Nothing could equal the sorrow of this city, except the exultation of the Waldstettes. The noise of drums and fifes, the firing of guns, the ringing of bells, had long resounded on the banks of their lakes, and even to their highest valleys. Now the noise was less, but the effect greater. The Five Cantons, in close alliance with Friburg and Soleure, formed a perpetual league for the defence of the ancient christian faith with the Bishop of Sion and the tithings of the Valais; and henceforward carried their measures in the federal affairs with boldness. But a deep conviction was formed at that period in the hearts of the Swiss Reformed. "Faith comes from God," said they; "its fortune does not depend on the life or death of a man. Let our adversaries boast of our ruin, we will boast only in the Cross."[1258] "God reigns," wrote Berne to Zurich, "and he will not permit the bark to founder." This conviction was of more avail than the victory of Cappel.
CONCLUSION.
Thus the Reformation, that had deviated from the right path, was driven back by the very violence of the blow into its primitive course, having no other power than the Word of God. An inconceivable infatuation had taken possession of the friends of the Bible. They had forgotten that our warfare is not carnal; and they had appealed to arms and to battle. But God reigns: he punishes the churches and the people who turn aside from his ways. We have thus taken a few stones, and piled them as a monument on the battle-field of Cappel, in order to remind the Church of the great lesson which this terrible catastrophe teaches. As we bid farewell to this sad scene, we inscribe on these monumental stones, on the one side, these words from God's Book: "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen and stand upright." And on the other, this declaration of the Head of the Church: "My kingdom is not of this world." If, from the ashes of the martyrs at Cappel, a voice could be heard, it would be these very words of the Bible that these noble confessors would address, after three centuries, to the Christians of our days. That the Church has no other king than Jesus Christ; that she ought not to meddle with the policy of the world, derive from it her inspiration, and call for its swords, its prisons, its treasures; that she will conquer by the spiritual powers which God has deposited in her bosom, and, above all, by the reign of her adorable Head; that she must not expect upon earth thrones and mortal triumphs; but that her march is like that of her King, from the manger to the cross, and from the cross to the crown:—such is the lesson to be read on the blood-stained page that has crept into our simple and evangelical narrative.
But if God teaches his people great lessons, he also gives them great deliverances. The bolt had fallen from heaven. The Reformation seemed to be no more than a lifeless body cumbering the ground, and whose dissevered limbs were about to be reduced to ashes. But God raises up the dead. New and more glorious destinies were awaiting the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the foot of the Alps. At the south-western extremity of Switzerland, in a great valley which the white giant of the mountains points out from afar; on the banks of the Leman lake, at the spot where the Rhone, clear and blue as the sky above it, rolls its majestic waters; on a small hill that the foot of Cæsar had once trod, and on which the steps of another conqueror, of a Gaul, of a Picardine[1260] were destined ere long to leave their ineffaceable and glorious traces, stood an ancient city, as yet covered with the dense shadows of Popery; but which God was about to raise to be a beacon to the Church, and a bulwark to Christendom.