--a sentiment most zealously preached by Luther who was a typical German
patriot as well as a religious reformer--deferred the rupture till after
Luther's death.

[Sidenote: The Swiss Reformers, 1520-1530]

The active aggressive Reformation began in Germany with Luther's attack on
Indulgences. In France it made no headway for many years; in Spain and
Italy none at all; in England none, till the meeting of Parliament in 1529.
But the movement in Switzerland was as marked as that in Germany, and
hardly less important in the influence ultimately exercised by the Swiss
teachers, though of less direct political weight. Nor is it possible to
follow the course of the Reformation in England, unless the separate
existence of the Swiss School is duly appreciated. Switzerland was not a
Political entity which could rank effectively as a make-weight in
international rivalries; but its geographical conditions preserved it from
interference, and permitted it, so to speak, to work out its own salvation.
The country was a federation of small democratic States or Cantons, with no
Princes and no nobility. It followed that when once the question of
ecclesiastical reform was raised, the theories of Church Government which
would find acceptance would be democratic in principle: and accordingly it
was from Switzerland that the vital opposition to Episcopal systems sprang.
But the main fact to be observed at this stage is, that the Swiss Reformers
were not the outcome of the Lutheran movement; their movement was
spontaneous, independent, and parallel. Their leader Zwingli anticipated
rather than followed Luther. But an agitator who appealed to Germany and an
agitator who appealed to Switzerland seemed to be of very different degrees
of public importance. Hence comparatively speaking Zwingli was ignored by
the authorities. Half Switzerland might--and did--revolt from the Pope,
without greatly exercising the Papal mind. But in the process Zurich became