itutions are allowed to take
back their gifts. For the rest, account shall be afterward rendered to
the government. Yet, it is expressly added: "Not that we wish to
appropriate such gifts to our own use, as they are still to be called
_gifts of God_, but so to dispose of them that our honor and justice
will stand clear before God and the world." Finally, the rules of
fasting and celibacy were abolished, but self-government was demanded
for the freedom restored. On this point the document speaks thus: "And
as we have heretofore punished, in the rate of ten pounds, those who
have eaten flesh and eggs on forbidden days, so will we henceforth fine
at the same rate all who take more than their nature can bear, pouring
it down after the ninth sleeping-cup, and those who drink on and
carouse; when they are guilty of it frequently, heavier punishment is
reserved, to be laid on each one according to circumstances."

From what has just been narrated, we see the influence exerted by
Zwingli upon Bern. Let us now take into consideration the reaction of
Bern upon Zwingli. When he began his great work in Zurich, the path of
its development could scarcely have been marked out before his eyes. He
little thought of political commotion. Even the mischief arising from
desertions and pensions, which he only fought against on account of
their evil effects on religion and morals, could be prevented without
change either in the government of the several states, or in the
ground-work, nature or language of the Articles of Confederacy. The
refusal of Zurich to take part in the French Alliance awakened
displeasure, it is true, among her sister-cantons, but even this was
followed by no direct disturbance of her relations with them. Now came
the division of the bishopric, already an influential step. A new
principle was introduced into the ecclesiastical, which was so closely
interwoven with the political life. But this principle was rejected by
all the other states up to the Conference of Baden. The Five Cantons
and the party belonging to the old faith hoped from this Conference so
glorious an acknowledgment of it in the others, that even Zurich would
be obliged to submit. It happened otherwise. Bern also fell away from
the principle of the Five Cantons. A new idea of the Confederacy began
to form itself in opposition to the old; but even here again some
difference prevailed. The ecclesiastical reform in Zurich had been
effected by appealing to t