Typical among these was the effort in Switzerland of Pastor Heinrich Erni, who, from the Cathedral of Zurich, sent a circular letter to the clergy of that region showing the connection of the eleventh and twelfth verses of the first chapter of Jeremiah with the comet, giving notice that at his suggestion the authorities had proclaimed a solemn fast, and exhorting the clergy to preach earnestly on the subject of this warning.
Nor were the interpreters of the comet's message content with simple prose.

At the appearance of the comet of 1618, Grasser and Gross, pastors and doctors of theology at Basle, put forth a collection of doggerel rhymes to fasten the orthodox theory into the minds of school-children and peasants.

One of these may be translated: "I am a Rod in God's right hand threatening the German and foreign land." Others for a similar purpose taught: "Eight things there be a Comet brings, When it on high doth horrid range: Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings, War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Direful Change." Great ingenuity was shown in meeting the advance of science, in the universities and schools, with new texts of Scripture; and Stephen Spleiss, Rector of the Gymnasium at Schaffhausen, got great credit by teaching that in the vision of Jeremiah the "almond rod" was a tailed comet, and the "seething pot" a bearded one.( 111) (111) For Erni, see Wolf, Gesch.d.Astronomie, p.239.For Grassner and Gross, see their Christenliches Bedenken...

von dem erschrockenlichen Cometen, etc., Zurich, 1664.

For Spleiss, see Beilauftiger Bericht von dem jetzigen Cometsternen, etc., schaffhausen, 1664.
It can be easily understood that such authoritative utterances as that of Dieterich must have produced a great effect throughout Protestant Christendom; and in due time we see their working in New England.