In Switzerland from 1516 to 1525 - James Aitken Wylie

Lucerne had rejected. Its citizens had won renown
in arms: their city had never opened its gates to an
enemy, but in the morning of the sixteenth century
it was conquered by the Gospel, and the victory
which truth won at Bern was the more important
that it opened a door for the diffusion of the Gospel
throughout Western Switzerland.
It was the powerful influence that proceeded
from Zurich which originated the Reformed
movement in the warlike city of Bern. Sebastian
Meyer had "by little and little opened the gates of
the Gospel" to the Bernese. But eminently the
Reformer of this city was Berthold Haller. He was
born in Roteville, Wurtemberg, and studied at
Pforzheim, where he was a fellow-student of
Melanchthon. In 1520 he came to Bern, and was
made Canon and Preacher in the cathedral. He
possessed in ample measure all the requisites for
influencing public assemblies. He had a noble
figure, a graceful manner, a mind richly endowed
with the gifts of nature, and yet more richly
furnished with the acquisitions of learning. After
the example of Zwingli, he expounded from the
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