swiss Reformation. In fact, if four years before he had bent his head over the Word of God, he now raised it, and turned it toward his people, to make them share in the light which he had found. This forms a new and important epoch in the history of the development of the religious revolution of those countries, but it has been erroneously concluded, from these dates, that the Reformation of Zuinglius preceded that of Luther. It may be that Zuinglius preached the gospel a year before Luther's Theses, but Luther himself preached it four years before these famous propositions.[660] Had Luther and Zuinglius confined themselves merely to sermons, the Reformation would not have so quickly gained ground in the Church. Neither Luther nor Zuinglius was the first monk or the first priest who preached a purer doctrine than that of the schoolmen. But Luther was the first who publicly, and with indomitable courage, raised the standard of truth against the empire of error, called general attention to the fundamental doctrine of the gospel--salvation by grace, introduced his age to that new career of knowledge, faith, and life, out of which a new world has arisen; in a word, began a true and salutary revolution. The great struggle, of which the Theses of 1517 were the signal, was truly the birth-throe of the Reformation, giving it at once both a body and a soul. Luther was the first Reformer. [660] First Volume. A spirit of enquiry began to breathe on the mountains of Switzerland. One day the curate of Glaris, happening to be in the smiling district of Mollis, with Adam its curate, Bunzli, curate of Wesen, and Varachon, curate of Kerensen, these friends discovered an old liturgy, in which they read these words: "After baptising the child, we give him the sacrament of the Eucharist and the cup of blood."[661] "Then," said Zuinglius, "the supper was at that period dispensed in our churches under the two kinds." The liturgy was about two hundred years old. This was a great discovery for these priests of the Alps. [661] Detur Eucharistiæ sacramentum, similiter poculum sanguinis. (Zw. Op. i, p. 266.) Let the sacrament of the Eucharist be given, likewise the cup of blood. The defeat of Marignan had important results in the interior of the cantons. The conqueror, Francis I, lavished gold and flattery in order to gain the confederates, while the emperor besought them by their honour, by the tears of widows and orphans, and the blood of their brethren, not to sell themselves to their murderers. The French party gained the ascendancy at Glaris, which, from that time, was an uncomfortable residence to Ulric. [Sidenote: OUR LADY OF EINSIDLEN.]