Who, in our times, will not approve of this mild speech? And to what do the Protestants of this 19th century owe it, that they can hold these views peacefully? that no faith of the letter drives them to a renunciation of innocent feelings, to unrighteous, repulsive severity, and to a stiff and wanton tyranny of creeds, such as meets us in the 17th century? To the progress of science alone--science, which teaches how to distinguish between the letter and the spirit--science, which the coward only fears, which he, who knows her not, only can calumniate. But how very far in the rear was such science in Zwingli's age! Philology, history, an enlarged knowledge of nature and geography--what light have they not since furnished for the explanation of the Holy Scriptures! With what wonderful rapidity the results of scientific investigation, universally intelligible, are poured out by an unfettered press among the multitude! Questions must now be started, _can not be kept back_, on which nobody then, or at least a very few, ever thought; and if three centuries ago a knowledge of grammar only was needed for the interpretation of Scripture, there is now need of philosophy also. Still, in a book designed for general information, we cannot enter deeply into what is scientific. It is enough to shew plainly, that Zwingli must not be judged by the ideas of our age, if in the discussion about images he opposed his friend Schmied. In the noble feelings of the latter he shared, but surpassed Lim, in a just appreciation of the age and its immediate wants, and in the logical carrying out of a well-weighed system. Only by holding firmly to the very language of Holy Scripture could he keep his ground against his numerous opponents, for only thus far were his hearers able to follow him. We will see hereafter what difficulties he prepared for himself, when, instead of clinging to the letter in explaining the words of the eucharist, he yielded to a freer spirit. "Well has my lord and brother said"--so Zwingli answered Schmied's objections--"that we ought to put away the false images in our hearts by the preaching of God's Word. I hope too that Leo and I have not been negligent in this; but he has spoken ill, when he calls images 'the staves of the weak.' Where is there any passage of this sort in the Holy Scripture? But we are to follow its plain language. And it is clear as day, that it permits no images, least of all those of gold and silver, of whose value poverty is deprived." Hofmeister also thought, that, according to the commission he had received, he must admonish the commander to contend only with Scripture. The latter, from respect to the order of the government, did not prolong the colloquy.