GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA Girolamo Savonarola, of Italy, was one of the greatest reformers, preachers, prophets, politicians, and philosopers the world has ever known. His public career as a preacher began the same year that Luther was born; and if the soil of Italy had been as congenial as that of Germany to a Protestant Reformation, he instead of Luther might have been the instrument in bringing about that reformation. As it was, Savonarola was the precursor of the Protestant Reformation. By his terrific denunciation of the corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church, he prepared all Europe for the Reformation. His life and teachings had a great influence upon Luther, who acknowledged his indebtedness to him, and spoke of him as "a Protestant martyr." Not only was Savonarola the herald of the coming reformation, but he did more than any other man to rescue mankind from the abyss of skepticism and corruption into which the world had been plunged by the example of the most degraded and dissolute church which ever bore the name of Christian. Great as her sins and crimes have been, never before the days of the Spanish Inquisition was the Roman Catholic Church so utterly vile and corrupt as in the fifteenth century, when those monstrous criminals the Borgias reigned as popes and cardinals. By his powerful preaching, his profound philosophy, and by the Divine unction resting upon him, Savonarola convinced the masses that religion was not all sham and for malism, and a new day dawned for Christianity and for the world, Born in Ferrara, Italy, September 14, 1452, Savonarola was the third in a family of seven children-five sons and two daughters. His parents were cultured but worldly people, of moderate circumstances but having great influence at the court of the Duke of Ferrara. His paternal grandfather, who had the training of Girolamo during his earlier years, was an eminent physician at the court of the Duke, and Girolamo's parents intended him to follow the same profession and to become his grandfather's successor. But God had chosen another calling for the youth. From his infancy Girolamo had been quiet and retiring. As a child he was neither pretty nor playful, but serious and subdued. At an early age he became a very diligent student, and he afterwards attained great proficiency in the liberal arts and in philosophy. He was an earnest student of Aristotle but the writings of the great Greek philosopher left the deepest longings of his soul unsatisfied. The philosophy of Plato gave him a little more satisfaction; but it was not until he began to study the writings of the great Christian philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas that he found real food for his soul. It was doubtless the writings of that celebrated saint which led Savonarola, at a very early age, to yield his whole heart and life to God; and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas probably continued to influence his life more than any other writings except the Scriptures. He says concerning his visions, "They came to me in earliest youth, but it was only at Brescia that I began to proclaim them. Thence was I sent by the Lord to Florence, which is in the heart of Italy, in order that the reform of Italy might begin." As a boy his devotion and fervor increased as he grew older, and he spent many hours in prayer and fasting. He would kneel in church for hours at a time engaged in prayer. He was very contemplative, and his soul was deeply stirred by the vice and worldliness he saw on every hand. The luxury, splendor, and wealth displayed by the rich and the awful poverty of the poor weighed heavily on his heart. Italy was the prey of petty tyrants and wicked priests, and dukes and popes vied with each other in lewdness, lavishness, and cruelty. These things brought great sorrow to his young soul which was burning for virtue and truth. Some of the rough impassioned verses of his youth show how deeply his soul was stirred by the evils he saw all around him. Thus, in one of his earliest poems, he speaks of, "Seeing the whole world overset; All virtue and goodness disappeared; No one taking shame for his sins." This profound appreciation of the evils around him made Savonarola a sad and sorrowful youth. He talked little, and kept himself retired and solitary. He loved to be in lonely places, in the open fields, or along the green banks of the river Po, and there wandering, sometimes singing, sometimes weeping, he gave utterance to the strong emotions which boiled in his breast. His great soulful eyes were resplendent, and the color of the heavens, but they were often filled with tears. Prayer was his one great solace, and his tears would often bedew the altar steps, where stretched prostrate for hours at a time, he besought aid from heaven against the vile, corrupt, and dissolute age. At one time, in the midst of his deep musings, there came a brief period, so the historians say, when he fell in love with a young Florentine maiden, and began to take a more cheerful view of things in general; but the affair ended in the maiden scornfully rejecting him, because she belonged to the proud Strozzi family and considered |