p. 187 | Oswald Myconius

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 19, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 12.

Oswald Myconius.

AMONG the men of learning who formed a kind of a court of Erasmus,—Amerbach, Rhenanus, Froben, Nessenus, Glareanus, and the rest,—Zwingle took notice of a young native of Lucerne, twenty-seven years of age, named Oswald Geishussles. Erasmus, translating his name into Greek, had named him Myconius. We shall speak of him by his Christian name, to distinguish this friend of Zwingle from Frederic Myconius, the disciple of Luther. Oswald, after studying at Rothwyl with another young man of his own age, named Berthold Haller, then at Berne, and afterwards at Bale, had become rector of St. Theodoric's and still later of St. Peter's school in that city.

Though the humble schoolmaster had but a slender income, he had married a young girl of a simplicity and purity of mind that won all hearts. It was a time of trouble in Switzerland, when foreign wars gave rise to scandalous disorders, and the soldiers, returning to their country, brought with them habits of licentiousness and brutality. One winter's day, gloomy and overcast, some of these wretches attacked the quiet dwelling of Oswald in his absence. They assaulted the door, threw stones, and with indecent language called for his wife. At last they burst open the door, and having made their way to his school, broke everything in the place, and then retired.

Such were the scenes which took place in Switzerland at the beginning of the sixteenth century, before the Reformation had humanized the manner of the people.

Oswald had quitted Bale in 1516 to take the direction of the cathedral school at Zurich. Seven centuries before, Charlemagne had added a college of canons to that same cathedral, the school attached to which was placed under Oswald Myconius. These canons having declined from their first institution, and wishing to enjoy their benefices in the sweets of indolence, had adopted the custom of electing a preacher, to whom they delegated the duty of preaching and the cure of souls. This post became vacant shortly after the arrival of Oswald, who immediately thought of his friend. What a blessing it would be to Zurich! Oswald exerted all his activity in his friend's favor. On the 11th of December the election took place. Zwingle was chosen by a majority of seventeen out of twenty-four votes. The time had come for the Reformation to arise in Switzerland.

Oswald was happy at Zurich. His position there was a constrained one, it is true; but the virtues of his modest wife made him amends for all his discomforts. It was of her that Glareanus said, "Could I meet a young woman resembling her, I would prefer her to a king's daughter." The enjoyment which Zwingle and Myconius found in their reciprocal friendship was sometimes broken in upon, however, by the voice of a faithful monitor. That monitor was the canon Xylocteet, who was continually calling on Myconius to return to Lucerne, the place of his birth. "Zurich is not thy country," said he, "but Lucerne. Thou sayest that the Zurichers are thy friends; I acknowledge it; but canst thou tell how it will fare with thee when the shadows of evening begin to fall on thy path? Remember thy duty to thy country; such is my desire, my entreaty, and, if I may so speak, my command!"

Following up his words by acts, Xylocteet caused Myconius to be elected rector of the collegiate school of his native city. Oswald then hesitated no longer, he saw the finger of God in this nomination, and, great as was the sacrifice demanded of him, he resolved to make it. Might it not be the will of the Lord to employ him as his instrument in publishing the doctrine of peace in the warlike canton of Lucerne?

But the persecution was to begin in Switzerland. The warlike canton of Lucerne was about to take the field, like a champion sheathed in mail, and ready for the charge. It happened that some of Luther's writings found their way into the city, and there were certain citizens who set themselves to peruse them. With what horror they were seized as they read on! It seemed to them that none but an infernal hand could have traced those lines. Oswald never spoke of Luther except to his most intimate friends, contenting himself with simply setting forth the gospel of Christ. The cry nevertheless was raised through the whole city: "To the stake with Luther and the schoolmaster [Myconius]!" "I am assailed by my enemies," said Oswald to a friend of his, "as a ship is beaten by the tempest." One day, early in the year 1529, he was unexpectedly summoned to appear before the Council. "You are strictly enjoined," said the magistrates, "never to read Luther's writings to your pupils; never to mention his name in their hearing; never even to think of him yourself." "I live," said Myconius, "in the midst of savage wolves, but I have this consolation that the greater part of them have lost their fangs. They would bite if they could, and since they cannot bite they howl."

The Senate was now convened, for the tumult was increasing. "He is a Lutheran!" said one of the councilors. "He broaches new doctrines!" said another. "He is a seducer of youth!" said a third. "Let him appear! let him appear!" The poor schoolmaster appeared accordingly, and had to listen to fresh interdicts and threats. His guileless spirit was wounded and depressed. His gentle wife could only comfort him by the tears of sympathy which she shed. "Every one is against me," said he, in the anguish of his heart. "Whither shall I turn me in the storm, or how escape its fury? Were it not for the help that Christ gives me, I should long since have sunk under this persecution." "What matters it," said Doctor Sebastine Hofmeister, writing to him from Constance, "whether Lucerne will give you a home or not? The earth is the Lord's. The man whose heart is steadfast finds a home in every land. Were we even the vilest of men, our cause is righteous, for we teach the word of Christ."

