The weakness manifested and the errors committed by the Zurich leaders, can only be accounted for on the principle of judicial blindness. They had gone far away from the narrow path of the word of God, and He was no longer with them. The church had become the state, and the state the church, and the present army was composed of congregations and their ministers rather than of Swiss soldiers. This was failure which God must judge; and the Catholics were the rod in His hand to chastise the children of His love. But what a moral! What a lesson for Christians in all ages!
Finding themselves ensnared and surrounded, the men of Zurich fought desperately; but, being only as one to eight they were overpowered. And to increase the confusion, some of the enemies' spies joined the rear-guard and raised the cry of treachery, which ended in a general flight; but all those who fought in the first ranks, being thus deserted, were cut down. The carnage was great; the Alps were echoing and re-echoing the wild roar of battle, when the curtain of night fell, closed the scene of blood, and more than five hundred of the flower of Zurich slept the sleep of death: "the wisest of its councilors, the most christian of its citizens, and the ablest of its pastors, were left on that fatal field."
But it is with shame and sorrow that we have to record the melancholy fact, that among the slain there were twenty-five christian ministers, who had marched at the head of their flocks. In this respect, we doubt not, the battle of Cappel stands alone in the history of battles. Surely this was expression enough of God's sore displeasure against the unholy mixture of the church and the world, of the theologians and the politicians, which obtained to such an extent in the Swiss Reformation.
But there was one death which affected Zurich and the Reformation in Switzerland more than all the others-the death of Ulric Zwingle. Scarcely had the action begun, when, stooping to console a dying man, he received a wound on the head and fell to the earth. He attempted to rise, but he was thrice overthrown in the press, and received several wounds. He had not drawn his sword, but he had raised his voice, which was heard above all the uproar, to inspire the troops with courage, and to prevent confusion. Exhausted, he lay with clasped hands in the attitude of prayer, and was heard to say, "Alas, what a calamity is this! Well, they can indeed kill the body, but they cannot touch the soul." These were his last words.