and to the imagination, especially where the religious instinct is strong. Nothing of this sort met one in a Reformed Canton. Consequently I hold that æsthetic instincts and repugnances had much to do with the moulding of my mind, and the direction of my principles. At the time I had no definite convictions of any kind, and was accordingly in a condition to be impressed by what I saw. When I say that I had no convictions of any kind, I refer to such as are formed on controversial matters. I knew nothing of the distinctive beliefs and usages of Catholics and Protestants, except what I saw of the practices of the Catholics giving assurance of a living faith and love, and the absence of all devotional habits and of worship, that characterized the Reformed, as far as I could judge. I remember distinctly how my heart began to beat and my spirits to rise, when we passed in our carriage the first Crucifix, showing we had left a Reformed Canton behind.
Whilst at Thun, there was a Confirmation in the parish church—a church as bare as a barn. No figure carved or painted of the Saviour of the World, but the scowling, grim portraits of those destroyers of æsthetic religion, Calvin and Zwingli. There is a remarkably characteristic portrait of Ulrich Zwingli by Holbein the Younger in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. It is to me a repulsive face. The cruel hard eyes have not in them a glimmer of kindliness, and the coarse lips are those of a sensualist. Looking on that portrait you seem to see a man who would, without scruple, flay you alive.
The Life of Zwingli has been frequently written in an eulogistic spirit, so that an altogether false colour has been given to his character. There was no devil's advocate engaged against Zwingli. All we know of him we know from his own account of himself, and from the writings of personal friends sharing his religious convictions and disbeliefs. Ulrich Zwingli was born at Wildhausen in Toggenburg on the 1st January, 1484, and was ordained by the Bishop of Constance, and was chosen parish priest of Glarus in 1516. One of his biographers, J. C. Hess, says of him at this time, "in the midst of a clergy incapable of feeling the importance and holiness of his mission, Zwingli was sure to be an object of hatred and jealousy. But his scrupulous exactness in fulfilling all his duties had conciliated to Zwingli
