Grief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The old station fly that had come out from Malvern, drove up, and the footman seized Mademoiselle’s luggage. It was such meagre luggage that he waved back assistance from the driver, and lifted the trunk single-handed. Then Mademoiselle Duphot broke out into English—heaven only knew why, perhaps from emotion. ‘It’s not farewell, it shall not be for ever—’ she sobbed. ‘You come, but I feel it, to Paris. We meet once more, Stévenne, my poor little baby, when you grow up bigger, we two meet once more—’ And Stephen, already taller than she was, longed to grow small again, just to please Mademoiselle. Then, because the French are a practical people even in moments of real emotion, Mademoiselle found her handbag, and groping in its depths she produced a half sheet of paper. ‘The address of my sister in Paris,’ she said, snuffling; ‘the address of my sister who makes little bags—if you should hear of anyone, Stévenne—any lady who would care to buy one little bag—’ ‘Yes, yes, I’ll remember,’ muttered Stephen. At last she was gone; the fly rumbled away down the drive and finally turned the corner. To the end a wet face had been thrust from the window, a wet handkerchief waved despondently at Stephen. The rain must have mingled with Mademoiselle’s tears, for the weather had broken and now it was raining. It was surely a desolate day for departure, with the mist closing over the Severn Valley and beginning to creep up the hillsides. . . . Stephen made her way to the empty schoolroom, empty of all save a general confusion; the confusion that stalks in some people’s trail—it had always stalked Mademoiselle Duphot. On the chairs, which stood crooked, lay odds and ends meaning nothing—crumpled paper, a broken shoehorn, a well-worn brown glove that had lost its fellow and likewise two of its buttons. On the table lay a much abused pink blotting pad, from which Stephen had torn off the corners, unchidden—it was crossed and re-crossed with elegant French script until its scarred face had turned purple. And there stood the bottle of purple ink, half-empty, and green round its neck with dribbles; and a pen with a nib as sharp as a pin point, a thin, peevish nib that jabbed at the paper. Chock-a-block with the bottle of purple ink lay a little piety card of St. Joseph that had evidently slipped out of Mademoiselle’s missal—St. Joseph looked very respectable and kind, like the fishmonger in Great Malvern. Stephen picked up the card and stared at St. Joseph; something was written across his corner; looking closer she read the minute handwriting: ‘Priez pour ma petite Stévenne.’

• From Trash (1988)

  Jo and I just looked at her. Mama’s first diagnosis came when I was seventeen. Back then, I couldn’t even say the word, “cancer.” Mama said it and so did Jo, but I did not. “This thing,” I said. “This damn thing.” Twenty-five years later, I still called it that, though there was not much else I hesitated to say. That was my role. I did the talking and carried all the insurance records. Jack blinked. Jo argued. Arlene showed up late, got a sick headache, and left. In the early years it was Jack who argued and that just made things harder. Now he never said much at all. For that I was deeply grateful. It let us seem like all the other families in the hospital corridors—only occasionally louder and a little more careful of each other than anyone at MacArthur Hospital could understand. “Who do they think we are?” Jo asked me once. “They don’t care who we are.” What I did not say is that was right. Mama was the one the medical folk were supposed to watch. The rest of us were incidental, annoying, and, whenever possible, meant to be ignored. “I like your mama,” Mavis told me the first week Mama was on the ward. “But your daddy makes me nervous.” “It’s a talent he has,” I said. “Uh huh.” Mavis looked a little confused, but I didn’t want to explain. The fact is he never hit her. In the thirty years since they married, Jack never once laid a hand on her. His trick was to threaten. He screamed and cursed and cried into his fists. He would come right up on Mama, close enough to spray spittle on her cheeks. Pounding his hands together, he would shout, “Motherfuckers, ass-holes, sonsabitches.” All the while, Mama’s face remained expressionless. Her eyes stared right back into his. Only her hands trembled, the yellow-stained fingertips vibrating incessantly. Gently, I covered the bruises on Mama’s arm with my fingers. Jo scowled and turned away. “They should be here.” “Better they’re not.” Jo shoved until the window was again closed. When she turned back to me, her face was the mask Mama wore most of our childhood. She gestured at Mama’s bruises. “Look at that. You see what he did.” “He didn’t mean to,” I said. “Didn’t mean to? Didn’t care. Didn’t notice. Man’s the same he always was.” “He never hit her.” “He never had to hit her. She beat herself up enough. And every time the son of a bitch hit us, he was hitting her. He beat us like we were dogs. He treated her like her ass was gold. And she always talked about leaving him, you know. She never did, did she?” “What do you want?” “I want somebody to do something.” Jo slammed her fist into the window frame. “I want somebody to finally goddamn do something.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The merchant his friend and the lady, hearing these words, wept, and when he had made an end of his speech, they comforted him and promised him upon their troth to do that which he asked, if it came to pass that he died. He tarried not long, but presently departed this life and was honourably interred of them. A few days after, the merchant having despatched all his business in Rhodes and purposing to return to Cyprus on board a Catalan carrack that was there, asked the fair lady what she had a mind to do, for that it behoved him return to Cyprus. She answered that, an it pleased him, she would gladly go with him, hoping for Antiochus his love to be of him entreated and regarded as a sister. The merchant replied that he was content to do her every pleasure, and the better to defend her from any affront that might be offered her, ere they came to Cyprus, he avouched that she was his wife. Accordingly, they embarked on board the ship and were given a little cabin on the poop, where, that the fact might not belie his words, he lay with her in one very small bed. Whereby there came about that which was not intended of the one or the other of them at departing Rhodes, to wit, that--darkness and commodity and the heat of the bed, matters of no small potency, inciting them,--drawn by equal appetite and forgetting both the friendship and the love of Antiochus dead, they fell to dallying with each other and before they reached Baffa, whence the Cypriot came, they had clapped up an alliance together.