Page 14 - 08 Luther Before the Diet
P. 14
power of fanaticism and superstition was
being broken.
The authorities of the church were not blind
to the work which Zwingli was
accomplishing; but for the present they
forbore to interfere. Hoping yet to secure him
to their cause, they endeavored to win him by
flatteries; and meanwhile the truth was
gaining a hold upon the hearts of the people.
Zwingli's labors at Einsiedeln had prepared
him for a wider field, and this he was soon to
enter. After three years here he was called to
the office of preacher in the cathedral at
Zurich. This was then the most important
town of the Swiss confederacy, and the
influence exerted here would be widely felt.
The ecclesiastics by whose invitation he came
to Zurich were, however, desirous of
preventing any innovations, and they