Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/57

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ZWINGLI


gained money he will find he could have won more by threshing, without speaking of his being run through the body with a spear ere the account comes to be paid; and last of all, his poor old father that brought him up, and whom he should have maintained in his old age, is reduced to carry the beggar's staff.

But those who get the money want for nothing. They force us into alliances with foreign masters, but only after they themselves have been bought over by heavy bribes. And, when it comes to loss, your neighbor or your neighbor's son must bear it, while they come off scotfree. And altho it stands in the conditions that none is to be forced, yet recruiting parties spread themselves over the whole land, and then it is seen what young blood will do when it is up. And with the remuneration it is to be taken into account that those who get the largest bribes conceal them, but, these living in riot and expense, another, who thinks he can not be less than they, goes to the like expense. And if he can not afford this, then he is at the mercy of the briber, who at last takes his vineyard, fields, and meadows. Then he helps him to a small pension, on which he can not live, and so, having lost his all, he must in the end face war and wounds for a wretched pay. In this manner we lose our best sons, who for vile money are consumed in a foreign land. But few, indeed, become rich, but these so rich that they might buy off the rest.

The fourth danger is that the gifts of the for-

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