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Döllinger was excommunicated for his opposition to the Vatican decree of infallibility (1870), but still remains a Catholic, and could not become a Protestant without retracting his work on the Reformation. He would, however, write a very different work now, and present the Reformation as a blessing rather than a calamity to Germany, in the light of the events which have passed since 1870. In one of his Akademische Vorträge, the first volume of which has just reached me (Nördlingen, 1888, p. 76), he makes the significant confession, that for many years the events In Germany from 1517 to 1552 were to him an unsolved riddle, and an object of sorrow and grief, seeing then only the result of division of the church and the nation into hostile camps; but that a closer study of the mediaeval history of Rome and Germany, and the events of the last years, have given him a better understanding and more hopeful view of the renewed and reunited German nation as a noble instrument in the hands of Providence. This is as far as he can go from his standpoint. § 125. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. I conclude this volume with Luther’s immortal hymn, which is the best expression of his character, and reveals the secret of his strength as well as the moving power of the Reformation.1007 A tower of strength1008 our God is still, A good defense1009 and weapon; He helps us free from all the ill That us hath overtaken. Our old, mortal foe1010 Now aims his fell blow, Great might and deep guile His horrid coat-of-mail;1011 On earth is no one like him.1012 Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott, Ein’ gute Wehr und Waffen. Er hilft uns frei aus aller Noth, Die uns jetzt hat betroffen. Der alt’ böse Feind, Mit Ernst er’s jetzt meint; Gross’ Macht und viel List, Sein grausam Rüstung ist, Auf Erd’ ist nicht sein’s Gleichen. By might of ours can naught be done:1013 Our fate were soon decided. But for us fights the champion,1014 By God himself provided. Who Is this, ask ye? Jesus Christ! ÕTis he! Lord of Sabaoth, True God and Saviour both, Omnipotent in battle.1015 Mit unsrer Macht ist nichts gethan, Wir sind gar bald verloren: Es streit’t für uns der rechte Mann, Den Gott hat selbst erkoren. Fragst du, wer Der ist? Er heisst Jesus Christ, Der Herr Zebaoth, Und ist kein andrer Gott; Das Feld muss Er behalten. Did devils fill the earth and air,1016 All eager to devour us, Our steadfast hearts need feel no care, Lest they should overpower us. The grim Prince of hell, With rage though he swell, Hurts us not a whit, Because his doom is writ: A little word can rout1017 him. Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär’ Und wollt uns gar verschlingen, So fürchten wir uns nicht zu sehr, Es soll uns doch gelingen. Der Fürst dieser Welt, Wie sau’r er sich stellt, Thut er uns doch nichts;

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  (3) The attack of Julian upon Christianity brought out no reply on the spot,123 but subsequently several refutations, the chief one by Cyril of Alexandria († 444), in ten books "against the impious Julian," still extant and belonging among his most valuable works. About the same time Theodoret wrote an apologetic and polemic work: "The Healing of the Heathen Affections," in twelve treatises, in which he endeavors to refute the errors of the false religion by comparison of the prophecies and miracles of the Bible with the heathen oracles, of the apostles with the heroes and lawgivers of antiquity, of the Christian morality with the immorality of the heathen world. § 12. Augustine’s City of God. Salvianus. (4) Among the Latin apologists we must mention Augustine, Orosius, and Salvianus, of the fifth century. They struck a different path from the Greeks, and devoted themselves chiefly to the objection of the heathens, that the overthrow of idolatry and the ascendency of Christianity were chargeable with the misfortunes and the decline of the Roman empire. This objection had already been touched by Tertullian, but now, since the repeated incursions of the barbarians, and especially the capture and sacking of the city of Rome under the Gothic king Alaric in 410, it recurred with peculiar force. By way of historical refutation the Spanish presbyter Orosius, at the suggestion of Augustine, wrote an outline of universal history in the year 417. Augustine himself answered the charge in his immortal work "On the city of God," that is) the church of Christ, in twenty-two books, upon which he labored twelve years, from 413 to 426, amidst the storms of the great migration and towards the close of his life. He was not wanting in appreciation of the old Roman virtues, and he attributes to these the former greatness of the empire, and to the decline of them he imputes her growing weakness. But he rose at the same time far above the superficial view, which estimates persons and things by the scale of earthly profit and loss, and of temporary success. "The City of God" is the most powerful, comprehensive, profound, and fertile production in refutation of heathenism and vindication of Christianity, which the ancient church has bequeathed to us, and forms a worthy close to her literary contest with Graeco-Roman paganism.124 It is a grand funeral discourse upon the departing universal empire of heathenism, and a lofty salutation to the approaching universal order of Christianity. While even Jerome deplored in the destruction of the city the downfall of the empire as the omen of the approaching doom of the world,125 the African father saw in it only a passing revolution preparing the way for new conquests of Christianity.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The sudden height of glory to which Messer Torello thus found himself advanced put his Lombardy affairs somedele out of his mind, more by token that he had good reason to hope that his letters were by this come to his uncle's hands. Now there had died and been buried in the camp or rather in the host, of the Christians, the day they were taken by Saladin, a Provençal gentleman of little account, by name Messer Torello de Dignes, by reason whereof, Messer Torello d'Istria being renowned throughout the army for his magnificence, whosoever heard say, 'Messer Torello is dead,' believed it of Messer Torello d'Istria, not of him of Dignes. The hazard of the capture that ensued thereupon suffered not those who had been thus misled to be undeceived; wherefore many Italians returned with this news, amongst whom were some who scrupled not to avouch that they had seen him dead and had been at the burial. This, coming to be known of his wife and kinsfolk, was the cause of grievous and inexpressible sorrow, not only to them, but to all who had known him. It were longsome to set forth what and how great was the grief and sorrow and lamentation of his lady; but, after having bemoaned herself some months in continual affliction, coming to sorrow less and being sought in marriage with the chiefest men in Lombardy, she began to be presently importuned by her brothers and other her kinsfolk to marry again. After having again and again refused with many tears, needs must she at the last consent perforce to do her kinsfolk's will, on condition that she should abide, without going to a husband, so long as she had promised Messer Torello.