t was drawn up on Monday,
November 6th, 1525, with a full and free safe-conduct for all those,
who thought themselves in a condition to defend their variant
doctrines. Zwingli, Leo Judae and Caspar Grossman, people's priests at
the Dominican church, were selected as champions to make reply; and
Wolfgang Joner, abbot at Cappel, the Commander Schmied, Sebastian
Hofmeister of Schaffhausen, and Vadianus of St. Gall, as presidents for
the occasion. The Anabaptists appeared in numbers under their leaders,
Manz, Grebel and Blaurock; many of them had come from distant
countries; the department of Grueningen, at the command of the
government, sent thither twelve deputies. Scarcely had the conference
opened at the Council House, in presence of the Two Hundred and a crowd
of hearers, who filled up all the chamber, when a newly arrived troop
of fanatics pressed in with the cry: "O Zion! O Zion! Rejoice O
Jerusalem!" and threw everything into confusion. To prevent such
disturbances and to obtain more room, the assembly removed to the
church of the Great Minster. Here the battle continued for three days,
from morning till late in the evening. Speech was denied to no one:
access to none, who wished to hear. Public opinion grew more favorable
to the people's priests. On the third day the attacks of the
Anabaptists became weaker; their self-confidence vanished. Only one of
them, who had repeatedly asserted that he could end the contest with
one word, but had still been held back by his associates, who
themselves thought him too wild, broke through at last and placed
himself, with an inflamed visage, and all the motions of a conjurer,
before the people's priest, and cried out: "Zwingli, I conjure thee, by
the living God, to tell us the truth." The latter answered very calmly:
"That shalt thou hear. Thou art as clownish and seditious a peasant,
and as simple as any Our Lords have in the canton." A universal roar of
laughter followed, and the act was closed.

The government then issued a public statement concerning the events of
this controversy, which, along with other things, concluded with the
following words: "After the Anabaptists and their followers have
disputed three days, from morning till evening, in our Council House
and the Great Minster, in our presence and that of a large crowd of men
and women, and every Baptist has spoken all he had to say, without let
or hindrance, it has at last been found from the most powerful
argument