4 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
This republic was originally a loose, aristocratic confederac}^ of independent cantons, ruled by a diet of one house where each canton had the same number of deputies and votes, so that a majority of the Diet could defeat a majority of the people. This state of things continued till 18-48, when (after the defeat of the Sonderbund of the Roman Catholic cantons) the constitution was remodelled on democratic principles, after the American example, and the legislative power vested in two houses, one (the Standerath or Senate) consisting of forty-four deputies of the twenty-two sovereign cantons (as in the old Diet), the other (the Nationalrath or House of Representatives) representing the people in proportion to their number (one to every twenty thousand souls) ; while the executive power was given to a council of seven members (the Bundesratli) elected for three years by both branches of the legislature. Thus the confederacy of cantons was changed into a federal state, with a central government elected by the people and acting directly on the people.^
This difference in the constitution of the central authority must be kept in mind in order to understand why the Reformation triumphed in the most populous cantons, and yet was defeated in the Diet.^ The small forest cantons had each as many votes as the much larger cantons of Zurich and Berne, and kept out Protestantism from their borders till the year 1848. The loose character of the German Diet and the absence of centralization account in like manner for the victory of Protestantism in Saxony, Hesse, and other states
^ The Staatenbund became a Bundesstaat. The same difference exists between the American Confederacy during the Kevolutionary War and the United States after the war, as also between the old German Bund and the new German Empire.
2 Tlie numerical strength of Protestantism at the death of Zwingli was probably not far from two-thirds of tlie population. The relation of the two confessions has undergone no material change in Switzerland. In 1888 the Protestants numbered 1,7'24,257 ; the Koman Catholics, 1,190,008 ; the Jews, 8,;^SG.
§ 2. THE SWISS REFORMATION. 5
and imperial cities, notwithstanding tlio hostile resolutions of the majority of the Diet, which again and again demanded the execution of the Edict of Worms.
The Christianization of Switzerland began in the fourth or third century under the Roman rule, and proceeded from France and Italy. Geneva, on the border of France and Savoy, is the seat of the oldest church and bishopric founded by two bishops of Vienne in Southern Gaul. The bishopric of Coire, in the south-eastern extremity, appears first in the acts of a Synod of Milan, 452. The northern and interior sections were Christianized in the seventh century by Irish missionaries, Columban and G alius. The last founded the abbey of St. Gall, which became a famous centre of civilization for Alamannia. The first, and for a long time the only, university of Switzerland was that of Basle (1460), where one of the three reformatory councils was held (1430). During the Middle Ages the whole country, like the rest of Europe, was subject to the Roman see, and no religion was tolerated but the Roman Catholic. It was divided into six episcopal dioceses, — Geneva, Coire, Constance, Basle, Lausanne, and Sion (Sitten). The Pope had several legates in Switzerland who acted as political and military agents, and treated the little republic like a great power. The most inlluential bishop, Schinner of Sion, who did substantial service to the warlike Julius II. and Leo X., attained even a cardinal's hat. Zwingli, who knew him well, might have acquired the same dignity if he had followed his example.
§ 2. The Swiss Reformation.
The Church in Switzerland was corrupt and as much in need of reform as in Germany. The inhabitants of the old cantons around the Lake of Lucerne were, and are to this day, among the most honest and pious Catholics ; but the clergy were ignorant, superstitious, and immoral, and set a bad example to the laity. The convents were in a state of