is distinguished, to its hearty acceptance and defence of the doctrines and followers of the Reformation. It is a most impressive lesson to compare the history of Zurich at the north, with that of Locarno at the south, of the Swiss territory. About the year 1530 a devout monk from Milan, Beccaria by name, came to Locarno as an earnest teacher of Evangelical Truth. The Romish governor of the bailiwick had the preacher thrown into prison; hoping in this way to stop the fire of the Reformation from spreading. But it had already burned too deep and too far; the people surrounded the castle of the governor and compelled him to release their preacher, who afterwards escaped into the Val Misocco. The next step of the governor, under authority of the seven Romish Cantons, was to command all the disciples of the Reformation to attend mass, under pain of outlawry. The Pope, by his Nuncio with the Priests, continued to aggravate the persecution, until the resolution was taken to banish the Protestants with their families from their homes for ever. The decree was issued in March, 1555. In the town-hall of Locarno, one hundred and fifty followers of the Reformed faith received sentence of exile, and immediately set out, amidst all the severity of the season, across savage mountains, to find a kinder home, where the beliefs so dear to conscience, and so sacred to the sight of God, would be revered by man, and permitted in their cherished exercise. From that period, the decay of Locarno in industry and prosperity followed, while Zurich received a new source of wealth and an additional element of art and refinement. "The evan gelical confederates," says Zschokke, "welcomed them with true Christian charity, and more than a hundred of these unfortunate exiles, amongst whom were many affluent and learned men, as Orelli, Muralt, and others, found an asylum at Zurich, where their families are distinguished to the present day. By their means the art of weaving silk was introduced into Zurich; they also established mills and dyeing houses, and contributed so much by their industry to the prosperity of the town, that its celebrity was soon extended far beyond the limits of Switzerland." After the sentence of banishment from Locarno had been pronounced by the deputies, the Pope's Nuncio, with a couple of Inquisitors, made their appearance, and with great severity exclaimed against the mildness of the punishment. They demanded of the council, on pain of the Pope's indignation, to add the penalty of confiscation to that of banishment, to take away all the property of the exiles, and to separate from them their children also, in order to have them educated in the Romish faith. The Romish deputies, to their praise be it spoken, would not listen to these cruel persuasions on the part of the Priests and his Holiness, but made answer that they never reversed a sentence once pronounced. CHAPTER XXXVI. Scenery on the Lake of Zurich.-Poetry for Pilgrims.-Grandeur of the Lake of Wallenstadt. THE scenery on the Lake of Zurich resembles that upon Long Island Sound, and upon some of our New-England rivers. It is of a quiet beauty, with an air of neatness, freedom, and content in the villages, which appear to great advantage, rising with their church steeples and tiled roofs up the hill sides from the lake. The day we left for Wallenstadt and Coire, the steamer was crowded with pilgrims for Einsiedeln. Most of them landed at Richtensweil, for a walk of bead-tellings and aves over the mountains, to the shrine of their faith, the "Star of the Sea." God grant they may one day find in Christ that "rest unto their souls," which they will seek in vain at the sooty image of Mary in Einsiedeln. Neither age nor infirmity can move them from their purpose. Dr. Beattie, in his excellent work on Switzerland, tells us that while he and his friends were spending the month of September near the Lake of Zurich, they saw among the pilgrims a venerable matron a hundred and eight years old, who had walked every step of the way from the remotest corner of Normandy in France, for the performance of a vow to Mary of the Swiss Mountains! What singular energy of superstition, at a time when all the faculties of life wear out! The vesper hymns of the pilgrims rose impressively upon the air in the still autumnal evenings, and one idea, one principle, seemed to govern and absorb them all. Many of them, Dr. Beattie remarks, looked sickly, wan, and exhausted, the health, which they came sadly to beg of Mary at Einsiedeln, being lost still more hopelessly by the fatigues and fastings of the way. Poor, deluded pilgrims! Is it not sad to see them, wandering the world over after health and peace, but never coming to the Great Physician! Rest, rest, rest ;-this is the object of all their toils, toils, toils;-but no toils of the body can ever give inward quiet, or allay sin's fitful fever in the soul, or prevent the remorseful tones in the depths of our fallen being, that are ever and anon rushing up with wild prophecies from the soul's inner chambers, like the sound of a gong in subterranean dungeons. Alas, what a mistake, to wander so far, so sadly, so wearily without, for that which is to be found only within, and only in Christ within. These angel will-worshippers, and voluntary humilitarians, and body-punishers, are the strangest quacks that ever meddled with disease. Physical blisters to soothe an irritated conscience, to lull the mental anxieties into forgetfulness, to draw forth the rooted sorrow of a wounded spirit, to quiet the feverish apprehensions of a coming judgment! O for a word from Christ, a look, to unseal the fountain of tears, a whisper, I Am the Way, the Truth, the LIFE. All the cantharides of penance, sackcloth and ashes, stripes on the body, pebbles in the shoes, rough pilgrimages over desert and mountain, fasts and aves and orisons in arithmetical progression,-did ever one of them or all together put a man at peace with his conscience, or extract the thorn, or charm the serpent in one of his sins? What a simple thing is the Gospel! How all heaven, in knowledge and blessedness, is comprehended in that one precious word, I am the Way, the Truth, the Life! The Gospel, applicable to all, the same in all places, in all times, in the cottage and the palace, in the city and the wilderness, in caves and dens of the earth and great houses, with rich tables, or the crumbs from them, in fine linen or in sheepskins and goatskins, with rich and poor, with bond and free; the Gospel, the same simple all-sufficient food and remedy, Christ all and in all, the supply of all wants, the recompense for all evils, the healing of all diseases, the world's medicine, happiness and transfiguration! Here and here only you have the impulse and soul of all lasting reforms, the reformation of all reformers, the beginning and the end of all true pilgrimages, the consolation and support of all pilgrims. "Must I forsake the soil and air," said Baxter, "Must I forsake the soil and air, Whence I may come to Thee by death. What if in prison I must dwell, The streets of heaven it walks about, Now, because it is suitable to this part of our pilgrimage, and fine in itself, though rude and plain, I shall add Baxter's Valediction, so faithful and bold in its rebuke of that vain show, wherein all men naturally are not so much pedestrians, as they With this we will leave are ambitious runners and wrestlers. our Einsiedelners, and proceed to Wallenstadt. "Man walks in a vain show. They know, yet will not know, In Christ's sweet meadows. Life's better slept away, They dig for hell beneath, To overtake it. Hell is not had for naught, |