Oswald had sacrificed everything for his country; he had quitted Zurich and Zwingle; he had injured his health; his wife was infirm, and his son of tender years. If Lucerne should reject him, nowhere could he hope for an asylum! But these considerations had no power over the merciless spirit of party, and the things that should have moved them to compassion, inflamed their anger. Hurtenstein, burgomaster of Lucerne, an old and brave soldier, who had acquired distinction in the wars of Suabia and Burgundy, urged the Council to dismiss the schoolmaster from his post, and wished, together with the master, to expel his Greek and Latin, and his preaching, from the canton. He succeeded. On leaving the Council, in which it had been decided to dismiss Myconius, Hurtenstein encountered Berguer, the deputy of Zurich: "We send you back your schoolmaster," said he, ironically, "get ready a comfortable lodging for him." "We will not let him lie in the streets," instantly replied the courageous deputy. But Berguer promised more than he could perform.

The words dropped by the burgomaster were too true, and they were soon confirmed to the distressed Myconius. He is deprived of his occupation, banished, and the only crime laid to his charge is that he is a disciple of Luther. He turns his eyes on the right and on the left, and nowhere does he discern shelter. He beholds himself and his wife and child, weak and ailing, driven from their home, and all around him, his country rocked by a violent tempest that is rending and destroying whatever ventures to stand against it. "Here," said he to Zwingle, "is your poor Myconius discharged by the Council of Lucerne? Where shall I go? . . . I know not. . . . Assailed as you yourself are, how can you shelter me? . . . I look, therefore, in my tribulation to God, as my only hope. Ever abounding, ever merciful, he suffers none who make their prayer to him to go empty away. May he supply my wants!"

So spake Oswald. He waited not long before a word of consolation came to him. There was one man in Switzerland who had been schooled in trials of faith. Zwingle hastened to raise and cheer his friend. "So rude are the blows by which the enemy would level God's house," said Zwingle, "and so repeated the assaults, that it is no longer the rains descending, and the wind blowing, according to the Lord's prediction (Matt. 7:27), but hail and thunder-storm. If I did not discern the Lord keeping the vessel, I should long since have let go the helm; but I see him in the height of the tempest, strengthening the cordage, shifting the yards, spreading the sails, nay more, commanding the very winds. Would it not then be the action of a faint heart, and unworthy of a man, were I to abandon my post and seek in flight a death of shame? I commit myself entirely to his sovereign goodness. Let him govern all,—let him remove impediments,—let him appear or delay, hasten or stay,—rend, swallow up, or plunge us to the bottom of the deep; we will not fear. We are vessels that belong to him. He can make us to honor or to dishonor, according to his pleasure!" After these breathings of lively faith, Zwingle continued: "My advice to you is to present yourself before the Council, and there pronounce a speech worthy of Christ, and of yourself—that is to say, suited to melt and not to irritate the hearers. Deny that you are a Lutheran, but profess yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ. Let your pupils accompany you, and speak for you; and if this does not prevail, come to your friend, come to Zwingle, and look upon our city as your own hearth."

Oswald, emboldened by these words, followed the noble council of the reformer; but all his efforts were fruitless. The witness for truth was doomed to quit his country, and they of Lucerne were so active in decrying him that everywhere the magistrates opposed the offering him an asylum. "Nothing remains for me," said the confessor of Jesus Christ, heart-broken at the aspect of so much enmity, "but to beg the support of my miserable existence from door to door." The day soon arrived when the friend of Zwingle, and his most effective fellow-laborer, the first among the Swiss who united the office of instructor in learning with the love of the gospel, the reformer of Lucerne, and afterwards one of the chiefs of the Helvetic church, was compelled, with his feeble partner and infant child, to leave that ungrateful city, where, out of all his family, only one of his sisters had received the love of the gospel. He passed its ancient bridge. He caught sight of those mountains which seemed to rise from the bosom of Lake Waldstetten to the clouds. The canons Xylocteet and Kilchmeyer, the only friends the Reformation could as yet number among his countrymen, followed close behind him. And in the moment when this poor man, in company with the helpless sufferers dependent upon him for support, turned towards the lake, and shedding tears for his infuriated country, bade adieu to the sublime natural grandeur of his birthplace, the gospel itself departed from Lucerne, and there Rome reigns unto this day.—D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation.