Influence of Romanism by D. H. Wheeler

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 1, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 17.

Influence of Romanism.

By D. H. Wheeler

I HEARD a distressing story of a persecution that had gone on for years against a young man of good character in Canton Zug, a little State with its Romanist ring. He had been sentenced to prison without a chance to know the proofs of the charges, turned adrift because the State did not choose to maintain him in prison, kept in dread of a re-arrest, refused access to the books which were said to prove him a defaulter, and at the most inconvenient moments summoned to the bar to answer a demand for money. The American gentleman who told me the story in the presence of the persecuted man's wife and child, doubted whether there was another spot in Europe where such a persecution could be possible.

It is only in the small Catholic cantons that such things are possible. In Zug, the potentate was a small-minded creature managed by the priests. The line between canton Zug and canton Zurich can be traced by any one without the aid of a surveyor or a map. In Catholic Zug no paint on the houses and no school-houses by the wayside. As soon as you see a painted house and a new air of "spruceness" all about it, you will know that you are in Protestant Zurich, and you may begin to look for the school-house. There is something malign about the Catholic rule, and it looks strange to see it lording over some of the sacred spots of Swiss story and song. The Protestant city of Zurich has become the first city of the Swiss. It is less rich than some others in scenery, but its historic glories are not of Tell but of Zwingli, and all its spirit is moulded by the memories of the Reformation.—D. H. Wheeler, D. D., in Christian at Work.