Even here Zuinglius found opportunity to serve his Master. His affability won the heart of several of the patients, among others a celebrated poet, Philip Ingentinus, professor at Friburg, in Brigau,[732] who thenceforward became a zealous supporter of the Reformation. [732] Illic tum comitatem tuam e sinu uberrimo profluentem, non injucunde sum expertus. (Zw. Ep. p. 119.) Then I had the pleasure of experiencing your affability, the offspring of an exhuberant heart. God watched over his own work, and was pleased to hasten it. Zuinglius' defect lay in his strength. Strong in body, strong in character, strong in talents, he was to see all these varieties of strength broken, that he might thereby become such an instrument as God loves to employ. He stood in need of a baptism, that of adversity, infirmity, feebleness, and pain. Such a baptism Luther had received at that period of agony when the cell and long passages of the convent of Erfurt resounded with his cries. Zuinglius was to receive it by being brought into contact with sickness and death. The heroes of this world--the Charles Twelfths and Napoleons--have a moment which is decisive of their career and their glory, and it is when they all at once become conscious of their strength. There is an analogous moment in the life of God's heroes, but it is in a contrary direction; it is when they recognise their impotence and nothingness; thenceforth they receive strength from on high. Such a work as that of which Zuinglius was to be the instrument is never accomplished by man's natural strength; it would immediately wither away like a tree transplanted after its full growth, and when in full leaf. A plant must be feeble in order to take root, and a grain of corn must die in the ground before it can yield a full return. God led Zuinglius, and with him the work of which he was the stay, to the gates of the grave. It is from among bones and darkness, and the dust of the dead, that God is pleased to take the instruments, by means of which he illumines, regenerates, and revives the earth. [Sidenote: ZUINGLIUS ATTACKED BY THE PLAGUE.]