eeks intercourse with those, who are possessed of it." By the aid of
such persons he desired to increase the prosperity of the monastery,
for the advantage and maintenance of whose privileges, he was clothed
with power. He was glad therefore to learn that Zwingli was able to
accept a call, and in fact an agreement was entered into by the
attorneys of the two parties on the 14 April, 1516, at Pfaffikon, on
Lake Zurich, in consequence of which Zwingli undertook the office of
preacher and pastor, in the capacity of vicar to the people's priest at
Einsiedeln, for which boarding at the convent-table, 20 florins at the
quarter-fastings, the revenues arising from the penny-offering and
requiems, and his own share of the confession-fees were guaranteed to
him, and the first complete benefice at the disposal of the
Administrator besides. Nevertheless, at their own urgent request, he
still remained pastor of his congregation in Glarus, and discharged his
duties there by the help of a vicar.

In the summer of the same year, trained as he already was in the school
of the world, he entered into the quiet shades of the cloister. It can
scarcely be expected that he will remain there long. First of all, let
us take a view of monastic life on its most favorable side, as a school
of self-denial, as a place of refuge for more profound study, as a
field for the exercise of practical charity. In all these respects it
has no doubt served valuable ends. And who will deny that, in times
when the will of the strong would endure no restraint, when bloody
revenge was thought to be a duty, and when iron bodies, broken by no
excess, added deeds of violence to deeds of violence, a milder spirit
was awakened in the walls of the cloister, and that pride was humbled
there, and self-will subdued?--that in the _God's peace_, which
protected its environs, the mechanic, as well as the peasant, found
labor and encouragement? And who does not acknowledge the services
rendered by particular monasteries, especially those of the
Benedictines, in the preservation and multiplication of rare
manuscripts--the works of the ancients, that had survived the downfall
of the Western Empire and the irruption of barbarian hordes? And even
in later times, in our own country, who will not freely own his
indebtedness to a Kopp in Muri, a Van der Meer in Rheinau, and the
monks of the neighboring St. Blaise,---a Herrgott, Neugart, Eichhorn,
and the Abbot Gerbert himself, for a