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  At this point both parties mellowed down. Luther begged pardon for his harsh words, as he was a man of flesh and blood. Zwingli begged Luther, with tearful eyes, to forgive him his harsh words, and assured him that there were no men in the world whose friendship he more desired than that of the Wittenbergers.875 Jacob Sturm and Bucer spoke in behalf of Strassburg, and vindicated their orthodoxy, which had been impeached. Luther’s reply was cold, and displeased the audience. He declared to the Strassburgers, as well as the Swiss, "Your spirit is different from ours."876 The Conference was ended. A contagious disease, called the English sweat (sudor Anglicus), which attacked its victims with fever, sweat, thirst, intense pain, and exhaustion, had suddenly broken out in Marburg as in other parts of Germany, and caused frightful ravages that filled everybody with alarm. The visitors were anxious to return home. So were the fathers of the Council of Trent, when the Elector Moritz chased the Emperor through the Tyrol; and in like manner the fathers of the Vatican Council hurried across the Alps when France declared war against Germany, and left the Vatican decrees in the hands of Italian infallibilists. But the Landgrave once more brought the guests together at his table on Sunday night, and urged upon every one the supreme importance of coming to some understanding. On Monday morning he arranged another private conference between the Saxon and the Swiss Reformers. They met for the last time on earth. With tears in his eyes, Zwingli approached Luther, and held out the hand of brotherhood, but Luther declined it, saying again, "Yours is a different spirit from ours." Zwingli thought that differences in non-essentials, with unity in essentials, did not forbid Christian brotherhood. "Let us," he said, "confess our union in all things in which we agree; and, as for the rest, let us remember that we are brethren. There will never be peace in the churches if we cannot bear differences on secondary points." Luther deemed the corporal presence a fundamental article, and construed Zwingli’s liberality into indifference to truth. "I am astonished," he said, "that you wish to consider me as your brother. It shows clearly that you do not attach much importance to your doctrine." Melanchthon looked upon the request of the Swiss as a strange inconsistency.877 Turning to the Swiss, the Wittenbergers said, "You do not belong to the communion of the Christian Church. We cannot acknowledge you as brethren." They were willing, however, to include them in that universal charity which we owe to our enemies. The Swiss were ready to burst over such an insult, but controlled their temper. On the same day Luther wrote the following characteristic letter to his wife: —

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  One of the most painful demonstrations of that fact has been the continued spread of unauthorized polygamy among the Latter-day Saints during the last seventy-five years, despite the concerted efforts of Church leaders to stop it.” Quinn pointed out that after officially renouncing the doctrine of plural marriage in 1890, the highest leaders in fact continued to sanction polygamy, covertly, for many years. And this casuistry, he insisted, has driven many Mormons into the embrace of fundamentalism. “The central argument of the enemies of the LDS Church,” Quinn said, “is historical, and if we seek to build the Kingdom of God by ignoring or denying the problem areas of our past, we are leaving the Saints unprotected. As one who has received death threats from anti-Mormons because they perceive me as an enemy historian, it is discouraging to be regarded as subversive by men I sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.” The text of Quinn’s lecture, which resonated strongly among Mormon intellectuals, was printed on the front page of an underground student newspaper, infuriating the LDS General Authorities in Salt Lake City and sparking a raging controversy that made the pages of Newsweek magazine. It was the beginning of Quinn’s fall from grace in the church he loved. By 1988 he was pressured into resigning his tenured professorship at BYU. And in 1993, following a highly publicized hearing by an LDS “disciplinary council,” he became one of six prominent Mormon scholars who were excommunicated from the LDS Church for apostasy. “The church wanted to send a very public message to dissidents,” Quinn says. “Their goal was intimidation, to silence dissent.” Banishment from the church came as a harsh blow. “Even if you have all kinds of objections to church policies,” he explains, “when you’re a believing Mormon, to be excommunicated is like a form of death. It’s like attending your own funeral. You feel the loss of that sense of community. I miss it deeply.” Quinn’s standing in the LDS Church was not helped by the fact that in the mid-1980s he revealed that he is gay; the Mormon General Authorities continue to make the church a very difficult place for homosexuals. Despite Mormonism’s entrenched homophobia, and Quinn’s unsparing, clear-eyed assessment of Mormonism’s faults, his faith in the religion of Joseph Smith remains undiminished. “I’m a radical believer,” he says, “but I’m still a believer.” He seems to be one of those rare spiritual thinkers, as Annie Dillard puts it, who possess “a sort of anaerobic capacity to batten and thrive on paradox.” “At a very early age,” Quinn acknowledges, “I developed what I call ‘a complex testimony.’ Instead of a black/white view of Mormonism, I have an Old Testament sort of faith. The writers of the Old Testament presented the prophets as very human vessels, warts and all. Yet God still chose them to be His leaders on earth. That’s how I see Mormonism: It is not a perfect church.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It was then (even as we yet see it used) a custom that the kinswomen and she-neighbours of the dead should assemble in his house and there condole with those who more nearly pertained unto him, whilst his neighbours and many other citizens foregathered with his next of kin before his house, whither, according to the dead man's quality, came the clergy, and he with funeral pomp of chants and candles was borne on the shoulders of his peers to the church chosen by himself before his death; which usages, after the virulence of the plague began to increase, were either altogether or for the most part laid aside, and other and strange customs sprang up in their stead. For that, not only did folk die without having a multitude of women about them, but many there were who departed this life without witness and few indeed were they to whom the pious plaints and bitter tears of their kinsfolk were vouchsafed; nay, in lieu of these things there obtained, for the most part, laughter and jests and gibes and feasting and merrymaking in company; which usance women, laying aside womanly pitifulness, had right well learned for their own safety. Few, again, were they whose bodies were accompanied to the church by more than half a score or a dozen of their neighbours, and of these no worshipful and illustrious citizens, but a sort of blood-suckers, sprung from the dregs of the people, who styled themselves _pickmen_[8] and did such offices for hire, shouldered the bier and bore it with hurried steps, not to that church which the dead man had chosen before his death, but most times to the nearest, behind five or six[9] priests, with little light[10] and whiles none at all, which latter, with the aid of the said pickmen, thrust him into what grave soever they first found unoccupied, without troubling themselves with too long or too formal a service. [Footnote 8: _i.e._ gravediggers (_becchini_).] [Footnote 9: Lit. _four_ or six. This is the equivalent Italian idiom.] [Footnote 10: _i.e._ but few tapers.]

