vested in secular persons; that the abbots, the bishops, and the pope himself, must renounce either their
state or their salvation; and that after the loss of their revenues, the voluntary tithes and oblations of the
faithful would suffice, not indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life in the exercise of spiritual
labors. During a short time, the preacher was revered as a patriot; and the discontent, or revolt, of Brescia
against her bishop, was the first fruits of his dangerous lessons. But the favor of the people is less permanent
than the resentment of the priest; and after the heresy of Arnold had been condemned by Innocent the
Second,22 in the general council of the Lateran, the magistrates themselves were urged by prejudice
and fear to execute the sentence of the church. Italy could no longer afford a refuge; and the disciple
of Abelard escaped beyond the Alps, till he found a safe and hospitable shelter in Zurich, now the first of
the Swiss cantons. From a Roman station,23 a royal villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich had gradually
increased to a free and flourishing city; where the appeals of the Milanese were sometimes tried by the
Imperial commissaries.24 In an age less ripe for reformation, the precursor of Zuinglius was heard with
applause: a brave and simple people imbibed, and long retained, the color of his opinions; and his art,
or merit, seduced the bishop of Constance, and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, the
interest of their master and their order. Their tardy zeal was quickened by the fierce exhortations of
St. Bernard;25 and the enemy of the church was driven by persecution to the desperate measures of
erecting his standard in Rome itself, in the face of the successor of St. Peter.