In Switzerland from 1516 to 1525 - James Aitken Wylie

Chapter 2
Condition of Switzerland
Prior to the Reformation
So changed was the Christianity of the Middle
Ages from the Christianity of the primitive times,
that it could not have been known to be the same
Gospel. The crystal fountains amid the remote and
solitary hills, and the foul and turbid river formed
by their waters after stagnating in marshes, or
receiving the pollution of the great cities past
which they roll, are not more unlike than were the
pure and simple Gospel as it issued at the
beginning from its divine source, and the Gospel
exhibited to the world after the traditions and
corruptions of men had been incorporated with it.
The government of the Church, so easy and sweet
in the first age, had grown into a veritable tyranny.
The faithful pastors who fed the flock with
knowledge and truth, watching with care lest harm
should come to the fold, had given place to
shepherds who slumbered at their post, or awoke
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