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Now I’d like you to go up and fetch down a mattress, the one from the blue room will do—get it quickly. Bring some blankets as well and a couple of pillows—and I may need a little brandy.’ They ran to obey, and before very long she had helped to lift him on to the mattress. He groaned a little, then he actually smiled as he felt her strong arms around him. She kept wiping the blood away from his mouth, and her fingers were stained; she looked at her fingers, but without comprehension—they could not be hers—like her thoughts, they must surely be somebody else’s. But now his eyes were growing more restless—he was looking for some one, he was looking for her mother. ‘Have you told Miss Puddleton, Williams?’ she whispered. The man nodded. Then she said: ‘Mother’s coming, darling; you lie still,’ and her voice was softly persuasive as though she were speaking to a small, suffering child. ‘Mother’s coming; you lie quite still, darling.’ And she came—incredulous, yet wide-eyed with horror. ‘Philip, oh, Philip!’ She sank down beside him and laid her white face against his on the pillow. ‘My dear, my dear—it’s most terribly hurt you—try to tell me where it hurts; try to tell me, belovèd. The branch gave—it was the snow—it fell on you, Philip—but try to tell me where it hurts most, belovèd. ’ Stephen motioned to the servants and they went away slowly with bowed heads, for Sir Philip had been a good friend; they loved him, each in his or her way, each according to his or her capacity for loving. And always that terrible voice went on speaking, terrible because it was quite unlike Anna’s—it was toneless, and it asked and re-asked the same question: ‘Try to tell me where it hurts most, belovèd.’ But Sir Philip was fighting the battle of pain; of intense, irresistible, unmanning pain. He lay silent, not answering Anna. Then she coaxed him in words soft with memories of her country. ‘And you the loveliest man,’ she whispered, ‘and you with the light of God in your eyes.’ But he lay there unable to answer. And now she seemed to forget Stephen’s presence, for she spoke as one lover will speak with another—foolishly, fondly, inventing small names, as one lover will do for another. And watching them Stephen beheld a great marvel, for he opened his eyes and his eyes met her mother’s, and a light seemed to shine over both their poor faces, transfiguring them with something triumphant, with love—thus those two rekindled the beacon for their child in the shadow of the valley of death. 2 It was late afternoon before the doctor arrived; he had been out all day and the roads were heavy. He had come the moment he received the news, come as fast as a car clogged with snow could bring him.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Useless for Stephen to quote the doctor who had said that death had been instantaneous; Mary was obsessed by the horror of the thing, and not only its physical horror either, but by the mental and spiritual suffering that must have strengthened the will to destruction. ‘Such despair,’ she would say, ‘ such utter despair . . . and that was the end of all their loving. I can’t bear it!’ And then she would hide her face against Stephen’s strong and protective shoulder. THE WELL OF LONELINESS 467 Oh, yes, there was now little room for doubt, the whole busi- ness was preying badly on Mary. Sometimes strange, amorous moods would seize her, in which she must kiss Stephen rather wildly: * Don’t let go of me, darling — never let go. I’m afraid; I think it’s because of what’s happened.’ Her kisses would awaken a swift response, and so in these days that were shadowed by death, they clung very desperately to life with the passion they had felt when first they were lovers, as though only by constantly feeding that flame could they hope to ward off some unseen disaster. 2 AT THIS time of shock, anxiety and strain, Stephen turned to Valérie Seymour as many another had done before her. ‘Chis woman’s great calm in the midst of storm was not only soothing but helpful to Stephen, so that now she often went to the flat on the Quai Voltaire; often went there alone, since Mary would seldom accompany her — for some reason she resented Valérie Seymour. But in spite of this resentment Stephen must go, for now an insistent urge was upon her, the urge to unburden her weary mind of the many problems surrounding inversion. Like most inverts she found a passing relief in discussing the intoler- able situation; in dissecting it ruthlessly bit by bit, even though she arrived at no solution; but since Jamie’s death it did not seem wise to dwell too much on this subject with Mary. On the other hand, Valérie was now quite free, having suddenly tired of Jeanne Maurel, and moreover she was always ready to listen. Thus it was that between them a real friendship sprang up — a friendship founded on mutual respect, if not always on mutual understanding. Stephen would again and again go over those last heart rending days with Barbara and Jamie, railing against the out rageous injustice that had led to their tragic and miserable end- ing. She would clench her hands in a kind of fury. How long was 468 THE WELL OF LONELINESS this persecution to continue? How long would God sit still and endure this insult offered to His creation? How long tolerate the preposterous statement that inversion was not a part of nature? For since it existed what else could it be? All things that existed were a part of nature!

