by fire and floods. The good people of the place were taught to believe that these calamities had befallen them for the sin they had committed in insulting a nuncio of the Pope. The nuncio, to punish the affront he had received at their hands, and which reflected on the Church whose servant he was, had excommunicated them, and cursed them, and threatened to bury their village seven fathoms deep in the earth. They had recourse to Samson to lift off a malediction which had already brought so many woes upon them, and the last and most dreadful of which yet awaited them. The lords of Bern used their mediation for the poor people.
The good monk was compassionate. He granted, but of course not without a sum of money, a plenary indulgence, which removed the excommunication of the nuncio, and permitted the inhabitants to sleep in peace. Whether it is owing to Samson's indulgence we shall not say, but the fact is undeniable that the little town of Aarberg is above ground to this day. At Bern, so pleased was the monk with his success, that he signalized his departure with a marvellous feat of generosity. The bells were tolling his leave-taking, when Samson caused it to be proclaimed that he "delivered from the torments of purgatory and of hell all the souls of the Benrose who are dead, whatever may have been the manner or the place of their death." What sums it would have saved the good people of Bern, had he made that announcement on the first day of his visit! At Bern, Lupullus, formerly the schoolmaster, now canon, and whom we have already met with as one of Zwingli's teachers, was Samson's interpreter.
"When the wolf and the fox prowl about together," said one of the canons to De Wattville, the provost, "your safest plan, my gracious lord, is to shut up your sheep and your geese." These remarks, as they broke no bones, and did not spoil his market, Samson bore with exemplary good nature.
From Bern, Samson went on to Baden. The Bishop of Constance, in whose diocese Baden was situated, had forbidden his clergy to admit the indulgence-monger into their pulpits, not because he disapproved his trade, but because Samson had not asked his permission before entering his diocese, or had his commission countersigned by him. The Cure of Baden, however, had not courage to shut the door of his pulpit in the face of the Pope's commissioner.
After a brisk trade of some days, the monk proposed to signalise his deparure by an act of grace, similar to that with which he had closed his performances in Bern. After mass, he formed a procession, and putting himself at its head, he marched round the churchyard, himself and troop chanting the office for the dead. Suddenly he stopped, looked fixedly up into the sky, and after a minute's pause, he shouted out, "Ecce volant! " – " See how they fly!" These were the souls escaping through the open gates of purgatory and winging their way to Paradise. It struck a wag who was present that he would give a practical commentary on the flight of the souls to heaven. He climbed to the top of the steeple, taking with him a bag of feathers, which he proceeded to empty into the air. As the feathers were descending like snow-flakes on Samson and his company, the man exclaimed, "Ecce Volant! " – " See how they fly!" The monk burst into a rage. To have the grace of holy Church so impiously travestied was past endurance. Such horrible profanation of the wholesome institution of indulgences, he declared, destowed nothing less than burning. But the citizens pacified him by saying that the man's wits were at times disordered. Be this as it may, it had turned the laugh against Samson, who departed from Baden somewhat crestfallen.
Samson continued his journey, and gradually approached Zurich. At every step he dispensed his pardons, and yet his stock was no nearer being exhausted than when he crossed the Alps. On the way he was told that Zwingli was thundering against him from the pulpit of the cathedral. He went forward, notwithstanding. He would soon put the preacher to silence. As he came nearer, Zwingli waxed the bolder and the plainer. "God only can forgive," said the preacher, with a solemnity that awed his hearers; "none on earth can pardon sin. You may buy this man's papers, but be assured you are not absolved. He who sells indulgences is a sorcerer, like Simon Magus; a false prophet, like Balaam; an ambassador of the king of the bottomless pit, for to those dismal portals rather than to the gates of Paradise do indulgences lead."
Samson reached Zurich to find its gates closed, and the customary cup of wine – a hint that he was not expected to enter – waiting him. Feigning to be charged with a special message from the Pope to the Diet, he was admitted into the city. At his audience it was found that he had forgotten his message, for the sufficient reason that he had never received any. IIe was ignominiously sent away without having sold so much as a single pardon in Zurich. Soon thereafter he re-crossed the Alps, dragging over their steeps a wagonful of coin, the fruits of his robbery, and returned to his masters in Italy.
He was not long gone when another visitant appeared in Switzerland, sent of God to purify and invigorate the movement – to scatter the good seed on the soil which Zwingli had ploughed and broken up. That visitant was the plague or "Great Death." It broke out in the August of that same year, 1519. As it spread from valley to valley, inflicting frightful ravages, men felt what a mockery were the pardons which thousands, a few months before, had flocked to purchase. It reached Zurich, and Zwingli, who had gone to the baths of Pfaffers to recruit his health, exhausted by the labors of the summer, hastened back to his flock. He was hourly by the bedside of the sick or the dying. On every side of him fell friends, acquaintances, stricken down by the destroyer. He himself had hitherto escaped his shafts, but now he too was attacked. He lay at the point of death. Utterly prostrate, all hope of life was taken away. It was at this moment that he penned his little hymn, so simple, yet not a little dramatic, and breathing a resignation so entire, and a faith so firm –
"Lo! at the door
I hear Death's knock!
Shield me, O Lord,
My strength and rock.
"The hand once nailed
Upon the tree,
Jesus, uplift –
And shelter me,
"Willest Thou, then,
Death conquer me
In my noon-day?... So let it be!
"Oh! may I die,
Since I am Thine;
Thy home is made
For faith like mine."
Thus he examined, at that awful moment, the foundations of his faith; he lifted his eyes to the cross; he knew whom he had believed; and being now more firmly persuaded than ever of the Gospel's truth, having put it to the last awful test, he returned from the gates of the grave to preach it with even more spirituality and fervor than before. Tidings of his death had been circulated in Basle, in Lucerne – in short, all the cities of the Confederation. Everywhere men heard with dismay that the great preacher of Switzerland had gone to his grave. Their joy was great in proportion when they learned that Zwingli still lived. Both the Reformer and the country had been chastened, purified, and prepared, the one for his mighty task, and the other for the glorious transformation that awaited it.
CHAPTER 9
EXTENSION OF THE REFORMATION TO BERN AND OTHER SWISS TOWNS
A Solemn Meeting – Zwingli Preaches with greater Life – Human Merit and Gospel Virtue – The Gospel Annihilates the one, Nourishes the other – Power of Love – Zwingli's Hearers Increase – His Labors – Conversions – Extension of the Movement to other Swiss Towns – Basle – Lucerne – Oswald Myconius – Labors in Lucerne – Opposition – Is Thrust out – Bern – Establishment of the Reformation there.
WHEN
