ghts of Christian liberty now began to
spread among the people subject to the foundation, they immediately
applied them to deliverance from all dependence; from the duty of
paying rents and tithes. If the one, said they, is an invention of man,
so is the other. If we are to receive the Gospel, which teaches liberty
among brethren, then will we also become our own masters, an
independent canton like Unterwalden and Uri. The Provost, who did not
know how to resist them, fled with a few friends to Bern, where, for a
decent maintenance, he surrendered the monastery along with its domains
and privileges into the hands of the Council. Under sanction of the
Great Council, an agreement was quickly made by the government with the
assembled convent; its seal, documents, revenues and jewels were
brought to Bern; an officer was sent thither, and the whole converted
into a bailiwick. But the people belonging to the monastery, who
asserted that they ought to have had a voice in the change, at once
preferred a complaint. When the government tried to postpone
investigation, a violent insurrection broke out, which found sympathy
even in some parts of their own district. New hopes were excited among
the friends of the Old Order by this uprising of the malcontents, with
whom the inhabitants of the Haslithal and other Oberlanders also
joined, at the instigation of their neighbors in Obwalden. The Council
was in great perplexity. Some of its own members secretly rejoiced--but
only the most violent. With others, who also were little favorable to
the Reformation, the sense of duty, which demanded the sacrifice of
personal inclination to the interests of the state, predominated. From
this class chiefly, a commission was chosen to examine on the spot the
grievances of the malcontents and negotiate with them. They succeeded
in restoring political order by lessening their rents, tithes and other
taxes; by remitting more than 50,000 pounds of outstanding dues, and a
promise of increased support for the poor and sick; but to allay the
religious excitement was a far more difficult task.

Here, for the first time, the two religious parties appeared in arms
against each other. The occasion was given by a split among the
Oberlanders themselves--division in a matter, where no majority could
decide. In the Haslithal the Reformation had found resolute adherents.
They and the preachers sent hither from Bern were a source of daily
vexation to their fellow-c