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In Switzerland from 1516 to 1525 - James Aitken Wylie

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This ecclesiastical Reformation brought a<br />

social one in its wake. Protestantism was a breath<br />

of healing–a stream of cleansing in all countries <strong>to</strong><br />

which it came. By planting a renovating principle<br />

in the individual heart, Zwingli had planted a<br />

principle of renovation at the heart of the<br />

community; but he <strong>to</strong>ok care <strong>to</strong> nourish and<br />

conserve that principle by outward arrangements.<br />

Mainly through his influence with the Great<br />

Council, aided by the moral influence the Gospel<br />

exercised over its members, a set of regulations and<br />

laws was framed, calculated <strong>to</strong> repress immorality<br />

and promote virtue in the can<strong>to</strong>n. The Sunday and<br />

marriage, those twin pillars of Christian morality,<br />

Zwingli res<strong>to</strong>red <strong>to</strong> their original dignity. Rome<br />

had made the Sunday simply a Church festival:<br />

Zwingli replaced it on its first basis–the Divine<br />

enactment; work was forbidden upon it, although<br />

allowed, specially in harvest-time, in certain great<br />

exigencies of which the whole Christian<br />

community were <strong>to</strong> judge.<br />

Marriage, which Rome had desecrated by her<br />

218

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