§ 37. THE REFORMATION IN THE GRISONS. 141
as pastor and evangelist in Domleschg, Langwies, and Coire. He was born on the eastern frontier of Graubiinden in 1504, and began to preach already in 1520. He had an irresistible eloquence and power of persuasion. When he spoke in Romansh, the people flocked from every direction to hear him. He was the chief speaker at two disputations in Siis, a town of the Lower Engadin, against the Papists (1537), and against the Anabaptists (1544).i He also introduced the Reformation in Zuz in the Lower Engadin, 1554, with the aid of John Travers, a distinguished patriot, statesman, soldier, and lay-preacher, who was called " the steelclad knight in the service of the Lord."
Gallicius suffered much persecution and poverty, but remained gentle, patient, and faithful to the end. When preaching in the Domleschg he had not even bread to feed his large family, and lived for weeks on vegetables and salt. And yet he educated a son for the ministry at Basel, and dissuaded him from accepting a lucrative offer in another calling. He also did as much as he could for the Italian refugees. He died of the pestilence with his wife and three sons at Coire, 1566.
He translated the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments, and several chapters of the Bible, into the Romansh language, and thus laid the foundation of the Romansh literature. He also wrote a catechism and a Latin grammar, which were printed at Coire. He prepared the Confession of Reetia, in 1552, which was afterwards superseded by the Confession of BuUinger in 1566.
Ulrich Campell (b. c. 1510, d. 1582) was pastor at Coire and at Siis, and, next to Gallicius, the chief reformer of the Engadin. He is also the first historian of Rsetia and one of the founders of the religious literature in Romanic Rsetia. His history is written in good Latin, and based upon personal observation, the accounts of the ancient Romans, 1 a full account of the first disputation in Campell, II. 342-366.
142 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
the researches of Tschudi, and communications of Bullinger and Vadian. It begins a.d. 100 and ends about 1582,
The Romansh literature was first cultivated during the Reformation.^ Gallicius, Campell, and Biveroni (Bifrun) are the founders of it. Campell prepared a metrical translation of the Psalter, with original hymns and a catechism (1562). Jacob Biveroni, a lawyer of Samaden, published a translation of Comander's Catechism, which was printed at Poschiavo, 1552, and (with the aid of Gallicius and Campell) the entire New Testament, which appeared first in 1560 at Basel, and became the chief agency in promoting the evangelical faith in those regions. The people, who knew only the Romansh language, says a contemporary, "Avere amazed like the Israelites of old at the sight of the manna."
The result of the labors of the Reformers and their successors in Graubiinden was the firm establishment of an evangelical church which numbered nearly two-thirds of the population ; while one-third remained Roman Catholic. This numerical relation has substantially remained to this day with some change in favor of Rome, though not by conversion, but by emigration and immigration. The two churches live peacefully together. The question of religion was decided in each community by a majority vote, like any political or local question. The principle of economy often gave the decision either for the retention of the Roman priest, or the choice of a Reformed preacher.^ Some stingy congregations remained vacant to get rid of all obligations, or hired now a priest, now a preacher for a short season. Gallicius complained to Bullinger about this independence which favored
1 "Erst die lieformation," says Leoiihardi (Philipp Gallicius, p. 87), "hat eine rhdto-romanische Literatur (jeschaffen. Die MCnche unci Priester behaupteten, del- Engadiner Dialect sei so verdorhen, dass er keines schriftlichen Ausdruckes fdhig sei."
2 The same regard for economy inclines at this day some Roman Catholic congregations to prefer a Capuchin monk to a secular priest. So I was informed by the Archivarius of the bishop of Coire in June, 1890.