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  pain, and exhaustion, had suddenly broken out in Marburg as in other parts of Germany, and caused frightful ravages that filled everybody with alarm. The visitors were anxious to return home. So were the fathers of the Council of Trent, when the Elector Moritz chased the Emperor through the Tyrol; and in like manner the fathers of the Vatican Council hurried across the Alps when France declared war against Germany, and left the Vatican decrees in the hands of Italian infallibilists. But the Landgrave once more brought the guests together at his table on Sunday night, and urged upon every one the supreme importance of coming to some understanding. On Monday morning he arranged another private conference between the Saxon and the Swiss Reformers. They met for the last time on earth. With tears in his eyes, Zwingli approached Luther, and held out the hand of brotherhood, but Luther declined it, saying again, "Yours is a different spirit from ours." Zwingli thought that differences in non-essentials, with unity in essentials, did not forbid Christian brotherhood. "Let us," he said, "confess our union in all things in which we agree; and, as for the rest, let us remember that we are brethren. There will never be peace in the churches if we cannot bear differences on secondary points." Luther deemed the corporal presence a fundamental article, and construed Zwingli’s liberality into indifference to truth. "I am astonished," he said, "that you wish to consider me as your brother. It shows clearly that you do not attach much importance to your doctrine." Melanchthon looked upon the request of the Swiss as a strange inconsistency.877 Turning to the Swiss, the Wittenbergers said, "You do not belong to the communion of the Christian Church. We cannot acknowledge you as brethren." They were willing, however, to include them in that universal charity which we owe to our enemies. The Swiss were ready to burst over such an insult, but controlled their temper. On the same day Luther wrote the following characteristic letter to his wife: — "Grace and peace in Christ. Dear Lord Keth, I do you to know that our friendly colloquy in Marburg is at an end, and that we are agreed in almost every point, except that the opposite party wants to have only bread in the Lord’s Supper, and acknowledge the spiritual presence of Christ in the same. To-day the Landgrave wants us to come to an agreement, and, if not, to acknowledge each other as brethren and members of Christ. He labors very zealousy for this end. But we want no brothership and membership, only peace and good-will. I suppose to-morrow or day after to-morrow we shall break up, and proceed to Schleitz in the Voigtland whither his Electoral Grace has ordered us. "Tell Herr Pommer [Bugenhagen] that the best argument of Zwingli was that corpus non potest esse sine loco: ergo Christi corpus non est in pane. Of Oecolampadius: This sacramentum est signum corporis Christi.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  together with the minister, who was wounded in the pulpit, and exhorted the hearers to persevere; a number of women and children, who had taken refuge in the tower of the church, were burnt. The priest of Teglio took part in the bloody business, carrying the cross in the left, and the sword in the right hand. At Sondrio, the massacre raged for three days. Seventy-one Protestants, by their determined stand, were permitted to escape to the Engadin, but one hundred and forty fell victims to the bandits; a butcher boasted of having murdered eighteen persons. Not even the dead were spared; their bodies were exhumed, burnt, thrown into the water, or exposed to wild beasts. Paula Baretta, a noble Venetian lady of eighty years, who had left a nunnery for her religious conviction, was shamefully maltreated and delivered to the Inquisition at Milan, where a year afterward she suffered death at the stake. Anna of Libo fled with a child of two years in her arms; she was overtaken and promised release on condition of abjuring her faith. She refused, saying, "You may kill the body, but not the soul;" she pressed her child to her bosom, and received the death-blow. When the people saw the stream of blood on the market- place before the chief church, they exclaimed: "This is the revenge for our murdered arch-priest Rusca!" He was henceforth revered as a holy martyr. At Morbegno the Catholics behaved well, and aided the Protestants in making their escape. The fugitives were kindly received in the Grisons and other parts of Switzerland. From the Valtellina Robustelli proceeded to Poschiavo, burnt the town of Brusio, and continued there the butchery of Protestants till he was checked.246 The Valtellina declared itself independent and elected the Knight Robustelli military chief. The canons of the Council of Trent were proclaimed, papal indulgences introduced, the evangelical churches and cemeteries reconsecrated for Catholic use, the corpses of Protestants dug up, burnt, and cast into the river. Addresses were sent to the Pope and the kings of Spain and France, explaining and excusing the foul deeds by which the rebels claimed to have saved the Roman religion and achieved political freedom from intolerable tyranny. Now began the long and bloody conflicts for the recovery of the lost province, in which several foreign powers took part. The question of the Valtellina (like the Eastern question in modern times) became a European question, and was involved in the Thirty Years’ War. Spain, in possession of Milan, wished to join hands with Austria across the Alpine passes of the Grisons; while France and Venice had a political motive to keep them closed. Austrian and Spanish troops conquered and occupied the Valtellina and the three leagues, expelled the Protestant preachers, and inflicted unspeakable misery upon the people.