The good amman was delighted with the happy presages in his son. He perceived that Ulric would be able to do something else than herd his cows on Mount Sentis, singing the shepherd's song. One day he took him by the hand and proceeded with him towards Wesen. He traversed the verdant ridges of the Ammon, avoiding the wild and precipitous rocks which border the lake of Wallenstadt. On arriving at the town, he called upon his brother the dean, to whom he intrusted the young mountaineer, in order that he might ascertain what his talents were.[611] The leading feature in his character was an innate horror at falsehood and a great love of truth. He himself relates that one day, when he was beginning to reflect, the thought struck him that falsehood should be punished more severely than even theft; "for," adds he, "veracity is the parent of all the virtues." The dean soon loved his nephew as if he had been his son; delighted with his sprightliness, he entrusted his education to a schoolmaster who in a short time taught him all that he knew himself. Young Ulric, when ten years of age, having given indications of a high order of intellect,[612] his father and his uncle resolved on sending him to Bâle.
When the child of the Tockenburg arrived in this celebrated city, with an integrity and purity of heart which he seemed to have inhaled from the pure air of his mountains, but which came from a higher source, a new world opened before him. The celebrity of the famous council of Bâle; the university which Pius II had founded in 1460; the printing presses, which revived the master-pieces of antiquity, and circulated over the world the first fruits of the revival of letters; the residence of distinguished men; the Wessels, the Wittembachs, and, in particular, that prince of scholars and luminary of the schools, Erasmus, rendered Bâle, at the period of the Reformation, one of the great foci of light in the west.
ZUINGLIUS AT BALE. AT BERNE. DOMINICAN CONVENT.
Ulric entered the school of St. Theodore, which was taught by Gregory Binzli, a man of an affectionate and gentle temper, at this period rare among teachers. Young Zuinglius made rapid progress. The learned disputes which were then fashionable among the doctors of universities had even descended to the youth in schools. Ulric took part in them. He exercised his growing strength against the children of other schools, and was always victorious in those struggles which formed a kind of prelude to those by which the papacy was to be overthrown in Switzerland.[613] His success excited the jealousy of rivals older than himself. The school of Bâle was soon outstripped by him as that of Wesen had been.
Lupulus, a distinguished scholar, had just opened at Berne the first learned school that was founded in Switzerland. The bailiff of Wildhaus and the curate of Wesen resolved to send their child thither, and Zuinglius, in 1497, quitting the smiling plains of Bâle, again drew near to the high Alps, where he had spent his childhood, and whose snowy tops, gilded with the rays of the sun, he could see from Berne. Lupulus, a distinguished poet, introduced his pupil to the sanctuary of classic literature, a sanctuary then unknown, only a few of the initiated having passed the threshold.[614] The young neophyte ardently breathed an atmosphere rich in the perfumes of antiquity. His intellect was developed and his style formed. He became a poet.
Among the convents of Berne, that of the Dominicans held a distinguished place. These monks were engaged in a serious quarrel with the Franciscans. The latter maintained the immaculate conception of the virgin, while the former denied it. In every step the Dominicans took—before the rich altars which decorated their church, and between the twelve pillars on which its arches were supported—they thought only of humbling their rivals. They had observed the fine voice of Zuinglius, and heard of his precocious intellect, and thinking that he might throw lustre on their order, strove to gain him.[615] With this view they invited him to remain in their convent till he should make his noviciate. The whole prospects of Zuinglius were threatened. The amman of Wildhaus having been informed of the bait to which the Dominicans had had recourse, trembled for the innocence of his son, and ordered him forthwith to quit Berne. Zuinglius thus escaped those monastic enclosures into which Luther rushed voluntarily. What happened afterwards may enable us to comprehend the imminent danger to which Zuinglius had been exposed.
JETZER. APPARITIONS.
In 1507 great excitement prevailed in the town of Berne. A young man of Zurzach, named John Jetzer, having one day presented himself at this same Dominican convent, had been repulsed. The poor youth in despair had returned to the charge, holding in his hand fifty-three florins and some pieces of silk. "It is all I possess," said he, "take it, and receive me into your order." He was admitted on the 6th January among the lay brothers. But the very first night a strange noise in his cell filled him with terror. He fled to the Carthusian convent, but was again sent back to that of the Dominicans.
IMPOSTURE.
On the following night, being the eve of the feast of St. Matthew, he was awoke by deep sighs, and perceived at his bedside a tall phantom in white. "I am," said a sepulchral voice, "a soul escaped from the fire of purgatory." The lay brother trembling, replied, "God save you; for me, I can do nothing." Then the spirit advanced towards the poor friar and, seizing him by the throat, indignantly upbraided him with his refusal. Jetzer in terror exclaimed, "What then can I do to save you?" "Flagellate yourself for eight days till the blood comes, and lie prostrate on the pavement of the chapel of St. John." So answered the spirit, and disappeared. The lay brother gave information of the apparition to his confessor, a preacher of the convent, and by his advice submitted to the discipline required. The rumour soon spread throughout the town that a soul had applied to the Dominicans to be delivered from purgatory. The Franciscans were deserted, and every one ran to the church to see the holy man lying prostrate on the ground. The soul from purgatory had intimated that he would reappear in eight days. On the night appointed it in fact did appear, accompanied by two other spirits that were tormenting it and howling horribly. "Scotus," said the spirit, "Scotus, the inventor of the Franciscan doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, is among those who like me are suffering these fierce pains." At this news, which soon spread over Berne, the partisans of the Franciscans were still more alarmed. The spirit on disappearing had announced a visit from the Virgin herself. In fact, on the day appointed, the astonished friar saw Mary herself appear in his cell. He could not believe his eyes. She approached him kindly, gave him three of our Saviour's tears, three drops of his blood, a crucifix, and a letter addressed to Pope Julius II, "who," said she, "was the individual chosen by God to abolish the festival of her pretended immaculate conception." Then coming still closer to the bed on which the friar lay, she announced, in a solemn tone, that a great grace was to be conferred on him, and drove a nail into his hand. The lay brother uttered a loud shriek, but Mary wrapt up his hand in a piece of linen which her Son, she said, had worn after his flight into Egypt. This wound was not sufficient to make the glory of the Dominicans equal to that of the Franciscans. Jetzer must have the five wounds of Christ and of St. Francis in his hands, feet, and side. The four others were inflicted, and then, after giving him a draught, he was placed in a hall hung with pictures representing our Saviour's passion. Here having spent whole days fasting, his imagination soon became heated. The doors of the hall were then thrown open from time to time to the public who came in crowds to contemplate with devout astonishment the friar with his five wounds, stretching out his arms, bending his head, and by his positions and gestures imitating the crucifixion of our Lord. Sometimes, out of his wits, he foamed, and seemed about to breathe his last. The whisper went round, "He is enduring the cross of Christ." The multitude, eager for miracles, continually thronged the convent. Men worthy of high esteem, among others Lupulus himself, the master of Zuinglius, were overawed, and the Dominicans, from the height of the pulpit extolled the glory which God was bestowing on their order.