It was seen flint a fountain of new life had been opened at the heart of Switzerland. Zwingli had become the regenerator of the nation. Week by week a new and fresh impulse was being propagated from the cathedral, throughout not Zurich only, but all the cantons; and the ancient simplicity and bravery of the Swiss, fast perishing under the wiles of Rome and the corrupting touch of French goht, were beginning again to flourish. "Glory be to God!" men were heard saying to one another, as they retired from the cathedral where they had listened to Zwingli, says Bullinger, in his Chronicle, "this man is a preacher of the truth. He will be our Moses to lead us forth from this Egyptian darkness."
CHAPTER 8
THE PARDON-MONGER AND THE PLAGUE
The Two Proclamations – Pardon for Money and Pardon of Grace – Contemporaneous – The Cordelier Samson sent to Switzerland – Crosses St. Gothard – Arrives in Uri – Visits Schwitz-Zug – Bern – A General Release from Purgatory – Baden – "Ecce Volant!" – Zurich – Samson Denied Admission – Returns to Rome – The Great Death – Ravages – Zwingli Stricken – At the Point of Death – Hymn – Restored – Design of the Visitation.
IT is instructive to mark that at the very moment when Rome was preparing for opening a great market in Christendom for the pardon of sin, so many preachers should be rising up, one in this country and another in that, and, without concert or pre-arrangement, beginning to publish the old Gospel that offers pardon without money. The same year, we may say, 1517, saw the commencement of both movements. In that year Rome gathered together her hawkers, stamped her indulgence tickets, fixed the price of sins, and enlarged her coffers for the streams of gold about to flow into them. Woe to the nations! the great sorceress was preparing new enchantments; and the fetters that bound her victims were about to be made stronger.
But unknown to Rome, at that very hour, numbers of earnest students, dispersed throughout Christendom, were poring over the page of Scripture, and sending up an earnest cry to God for light to enable them to understand its meaning. That prayer was heard. There fell from on high a bright light upon the page over which they bent in study.Their eyes were opened; they saw it all – the cross, the all-perfect and everlasting sacrifice for sin – and in their joy, unable to keep silence, they ran to tell the perishing tribes of the earth that there was "born unto them a Savior who is Christ the Lord."
"Certain historians have remarked," says Ruchat, "that this year, 1517, there fell out a prodigy at Rome that seemed to menace the 'Holy Chair' with some great disaster. As the Pope was engaged in the election of thirty-one new cardinals, all suddenly there arose a horrible tempest. There came the loud peals of the thunder and the lightning's terrific flash. One bolt struck the angel on the top of the Castle of St. Angelo, and threw it down; another, entering a church, shivered the statue of the infant Jesus in the arms of his mother; and a third tore the keys from the hands of the statue of St. Peter." Without, however, laying stress upon this, a surer sign that this chair, before which the nations had so long bowed, was about to be stripped of its influence, and the keys wrested from the hands of its occupant, is seen in the rise of so many evangelists, filled with knowledge and intrepidity, to publish that Gospel of which it had been foretold that, like the lightning, it should shine from the east even unto the west.
We have already seen how contemporaneous in Germany were the two great preachings – forgiveness for money, and forgiveness through grace. They were nearly as contemporaneous in Switzerland.
The sale of indulgences in Germany was given to the Dominicans; in Switzerland this traffic was committed to the Franciscans. The Pope commissioned Cardinal Christopher, of Forli, general of the order, as superintendent-in-chief of the distribution in twenty-five provinces; and the cardinal assigned Switzerland to the Cordelier Bernardin Samson, guardian of the convent at Milan. Samson had already served in the trade under two Popes, and with great advantage to those who had employed him. He had transported across the mountains, it was said, from Germany and Switzerland, chests filled with gold and silver vessels, besides what he had gathered in coin, amounting in eighteen years to no less a sum than eight hundred thousand dollars. Such were the antecedents of the man who now crossed the Swiss frontier on the errand of vending the Pope's pardons, and returning with the price to those who had sent him, as he thought, but in reality to kindle a fire amid the Alps, which would extend to Rome, and do greater injury to the "Holy Chair" than the lightning which had grazed it, and passed on to consume the keys in the hands of the statue of St. Peter.
"He discharged his mission in Helvetia with not less'impudence," says Gerdesius, "than Tetzel in Germany." Forcing his way (1518) through the snows of the St. Gothard, and descending along the stream of the Reuss, he and his band arrived in the canton of Uri. A few days sufficing to fleece these simple mountaineers, the greedy troop passed on to Schwitz, there to open the sale of their merchandise. Zwingli, who was then at Einsiedeln, heard of the monk's arrival and mission, and set out to confront him. The result was that Samson was obliged to decamp, and from Schwitz went on to Zug. On the shores of this lake, over whose still waters the lofty Rossberg and the Righi Culm hang a continual veil of shadows, and Rome a yet deeper veil of superstition and credulity, Samson set up his stage, and displayed his wares. The little towns on the lake sent forth their population in such crowds as almost to obstruct the sale, and Samson had to entreat that a way might be opened for those who had money, promising to consider afterwards the case of those who had none. Having finished at Zug, he traveled over the Oberland, gathering the hard cash of the peasants and giving them the Pope's pardons in return. The man and his associates got fat on the business; for whereas when they crossed the St. Gothard, lank, haggard, and in rags, they looked like bandits, they were now in flesh, and daintily apparelled. Directing his course to Bern, Samson had some difficulty in finding admission for himself and his wares into that lordly city. A little negotiation with friends inside, however, opened its gates. He proceeded to the cathedral church, which was hung with banners on which the arms of the Pope were blazoned in union with those of the cantons, and there he said mass with great pomp. A crowd of spectators and purchasers filled the cathedral. His bulls of indulgences were in two forms, the one on parchment and the other on paper. The first were meant for the rich, and were charged a dollar. The others were for the poor, and were sold at two batzen apiece. He had yet a third set, for which he charged a much higher sum. A gentleman of Orbe, named Arnay, gave 500 dollars for one of these. A Bernese captain, Jacob von Stein, bartered the dapple-grey mare which he bestrode for one of Samsoh's indulgences. It was warranted good for himself, his troop of 500 men, and all the vassals on the Seigniory of Belp and may therefore be reckoned cheap, although the animal was a splendid one. We must not pass without notice a very meritorious act of the monk in this neighborhood. The small town of Aarberg, three leagues from Bern, had, some years before, been much damaged by fire and floods. The good people of the place were taught to believe that these calamities had befallen them for the sin they had committed in insulting a nuncio of the Pope. The nuncio, to punish the affront he had received at their hands, and which reflected on the Church whose servant he was, had excommunicated them, and cursed them, and threatened to bury their village seven fathoms deep in the earth. They had recourse to Samson to lift off a malediction which had already brought so many woes upon them, and the last and most dreadful of which yet awaited them. The lords of Bern used their mediation for the poor people.
The good monk was compassionate. He granted, but of course not without a sum of money, a plenary indulgence, which removed the excommunication of the nuncio, and permitted the inhabitants to sleep in peace. Whether it is owing to Samson's indulgence we shall not say, but the fact is undeniable that the little town of Aarberg is above ground to this day. At Bern, so pleased was the monk with his success, that he signalized his departure with a marvellous feat of generosity. The bells were tolling his leave-taking, when Samson caused it to be proclaimed that he "delivered from the torments of purgatory and of hell all the souls of the Benrose who are dead, whatever may have been the manner or the place of their death." What sums it would have saved the good people of Bern, had he made