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor, took the afflicted widow into his house, and treated her as a member of his family. She survived her husband seven years, and died in peace. A few steps from the pear-tree where Zwingli breathed his last, on a slight elevation, in view of the old church and abbey of Cappel, of the Rigi, Pilatus, and the more distant snow-capped Alps, there arises a plain granite monument, erected in 1838, mainly by the exertions of Pastor Esslinger, with suitable Latin and German inscriptions.291 A few weeks after Zwingli, his friend Oecolampadius died peacefully in his home at Basel (Nov. 24, 1531). The enemies spread the rumor that he had committed suicide. They deemed it impossible that an arch-heretic could die a natural death.292 § 48. Reflections on the Disaster at Cappel. We need not wonder that the religious and political enemies of Zwingli interpreted the catastrophe at Cappel as a signal judgment of God and a punishment for heresy. It is the tendency of superstition in all ages to connect misfortune with a particular sin. Such an uncharitable interpretation of Providence is condemned by the example of Job, the fate of prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and the express rebuke of the disciples by our Saviour in the case of the man born blind (John 9:31). But it is found only too often among Christians. It is painful to record that Luther, the great champion of the liberty of conscience, under the influence of his mediaeval training, and unmindful of the adage, De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, surpassed even the most virulent Catholics in the abuse of Zwingli after his death. It is a sad commentary on the narrowness and intolerance of the Reformer.293 The faithful friends of evangelical freedom and progress in Switzerland revered Zwingli as a martyr, and regarded the defeat at Cappel as a wholesome discipline or a blessing in disguise. Bullinger voiced their sentiments. "The victory of truth," he wrote after the death of his teacher and friend, "stands alone in God’s power and will, and is not bound to person or time. Christ was crucified, and his enemies imagined they had conquered; but forty years afterwards Christ’s victory became manifest in the destruction of Jerusalem. The truth conquers through tribulation and trial. The strength of the Christians is shown in weakness. Therefore, beloved brethren in Germany, take no offence at our defeat, but persevere in the Word of God, which has always won the victory, though in its defence the holy prophets, apostles, and martyrs suffered persecution and death. Blessed are those who die in the Lord. Victory will follow in time. A thousand years before the eyes of the Lord are but as one day. He, too, is victorious who suffers and dies for the sake of truth.294 It is vain to speculate on mere possibilities.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Once more he uplifted his head, and, looking at the blood trickling from his wounds, he exclaimed: What matters this misfortune? They may kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul." These were his last words.285 He lay for some time on his back under a pear-tree (called the Zwingli-Baum) in a meadow, his hands folded as in prayer, and his eyes steadfastly turned to heaven.286 The stragglers of the victorious army pounced like hungry vultures upon the wounded and dying. Two of them asked Zwingli to confess to a priest, or to call upon the dear saints for their intercession. He shook his head twice, and kept his eyes still fixed on the heavens above. Then Captain Vokinger of Unterwalden, one of the foreign mercenaries, against whom the Reformer had so often lifted his voice, recognized him by the torch-light, and killed him with the, sword, exclaiming, "Die, obstinate heretic."287 There he lay during the night. On the next morning the people gathered around the dead, and began to realize the extent of the victory. Everybody wanted to see Zwingli. Chaplain Stocker of Zug, who knew him well, made the remark that his face had the same fresh and vigorous expression as when he kindled his hearers with the fire of eloquence from the pulpit. Hans Schönbrunner, an ex-canon of Fraumünster in Zürich, as he passed the corpse of the Reformer, with Chaplain Stocker, burst into tears, and said, "Whatever may have been thy faith, thou hast been an honest patriot. May God forgive thy sins."288 He voiced the sentiment of the better class of Catholics. But the fanatics and foreign mercenaries would not even spare the dead. They decreed that his body should be quartered for treason and then burnt for heresy, according to the Roman and imperial law. The sheriff of Luzern executed the barbarous sentence. Zwingli’s ashes were mingled with the ashes of swine, and scattered to the four winds of heaven.289 The news of the disaster at Cappel spread terror among the citizens of Zürich. "Then," says Bullinger, "arose a loud and horrible cry of lamentation and tears, bewailing and groaning." On no one fell the sudden stroke with heavier weight than on the innocent widow of Zwingli: she had lost, on the same day, her husband, a son, a brother, a son-in-law, a brother-in-law, and her most intimate friends. She remained alone with her weeping little children, and submitted in pious resignation to the mysterious will of God. History is silent about her grief; but it has been vividly and touchingly described in the Zürich dialect by Martin Usteri in a poem for the tercentenary Reformation festival in Zürich (1819).290

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  Church, but does full justice to his intellectual greatness. He says, p. 51, "If we justly call him a great man, who, endowed with mighty powers and gifts, accomplishes great things, who, as a bold legislator in the realm of mind, makes millions subservient to his system, then the peasant’s son of Möhra must be counted among the great, yea, the greatest men. This also is true, that he was a sympathizing friend, free of avarice and love of money, and ready to help others." Döllinger was excommunicated for his opposition to the Vatican decree of infallibility (1870), but still remains a Catholic, and could not become a Protestant without retracting his work on the Reformation. He would, however, write a very different work now, and present the Reformation as a blessing rather than a calamity to Germany, in the light of the events which have passed since 1870. In one of his Akademische Vorträge, the first volume of which has just reached me (Nördlingen, 1888, p. 76), he makes the significant confession, that for many years the events In Germany from 1517 to 1552 were to him an unsolved riddle, and an object of sorrow and grief, seeing then only the result of division of the church and the nation into hostile camps; but that a closer study of the mediaeval history of Rome and Germany, and the events of the last years, have given him a better understanding and more hopeful view of the renewed and reunited German nation as a noble instrument in the hands of Providence. This is as far as he can go from his standpoint. § 125. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. I conclude this volume with Luther’s immortal hymn, which is the best expression of his character, and reveals the secret of his strength as well as the moving power of the Reformation.1007 A tower of strength1008 our God is still, A good defense1009 and weapon; He helps us free from all the ill That us hath overtaken. Our old, mortal foe1010 Now aims his fell blow, Great might and deep guile His horrid coat-of-mail;1011 On earth is no one like him.1012 Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott, Ein’ gute Wehr und Waffen. Er hilft uns frei aus aller Noth, Die uns jetzt hat betroffen. Der alt’ böse Feind, Mit Ernst er’s jetzt meint; Gross’ Macht und viel List, Sein grausam Rüstung ist, Auf Erd’ ist nicht sein’s Gleichen. By might of ours can naught be done:1013 Our fate were soon decided. But for us fights the champion,1014 By God himself provided. Who Is this, ask ye? Jesus Christ! ÕTis he! Lord of Sabaoth, True God and Saviour both, Omnipotent in battle.1015 Mit unsrer Macht ist nichts gethan, Wir sind gar bald verloren: Es streit’t für uns der rechte Mann, Den Gott hat selbst erkoren. Fragst du, wer Der ist? Er heisst Jesus Christ, Der Herr Zebaoth, Und ist kein andrer Gott; Das Feld muss Er behalten. Did devils fill the earth and air,1016 All eager to devour us, Our steadfast hearts need feel no care, Lest they should overpower us. The grim Prince of hell, With rage though he swell, Hurts us not a whit, Because his doom is writ: A little word can rout1017 him. Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär’ Und wollt uns gar verschlingen, So fürchten wir uns nicht zu sehr, Es soll uns doch gelingen. Der Fürst dieser Welt, Wie sau’r er sich stellt, Thut er uns doch nichts; Das macht, er ist gericht’t; Ein Wörtlein kann ihn fällen. The word of God will never yield To any creature living; He stands with us upon the field, His grace and Spirit giving. Take they child and wife, Goods, name, fame, and life, Though all this be done, Yet have they nothing won: The kingdom still remaineth. Das Wort sie sollen lassen stan1018 Und keinÕn Dank dazu haben. Er ist bei uns wohl auf dem Plan1019 Mit seinem Geist und Gaben. Nehmen sie den Leib, Gut, Ehr, Kind und Weib; Lass fahren dahin, Sie haben’s kein’n Gewinn; Das Reich muss uns doch bleiben

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  At Metz he preached in the cemetery of the Dominicans, while the monks sounded all the bells to drown his voice. He accompanied Calvin to Zürich to bring about the Consensus Tigurinus with the Zwinglians (1549). He followed Servetus to the stake (Oct. 27, 1553), and exhorted him in vain to renounce his errors. He collected money for the refugees of Locarno, and sent letters of comfort to his persecuted brethren in France. He made two visits to Germany (1557) to urge upon the German princes an active intercession in behalf of the Waldenses and French Protestants, but without effect. In December, 1558, when already sixty-nine years of age, he married, against the advice of his friends, a poor maiden, who had fled with her widowed mother from France to Neuchâtel.349 Calvin was much annoyed by this indiscretion, but besought the preachers of that city to bear with patience the folly of the old bachelor. The marriage did not cool Farel’s zeal. In 1559 he visited the French refugees in Alsace and Lorraine. In November, 1561, he accepted an invitation to Gap, his birthplace, and ventured to preach in public, notwithstanding the royal prohibition, to the large number of his fellow-citizens who had become Protestants. Shortly before his death Calvin informed him of his illness, May 2, 1564, in the last letter from his pen: "Farewell, my best and truest brother! And since it is God’s will that you remain behind me in the world, live mindful of our friendship, which as it was useful to the Church of God, so the fruit of it awaits us in heaven. Pray do not fatigue yourself on my account. It is with difficulty that I draw my breath, and I expect that every moment will be the last. It is enough that I live and die for Christ, who is the reward of his followers both in life and in death. Again, farewell with the brethren."350 Farel, notwithstanding the infirmity of old age, travelled to Geneva, and paid his friend a touching farewell visit, but returned home before his death. He wrote to Fabri: "Would I could die for him! What a beautiful course has he happily. finished! God grant that we may thus finish our course according to the grace that he has given us." His last journey was a farewell visit to the Protestants at Metz, who received him with open arms, and were exceedingly comforted by his presence (May, 1565). He preached with the fire of his youth. Soon after his return to Neuchâtel, he died peacefully, Sept. 13, 1565, seventy-six years old. The friends who visited him in his last days were deeply impressed with his heroic steadfastness and hopefulness. He was poor and disinterested, like all the Reformers.351 A monument was erected to him at Neuchâtel, May 4, 1876. The writings of Farel are polemical and practical tracts for the times, mostly in French.352 § 63. Peter Viret and the Reformation in Lausanne.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Never, however, shall this most crushing sorrow, which I suffer on account of both, so overcome me, as to reflect with grief upon that day on which they were driven hither by the hand of God to us, rather than led by any settled purpose of their own, when that friendship commenced which has not only continued undiminished to the last, but which, from day to day, was rather increased and confirmed. Whatever, therefore, may have been the kind or model of education they were in search of, I rejoice that they lived under the same roof with me. And since it was appointed them to die, I rejoice also that they died under my roof, where they rendered back their souls to God more composedly, and in greater circumstances of quiet, than if they had happened to die in those places where they would have experienced greater annoyance from the importunity of those by whom they ought to have been assisted, than from death itself. On the contrary, it was in the midst of pious exhortations, and while calling upon the name of the Lord, that these sainted spirits fled from the communion of their brethren here to the bosom of Christ. Nor would I desire now to be free from all sorrow at the cost of never having known them. Their memory will ever be sacred to me to the end of my days, and I am persuaded that it will also be sweet and comforting. "But what advantage, you will say, is it to me to have had a son of so much promise, since he has been torn away from me in the first flower of his youth? As if, forsooth, Christ had not merited, by His death, the supreme dominion over the living and the dead! And if we belong to Him (as we ought), why may He not exercise over us the power of life and of death? However brief, therefore, either in your opinion or in mine, the life of your son may have been, it ought to satisfy us that he has finished the course which the Lord had marked out for him. "Moreover, we may not reckon him to have perished in the flower of his age, who had grown ripe in the sight of the Lord. For I consider all to have arrived at maturity who are summoned away by death; unless, perhaps, one would contend with Him, as if He can snatch away any one before his time. This, indeed, holds true of every one; but in regard to Louis, it is yet more certain on another and more peculiar ground. For he had arrived at that age, when, by true evidences, he could prove himself a member of the body of Christ: having put forth this fruit, he was taken from us and transplanted. Yes, instead of this transient and vanishing shadow of life, he has regained the real immortality of being.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  906), to the circle of "those noble, genial, and hearty evangelical divines, like John Arnd, Valentin Andrew, and others, who deeply felt the awful misery of the fatherland, and especially the inner distractions of the church in their age, but who knew also and pointed out the way of salvation and peace." He was evidently a highly cultivated scholar, at home in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and in controversial theology. He excels in taste and style the forbidding literature of his age. He condemns the pharisaical hypocrisy, the folodoxiva, filargiva, and filoneikiva of the theologians, and exhorts them first of all to humility and love. By too much controversy about the truth, we are in danger of losing the truth itself. Nimium altercando amittitur Veritas. "Many," he says, "contend for the corporal presence of Christ who have not Christ in their hearts." He sees no other way to concord than by rallying around the living Christ as the source of spiritual life. He dwells on the nature of God as love, and the prime duty of Christians to love one another, and comments on the seraphic chapter of Paul on charity (1 Cor. 13). He discusses the difference between necessaria and non-necessaria. Necessary dogmas are, (1) articles of faith necessary to salvation; (2) articles derived from clear testimonies of the Bible; (3) articles decided by the whole church in a synod or symbol; (4) articles held by all orthodox divines as necessary. Not necessary, are dogmas (1) not contained in the Bible; (2) not belonging to the common inheritance of faith; (3) not unanimously taught by theologians; (4) left doubtful by grave divines; (5) not tending to piety, charity, and edification. He concludes with a defense of John Arnd (1555–1621), the famous author of "True Christianity," against the attacks of orthodox fanatics, and with a fervent and touching prayer to Christ to come to the rescue of his troubled church (Rev. 22:17). The golden sentence occurs in the later half of the tract (p. 128 in Luecke’s edition), incidentally and in hypothetical form, as follows: — "Verbo dicam: Si nos servaremus in necessariis unitatem, in non-necessariis libertatem, in utrisque charitatem, optimo certe loco essent res nostrae." The same sentiment, but in a shorter sententious and hortative form, occurs in a book of Gregor Frank, entitled Consideratio theologica de gradibus necessitatis dogmatumt Christianorum quibus fidei, spei et charitatis officia reguntur, Francf. ad Oderam, 1628. Frank (1585–1651) was first a Lutheran, then a Reformed theologian, and professor at Francfort. He distinguishes three kinds of dogmas: (1) dogmas necessary for salvation: the clearly revealed truths of the Bible; (2) dogmas which are derived by clear and necessary inference from the Scriptures and held by common consent of orthodox Christendom; (3) the specific and controverted dogmas of the several confessions.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The foreigners were punished by exile, and met death in Roman Catholic countries. Blaurock was scourged, expelled, and burnt, 1529, at Clausen in the Tyrol. Hätzer, who fell into carnal sins, was beheaded for adultery and bigamy at Constance, Feb. 24, 1529. John Zwick, a Zwinglian, says that "a nobler and more manful death was never seen in Constance." Thomas Blaurer bears a similar testimony.143 Hübmaier, who had fled from Waldshut to Zurich, December, 1525, was tried before the magistracy, recanted, and was sent out of the country to recant his recantation.144 He labored successfully in Moravia, and was burnt at the stake in Vienna, March 10, 1528. Three days afterwards his faithful wife, whom he had married in Waldshut, was drowned in the Danube. Other Swiss cantons took the same measures against the Anabaptists as Zurich. In Zug, Lorenz Fürst was drowned, Aug. 17, 1529. In Appenzell, Uliman and others were beheaded, and some women drowned. At Basle, Oecolampadius held several disputations with the Anabaptists, but without effect; whereupon the Council banished them, with the threat that they should be drowned if they returned (Nov. 13, 1530). The Council of Berne adopted the same course. In Germany and in Austria the Anabaptists fared still worse. The Diet of Speier, in April, 1529, decreed that "every Anabaptist and rebaptized person of either sex be put to death by sword, or fire, or otherwise." The decree was severely carried out, except in Strassburg and the domain of Philip of Hesse, where the heretics were treated more leniently. The most blood was shed in Roman Catholic countries. In Görz the house in which the Anabaptists were assembled for worship was set on fire. "In Tyrol and Görz," says Cornelius,145 "the number of executions in the year 1531 reached already one thousand; in Ensisheim, six hundred. At Linz seventy-three were killed in six weeks. Duke William of Bavaria, surpassing all others, issued the fearful decree to behead those who recanted, to burn those who refused to recant.... Throughout the greater part of Upper Germany the persecution raged like a wild chase.... The blood of these poor people flowed like water so that they cried to the Lord for help.... But hundreds of them of all ages and both sexes suffered the pangs of torture without a murmur, despised to buy their lives by recantation, and went to the place of execution joyfully and singing psalms." The blood of martyrs is never shed in vain. The Anabaptist movement was defeated, but not destroyed; it revived among the Mennonites, the Baptists in England and America, and more recently in isolated congregations on the Continent. The questions of the subjects and mode of baptism still divide Baptist and Pedobaptist churches, but the doctrine of the salvation of unbaptized infants is no longer condemned as a heresy; and the principle of religious liberty and separation of Church and State, for which the Swiss and German Anabaptists suffered and died, is making steady progress.