198 THE SWISS REFOEMATION.
For a history of Einsiedeln, see Beschreibung des Klosters unci der Wallfahrt Maria-Einsiedeln. Einsiedeln. Benziger & Co. 122 pp.
The wood-cut on p. 197 represents the abbey as it was before and at the time of Zwingli, and is a fair specimen of a rich medieval abbey, with church, dwellings for the brethren, library, school, and gardens. Einsiedeln lies in a dreary and sterile district, and derives its sole interest from this remarkable abbey.
§ 51. The Relative Strength of the Confessions in Sivitzerland.
We may briefly sum up the result of the Reformation in S\Yitzerland as follows : —
Seven Cantons — Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Freiburg, and Soluthurn (Soleur) — remained firm to the faith of their ancestors. Four Cantons, including the two strongest — Ziirich, Bern, Basel, and Schaffhausen — adopted the Reformed faith. Five Cantons — Glarus, St. Gall, Apjjenzell, Thurgau, and Aargau — are nearly equally divided between the two Confessions. Of the twenty-three subject towns and districts, only Morat and Granson became wholly Protestant, sixteen retained their former religion, and five were divided. In the Grisons nearly two-thirds of the population adopted the Zwinglian Reformation ; but the Protestant gains in the Valtellina and Chiavenna were lost in the seventeenth century. Ticino and Wallis are Roman Catholic. In the French Cantons — Geneva, Canton de Vaud, and Neuchatel — the Reformation achieved a complete victory, chiefly through the labors of Calvin.
Since the middle of the sixteenth century the numerical relation of the two Churches has undergone no material change. Protestantism has still a majority of about half a million in a population of less than three millions. The Roman Catholic Church has considerably increased by immigration from Savoy and France, but has suffered some loss by the Old Catholic secession in 1870 under the lead of Bishop Herzog. The Methodists and Baptists are making progress chiefly in those parts where infidelity and indifferentism reign.
§ 52. ZWINGLI REDIVIVUS. 199
Each Canton still retains its connection with one or the other of the two Churches, and has its own church establishment; but the bond of union has been gradually relaxed, and religious liberty extended to dissenting communions, as Methodists, Baptists, Irvingites, and Old Catholics. The former exclusiveness is abolished, and the principle of parity or equality before the law is acknowledged in all the Cantons.
An impartial comparison between the Roman Catholic and the Reformed Cantons reveals the same difference as exists between Southern and Northern Ireland, Eastern and Western Canada, and other parts of the world where the two Churches meet in close proximity. The Roman Catholic Cantons have preserved more historical faith and superstition, churchly habits and customs ; the Protestant Cantons surpass them in general education and intelligence, wealth and temporal prosperity ; while in point of morality both are nearly equal.
§ 52. Ziviyigli Redivivus.
The last words of the dying Zwingli, " They may kill the body, but cannot kill the soul," have been verified in his case. His body was buried with his errors and defects, but his spirit still lives ; and his liberal views on infant salvation, and the extent of God's saving grace beyond the limits of the visible Church, which gave so much offence in his age, even to the Reformers, have become almost articles of faith in evangelical Christendom.
Ulrich Zwingli is, next to Martin Luther and John Knox, the most popular among the Reformers.^ He moved in sympathy with the common people; he spoke and wrote their language ; he took part in their public affairs ; he was a faithful pastor of the old and young, and imbedded himself in their affections; while Erasmus, Melanchthon, (Ecolam-
1 The German voJksthumUch expresses the idea better than popular.
200 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
padius, Cahin, Beza, and Cranmer stood aloof from the masses. He was a man of the people and for the people, — a t}7ncal Swiss ; as Luther was a typical German. Both fairly represented the virtues and faults of their nation. Both were the best hated as well as the best loved men of their age, according to the faith which divided, and still di\ddes, their countrjTiien.
Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli have been honored by a fourth centennial commemoration of their birth, — the one in 1883, the other in 1884. Such honor is almost without a precedent, at least in the history of theology.^
The Zwingli festival was not merely an echo of the Luther festival, but was observed throughout the Reformed churches of Europe and America ^^-ith genuine enthasiasm, and gave rise to an extensive Zwingli literature. It is in keeping with the generous Christian spirit which the Swiss Reformer showed towards the German Reformer at Marburg, that many Reformed churches in Switzerland, as well as elsewhere, heartily united in the preceding jubilee of Luther, forgetting the bitter controvei-sies of the sixteenth century, and remembering gratefully his great services to the cause of truth and liljerty.^
In the following year (Aug. 25, 1885), a bronze statue was erected to Zwingli at Ziirich in front of the Wasserkirche and Cit}' Library, beneath the minster where he preached. It rejjreseuts the Reformer as a manly figure, looking trustfully up to heaven, Avith the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, — a combination true to history. Dr. Alexander
^ I say "almost." In 1880, five hundred years after the completion of Wiclif's English Bible, his memory was celebrated throughout the Englishspeaking Protestant world in five continents. The sixth centenary of Dante's birth was celebrated in 1^65 in Florence and all Italy. The last divine whose centennial birthday was observed is Neander, the Church historian. An eloquent commemorative oration was delivered on that occasion by Dr. Harnack, his successor, in the Aula of the University of Berlin, .Jan. 17, 1889.
- See the literature on the Zwingli centennial in § 5, pp. 17 sq. and the literature of the Luther celebration in vol. VI. 104 sq. and 730.