Protestantism in Switzerland - James Aitken Wylie

would cross the bridge to their suburb, so amply
replenished with sacred shrines, offered to purge
their churches with their own hands. The images of
Little Basle were more tenderly dealt with than
those of St. Peter's and other city churches. Their
worshippers carried them reverently to upper
rooms and garrets, and hid them, in the hope that
when better times returned they would be able to
bring them out of the darkness, and set them up in
their old places. The suburban idols thus escaped
the cremation that overtook their less fortunate
brethren of St. Ulric and St. Alban.[17]
The magistrates of Basle, deeming it better to
march in the van of a Reform than be dragged at
the tail of a revolution, now granted all the
demands of the citizens. They enacted, 1st, that the
citizens should vote in the election of the members
of the two councils; 2ndly, that from this day the
idols and mass should be abolished in the city and
the canton, and the churches provided with good
ministers to preach the Word of God; 3rdly, that in
all matters appertaining to religion and the
commonweal, 260 of the members of the guilds
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