Bullinger  mentions  the  number  of  places  in  which  a  majority  formed
itself  in  favour  of  the  new  opinions  ;  in  his  language,  "how  the  word  of
God  was  increased."  In  the  year  1529  Zwingli  was  already  able  to  hold
a  synod  in  Thurgau,  and  to  establish  the  evangelical  church  there. Large
abbeys,  like  those  of  Wettingen  and  Hitzkirch,  went  over  ;  in  the  former,
not  more  than  two  monks  refused  their  consent. Abbot  George  Muller,
of  Baden,  stipulated  only  that  the  pictures  and  images  which  were  removed
from  the  church  should  not  be,  as  in  so  many  other  places,  destroyed.1
Lastly,  a  resolution  was  passed  by  the  greater  and  lesser  councils  of  Schaf-
hausen,  that  the  mass  and  the  images  should  be  abolished. Hans  Stockar
relates,  not  without  suppressed  sorrow,  how,  on  the  Friday  after  Michael-
mas, "  the  great  God  in  the  Minster  "  was  taken  away.2  The  city  joined
the  union  with  Bern,  Basel,  and  Zurich. In  Solothurn  the  reformers
demanded  and  obtained  a  church ;  and  only  a  reputed  miracle  perpetuated
the  veneration  for  St. Urs. The  evangelical  party,  protected  by  Bern,
arose  in  Neuemburg ;  the  Catholics  had  already  taken  up  arms,  and  it
seemed  as  if  bloodshed  was  inevitable,  when  they  resolved  to  allow  the
majority  to  decide.3  It  decided  for  reform. The  majority  was  in  many
cases  small ;  in  Neuemburg  it  amounted  to  only  eighteen ;  in  Neuenstadt,
to  twenty-four. The  same  was  the  case  on  the  other  side,  under  different
influences. In  Rottweil,  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood,  the  six  catholic
guilds  committed  acts  of  such  violence  on  the  five  evangelical,  that  several
hundred  citizens  were  obliged  to  leave  the  town.4

But  the  most  important  circumstance  for  the  progress  of  Zwingli's
opinions  was,  that  in  one  of  the  eight  older  cantons,  which  had  hitherto
remained  neutral — in  Glarus, — where  the  evangelical  majority  had  been
much  more  free  in  the  declaration  of  its  opinions  than  in  the  others,  it
had  obtained  a  complete  ascendancy. The  reformed  doctrine  had  already
so  far  prevailed,  that  only  two  or  three  churches  had  retained  their  sacred
images. 