The record-union., 1895-07-11
SACRAMENTO REcoRD-UN1oN THURSDAY II, 1895.

the ideal saw the practicable. Before
Luther said word about justification
by faith, Savonarola preached it. He be-
lieved that things needing to be reformed
must be transformed and cOnformed. He
was great statesman because he sepa-
rated himself from the politician before
he was out Of his youth, and conceived
the idea that craftsmanship does not con-
slst In creating revolutions but in avoid
ing them and conserving peace. He held
that human institutions must conform
to the divine plan, and realized that rev.
olution is delayed evolution.
he stood In the fifteenth century side
by side with the influences out of which
sprang the nineteenth century, with its
Garibaldi and he had the genius to per-
ceive and announce them.
Mr.. Gunsaulus wished his hearers to
see Savonarola as statesman, refOrmer,
preacher, genius and crusader. He
sketched the life of the boy Savonarola, his
refusal to walk in the train Of the Duke of
Ferrara, his plunge into boyish love and
his escape from it and MS retreat into a
monastery, where he believed be
could best commune with God
and work out abolition of slav
cry and human wrongs. With his gen.
ius and courage behind hun, he was in
his day in the forefront of all movements
for the advancement of man. He wore
for mankind the red rose OF martyrdom,
and it lost not breath OF its fragrance
when he pressed it to his bosom.
In l453 occurred two events that cre-
ated epochs in history. One was per-
sonal, the other impersonal. They
proved how the personal and impersonal
work into the warp and woof Of human
progress. One event was the fall of Con-
stantinople and the other the throwing
over into the Occident of the new cru
saders, those rugged Greek scholars with
Greek art on their arms and manuscript
i'll their garments. They constituted the
new knights who led the crusade of ideas.
These Greek scholars found in Italy in
1893 the most brilliant forenoon of wealth
and power and social distinction since
the coming OF Jesus. 1t was more than
the revival of learning; it was the blaze
of the renaissance in Italy, which was
indeed the rehabilitation of the soul and
brain of humanity bursting from the
iron bands the church had put about it.
Here the orator drew wonderfully
beautiful word picture of ancient Rome
and her glories, and came from that to
the thought, born of these great Greek
scholars advent, that came up out OF the
hearts aud souls of men, if we were such
in Rome when glorious, why may not we
De Sucn ana more now
Between the renaissance and the
reformation stood the hero Savonarola,
giving his life for liberty. He was born
an aristocrat. There was the aristocracy,
first. of the brute, Of the man who doni-
mated by brute force; Ihen the aristocracy
OF possessions arose-the aristocracy of
caste. Just above il was and is the aris-
tocracy of family, through which the
aristocracy of caste can perpetuate itself.
Each of these, by evolution, arose out of
the other. Sayonarola had pedigree as
long as the moral law, but he never read
it. He came OF father who was ply
sician, whose father was physician.
whose father also was physician. 1t
took this line of physicians TO give the
new crusader genius for facts. For
this aristOcrat of brains dealt with facts,
and therein lay, in part, his power. But
from his mother he got what was better
the aristocracy of character. So this
genius came to the world.
Meanwhile the priests and preachers
were debating and pulling noses over the
vitality important question, How many
angels could stand at one time on the
tip of ST. Anthony's little fnger?" Or
they were smashing each others faces in
the dispute as to what language was spoken
in hell. and finally decided that it was
Hebrew. At such a time came the young
ing to devote the last drop Of his blood to
breaking the chains of slavery that
bound Italy. AS boy he refused social
distinction, spurned the Duke of Ferrara
as a robDer OF the people, and went alone
into communion with the forces that
bring out righteousness. He devoted his
life to liberty and to craftsmanship,
which is the art OF being alone and stay
ing alone until your minority of one be-
comes the ma ority of the many.
rejecting the thought of the army as
means of working out his ends, he en-
tered the monastery, and from that after
seven years was called to Florence to
preach in St. Marks, but 50 failed that he
went outside the city and thought out the
reason for his failure. Coming back pres
emily, all Florence was ringing with his
eloquence, and his fearless crusade
against wrong, slavery, crime and corr
ruption. He saw the church itself to be
corrupt, and on the brow of Lorenzo, the
dissolute, he wrote the word Thief" in
such characters that the victim could not
erase the letters that burned before the
eyes of all Florence.
Then Lorenzo would see him and COM
planned that the prior OF st. Marco did
not visit him. But Savonarcla was not
given to pastoral visits. Tlen Lorenzo
sent committee to him, that protested it
committees sent to adnonish pastors.
The committee demonstrated in vain with
the priest, who sent them back with word
to their master defiant and fearless. Then
began the assaults upon the man who was
stripping the Dsask from corruption and
wrong. Finally Lorenzo. dying in his
crime and sin, rotting in his bed, sent for
Savonarola and asked what he should do
to be saved. The crusader, whose voice
sLo
piled: believe, believe, in the pitying
mercy of God" "What next" cried the
despot. "Restore your ill-gOtten gains"
What more, asked the dying man. IRE
store the liberties of Florence" But
Lorenzo was a corpse too soon to undo
his wrong.
The orator then sketched rapidly the
call of Savonarola to Rome by the Pope;
his refusal or neglect to go; he was too
busy in Florence. Then came the offer
of Cardinals hat, but Sayonarola re-
piled: Il have been offered red hat but
the only red l shall wear is the flame of
the stake" Pope Alexander was an
gered, and he could not lure him to Rome
or muflle him with office, and SO resolved
to crush the bold priest. Charles of
France marched upon Florence; the oity
was a mob, but Savonarola organized,
and went out and met the invader, won
him over and brought order out of i'm
pending ruin.
Then came the Florentine republic,
founded by the Dominican monk. In
149S, I20 years before the Pilgrim Fathers
sailed for America, Savonarola estab-
lished the town meeting, the parliament
of freemen. He devised system OF tax
alton that put the burdens Of government
mainly on the rich and those able to bear
them; be believed in education, and in
compulsory education at that.
So, through his reforms in Florence,
Mr.. Gunsaulus rapidly went on and
came at last to the excommunication OF
Savonarola, his seizure, trial and execu-