182 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
of his friend, Henry Bullinger, to energetic action, but in vain. " May God protect you, dear Henry ; remain faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ and his Church."
These were the last words he spoke to his worthy successor. As he left, a mysterious personage, clothed in a snow-white robe, suddenly appeared, and after frightening the guards at the gate plunged into the water, and vanished. He had a strong foreboding of an approaching calamity, and did not expect to survive it. Halley's comet, which returns every seventy-six years, appeared in the skies from the middle of August to the 3d of September, burning like the fire of a furnace, and pointing southward with its immense tail of pale yellow color. Zwingli saw in it the sign of war and of his own death. He said to a friend in the graveyard of the minster (Aug. 10), as he gazed at the ominous star, " It will cost the life of many an honorable man and my own. The truth and the Church will suffer, but Christ will never forsake us." ^ Vadian of St. Gall likewise regarded the comet as a messenger of God's wrath ; and the famous Theophrastus, who was at tliat time in St. Gall, declared that it foreboded great bloodslied and the death of illustrious men. It was then the universal opinion, shared also by Luther and Melanchthon, that comets, meteors, and eclipses were fireballs of an angry God. A frantic woman near Ziirich saw blood springing from the earth all around her, and rushed into the street with the cry, " Murder, murder ! " The atmosphere was filled with apprehensions of war and bloodshed. The blockade was continued, and all attempts at a compromise failed.
The Forest Cantons had only one course to pursue. The
1 Bullinger, III. 46 (comp. 137) : " Min Jorg [the Abbot Georg Miiller of Wettir.gen], mich und mengen eeren man [manchen Ehrenmann^ ivirt es kosten, und ivirt die ivahrheit und Kylch \^Kirche'] nodt lyden ; dock von Christiis werdent wir nit verlassen." Another contemporary gives an account of a conversation of Dr. Joachim von Watt with some friends about the meaning of the comet's appearance. It was published in the " Schweizerische Museum," II. 335.
§ 46. THE SECOND WAR OF CAPPEL. 183
law of self-preservation drove them to open war. It was forced upon them as a duty. Fired by indignation against the starvation policy of their enemies, and inspired by love for their own families, the Waldstiitters promptly organized an army of eight thousand men, and marched to the frontier of Ziirich between Zug and Cappel, Oct. 9, 1531.
The news brought consternation and terror to the Ziirichers, The best opportunity had passed. Discontent and dissension paralyzed vigorous action. Frightful omens demoralized the people. Ziirich, which two years before might easily have equipped an army of five thousand, could now hardly collect fifteen hundred men against the triple force of the enemy, who had the additional advantage of fighting for life and home.
Zwingli would not forsake his flock in this extreme danger. He mounted his horse to accompany the little army to the battle-field with the presentiment that he would never return. The horse started back, like the horse of Napoleon when he was about to cross the Niemen. Many regarded this as a bad omen; but Zwingli mastered the animal, applied the spur, and rode to Cappel, determined to live or to die with the cause of the Reformation.
The battle raged several hours in the afternoon of the eleventh of October, and was conducted by weapons and stones, after the manner of the Swiss, and with much bravery on both sides. After a stubborn resistance, the Ziirichers were routed, and lost the flower of their citizens, over five hundred men, including seven members of the Small Council, nineteen members of the Great Council of the Two Hundred, and several pastors who had marched at the head of their flocks.i
1 Bullinger, III. 130, gives the names. The total numher of the slain and mortally wounded Ziirichers was five hundred and fourteen, while the Five Cantons lost only about eighty. The leaders of the army, Georg GiJldli and Lavater, escaped, and were charged, the first with treason, the other with incompetency.