Zwingli's absence had lasted seven weeks, from the 3d of September to the 19th of October, 1529. On his return home, he did not find the country in that peaceful condition, which the well-disposed and the short-sighted had hoped for from the conclusion of the _Landfriede_ (General Peace), and his arrival in no wise tended to lessen the agitation. The _Landfriede_ granted the choice of their own ecclesiastical system to the inhabitants of the Common Territories. Where the mass had been abolished and images burned or carried away, according to its letter, they who did these things could not be punished, either in person, standing or property; but just as little, on the other hand, in places where they still existed, could those who preached a different doctrine enter, until invited by a majority of the parishioners. Special conferences between cantons were interdicted, in so far as they had reference to the affairs of the Confederacy, but allowed to those who were authorized to transact business for the _Buergerrecht_ and alliances of like character. The following injunction was issued by the deputies of all the Thirteen Cantons: "In order that we may not be again plunged into disunion and greater discord, through reviling and recrimination, all and every one shall be specially forbidden, on pain of severe punishment, to deal in unbecoming scandal, wanton, useless and injurious words of shame, abuse, filth and insult, scornful expressions, disparagements and taunts, such as human ingenuity knows how to devise; no one shall any longer venture to pick at, assail or blacken his neighbor with slanders, books of libel, prints, sayings, songs, verses and other means of provocation; but each one shall suffer his neighbor to remain quiet, undisturbed and in every way unmolested in the enjoyment of peace." The summer of the following year was fixed upon as the time of payment for the indemnity to cover the additional expenses incurred by the war and the support of the surviving relatives of the pastor Kaiser, who was burned at the stake, and authority was given to the Reformed Cities to stop the export of provisions into the Five Cantons, in case of refusal. In regard to the rents, tithes and revenues of the monasteries and clerical foundations, they could either continue as heretofore, be allowed under changed conditions, or abolished altogether. Every one of these articles contained material for a future explosion. It was impossible to comply with them fully, because on the one side a conviction of their justice or expediency was wanting, and on the other they were considered as far too lax in their requirements--because individual cases usually occurred in such a shape that their conditions were not applicable in every particular, and finally, because the embers of passion still glowed in the bosoms of those who were in power; and among the leaders of both parties, the desire of carrying out their own ecclesiastical system or political