United States or Seychelles ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This sunset is a recollection of a glorious evening near Frankfort, and those purple mountains in the distance are part of the Taunus range. Here is an old mediæval gateway at Solothurn, in Switzerland. This wild heath near the sea is in the neighborhood of Biscay. This quaint knot of ruinous houses in a weed-grown Court was sketched at Bruges.
For one hundred and fifty years no citizen had been enrolled among them, and no son of a peasant had been allowed to study for, or been nominated to, any office, even to that of preacher. In Solothurn, but one-half of the eight hundred townsmen were able to carry on the government.
They had written the same to Zurich, where hurrying envoys from Glarus, Appenzel, the Three Cantons, Solothurn and Freiburg arrived every hour with plans for a settlement of the difficulties. Bern had also convoked at Aarau, a Diet for the whole Confederacy. Even from Strasburg the Mayor Sturm had come as a mediator. A spirit of peace began to pervade the opposing camps.
In their day they were renowned far and wide; but they also have slipped into some abyss of oblivion, perhaps to be yet recovered as miraculously as was the Solothurn Madonna. When the Guild was compelled to abandon the Steelyard, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, the Hall stood so long unguarded and uncared for that when it regained possession, under James I., everything was in a sad state of neglect.
From Freiburg they received an unconditional assent; from Glarus and Solothurn, where the friends of Reform were increasing in number, one with provisos attached. More anon. The time had come, when the Five Cantons began likewise to look beyond the limits of the Confederacy. Austria was the nearest to them.
Whatever the mistakes of Eigener's career, the restoration of the Solothurn Madonna was a flawless achievement for himself and his associates.
The whole story and the result are pictured for us in a report, still extant, from the pen of a zealous Catholic, who was an ear-and-eye-witness: "What I have so often said," writes Jacob of Muenster, priest at Solothurn, to a lawyer in Mayence "has been clearly exhibited at this heretical gathering.
They were sure of Freiburg, they counted on Solothurn, but Glarus they endeavored to secure by the same means which had proved abortive with Bern. Here, however, they seemed to succeed better. In fact, the general assembly of the canton handed over at their request a sealed promise not to separate themselves in matters of faith.
As soon as by reading it I was assured of the arrival of the saints, I despatched a confidential messenger to Maestricht to gather together priests, other clerics, and also laymen, to go out to meet the coming saints as speedily as possible. And he and his companions, having lost no time, after a few days met those who had charge of the saints at Solothurn.
Besides the deputies, there went thither Captain Schœnbrunner of Zug, the schultheiss Hebolt of Solothurn and Rennward Gœldin, a distinguished Zuricher, who, from indignation at the law against desertion, had left his native city and espoused the cause of the Five Cantons. The abbot of St. Gall followed.
Word Of The Day