Delphian Apollo; yet it were a
gross sin in a priest to give names either by mouth or pen. Thou art
sharp-sighted, and able to guess with ease, whence that has come,
which, out of brotherly love, could not be withholden from thee.
Preserve thyself for thine own sake, for thy followers, for the cause
of Christ, whose Gospel is proclaimed by you with such blessed results.
Whoever I may be, I am thine. Thou wilt find out hereafter." This was
the case. The writer was Michael Hummelberg, preacher at Ravensburg. Of
the same import were the warnings of others, to guard the approaches to
his dwelling, to take care, if he should be called from home, the
breaking of his windows by stones hurled at them, and the attack, which
was actually made one night on his assistant as he was about to go
forth at the feigned call of a sick person, instead of the people's
priest, who was expected by the bandits.

How little power all this had to frighten Zwingli from the course he
had marked out for himself, is seen in a yet bolder step, which he took
the same year--the sending of a petition to the Bishop of Constance in
the Latin language and to the governments of the Confederacy in German,
asking them to approve the marriage of priests. No proof is needed to
show that the noblest endeavor of man is after self-rule, spiritual
purification, the attainment of the supernatural. A few rarely-gifted
individuals press up this steep path with ease; by far the greater
number follow slowly and with toil. Before deliverance from the fetters
of earth, no one achieves a complete victory. This world is a school
not the home of perfection. They, who are nearest the goal, know best
how far they are yet distant from it. The following reflections are
suggested by this subject.

The statesman, zealous for the good of his country, as well as the
thinker, busied with the higher interests of mankind in general, must
both acknowledge in the difference and mutual wants of the sexes, in
their union by marriage, the chief source of all civilization, the
ground-pillar of all domestic, social and political well-being. Far be
it from us to oppose merely natural impulses to purity of heart,
endeavors after improvement, struggles for self-dominion; nay rather,
marriage requires and makes all these the more easy. What victories
over ease and self, what offerings of renunciation do not our duties to
husbands, wives and parents demand? They are only the purer and nobler,
b