contemplating. But when he sought the hand of the young lady, he was met with proud and contemptuous words: "Do you think that the noble house of Strozzi is willing to stoop to an alliance with the house of Savonarola?" The young man was stung to the quick, and returned a proud and caustic reply, which confused and silenced the young lady, but in no degree furthered his suit. It was, no doubt, a specially dark day to the sensitive young man. The one light that had seemed to shine for him in the world's thick darkness went suddenly and hopelessly out; the one refuge which he had hoped to find from the abounding corruptions of the times failed him. No doubt the thought of his proposed professional career became more and more distasteful. Having been brought up amidst the religious dogmas and customs of the fifteenth century, he very naturally looked to the cloister as the only available refuge for him; and from this time his purpose to devote himself to a monastic life gained daily in distinctness and strength. Prayer had long been a cherished habit with him; his seasons of devotion now were lengthened, and became marked with more earnestness. He brought again and again to the Lord his importunate request, "O Lord, make known unto me the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my soul to thee."

At length, in the year 1474, while listening to a sermon from a monk at Faenza, some word which he uttered came with such power to his heart, that he made a fixed and unalterable resolve to enter a monastic house. It will never be known on earth what that word was; but it was for him a word of power, and became the turning point of his life. Perhaps when the full history of the pulpit of even that dark age is revealed, we shall find that many such words of power were spoken, and many precious results followed. With Savonarola there was now no vacillation; he believed that God had made known to him the way in which he should walk, and his only care was to find a fitting opportunity to enter upon it. For a time he concealed his resolution from his fond parents, though the watchful eyes of his anxious mother could not fail to detect his purpose. Sitting with her one day, he was playing a melancholy air upon his lute. She turned suddenly to him, and said: "My son, that is a sign that we are soon to part." The sad prognostication was speedily fulfilled. The very next day, the 24th of April, 1475, during the commotion and excitement caused by a great festival at Ferrara, he left his father's house and made his way to Bologna, where he at once sought admittance into the convent of St. Dominic. But even while thus forsaking his paternal roof, his heart still yearned towards those whom he felt called upon to leave. The day did not close before he

had written a letter to his loved parents, in which he unfolds to them the reasons for his resolution, and seeks tenderly to comfort them in the sorrow which he knew it would bring to their hearts. Such a letter from a young man of twenty-three years, living in times of such frivolity and corruption, is certainly very remarkable. In this letter he says:

The motives by which I have been led to enter into a religious life are these: The great misery of the world; the iniquities of men; the rapes, adulteries, robberies; their pride, idolatry, and fearful blasphemies; so that things have come to such a pass that no one can be found acting righteously. Many times have I repeated the verse,

Alas! fly from this cruel land, fly from this greedy shore.

I could not endure the enormous wickedness of the blinded people of Italy; and the more so, because I saw everywhere virtue despised, and vice honored.

Then he speaks of his pain at the separation:

Think not that it was not a severe pang to me to sever myself from you. Believe me, that never since I was born did I suffer so great mental anguish as when I felt that I was about to leave my own flesh and blood, that I was going among people who were strangers to me, and so offering up a sacrifice of my body to Jesus Christ, by placing myself in the hands of those who knew me not. But then, reflecting that it was God who called me, that he did not disdain to make me, a poor worm, one of his servants, I could not dare to do otherwise than obey so sweet, so holy a voice that said to me, "Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you," etc. I know that your grief was made more severe by my secret departure; that I seemed to fly from you; but be assured that so great was my own pain and misery, in parting from you, that if I had laid open my heart to you, I verily believe that the idea that I was going to leave you would have broken my heart, and that I must have abandoned my intention. You cannot, therefore, be surprised that I did not tell you. I beseech you, therefore, my dear father, to cease to grieve, and that you will not add to the sorrow and pain I am now enduring. This is not on account of what I have done, which most assuredly I have no wish to retrace, even were I certain that by so doing I should become greater than Cæsar; but I am, like you, made of flesh and blood; and feelings so resist reason that I have a severe battle to fight to prevent the Devil from leaping upon my shoulders, and especially when I think of you. The days while the wounds are fresh will soon pass away, and then I hope that both you and I will be more consoled in this world by the grace of God, in the next by glory. Nothing more remains for me to say, than to beseech you, as a man of strong mind, to comfort my mother; and I pray that you and she will give me your blessing. I shall ever pray fervently for the good of your souls.

One cannot fail to respect a young man who displayed so much tenderness of feeling towards his parents, so much fidelity to his convictions of duty, so much devotion to what he believed to be the will of God his Saviour, so much firmness and self-control. The letter showed him to be possessed of no ordinary character, and augured for him no common career. He who combines such strength of affection with such power of self subjection and self-negation is a master spirit, and in due time mastery over others will come by seeming necessity, and it will be used for high and worthy purposes.

At Bologna, Savonarola remained for seven years. He had at first desired to busy himself only with the lower menial duties belonging to the order of St. Dominic. But it was not in such avocations that his time was to be passed, and his powers wasted. He was soon appointed to give instruction to the novices, and at length was called to ascend the pulpit. He entered with great earnestness into this field which now began to open before him. He had been wont to weep over the vices and miseries of the times, and had sought the cloister as a retreat from the contemplation of the sad spectacle which life presented to him. But it was not enough for one of his ardent temperament to bemoan in idleness the evils that were multiplying around him. He would naturally be led, sooner or later, to discern the probability that something might be done to check the downward tendency of the times. It is not possible now to trace the workings of his mind during those seven years at Bologna. We know but little of the associations and influences that were shaping his character and purposes during this formative period of his monastic life. It would be exceedingly interesting could we trace, step by step, his intellectual and spiritual progress; could we learn when and how he was first impelled to the career which he afterward entered. In the case of every reformer there are certain successive stages which the mind traverses: first, the perception of the need; then the conception of a possibility that some means may be found to meet the want; finally, the resolve to attempt something towards the accomplishment of that end. The mind reaches, by more or less rapid processes, these different conclusions-something needs to be done; something can be done; something must be done. It is at this last point that the idea of personal duty develops itself, and the earnest and conscientious man begins to gird himself for his life-work. There was something in the character, the life, and the spirit of the young man, that led his monastic superiors to urge him into work for others; and, finally, to call him to take his place in the pulpit. They discerned, no doubt, the germs of that power which, in the near future,

gathered vast crowds to hear him whenever he ascended the pulpit, and enabled him to sway them apparently at his will.

To the work that was assigned him he applied himself with characteristic ardor, though for a time without any marked success. Both at Bologna and Ferrara, whither he was subsequently sent, his pulpit efforts made but little impression. At length, in 1482, Ferrara was threatened with war, and he was sent to Florence, and entered the monastery of St. Mark, the scene of his most memorable and of his last labors. Here, too, he was recognized as one to whom great powers had been given; yet he still continued to disappoint the expectations that had been raised. He was appointed to preach the Petit Carême in the church of St. Lorenzo, but he was so unfortunate in his attempt that his hearers gradually fell away until there were only twenty-five left, a miserable handful in that spacious old church. It is said that his weak, harsh voice, his uncouth gestures, and his want of adaptation to the character and capacity of his hearers, were the causes of his first failures. Like many others who have risen to eminence in the different departments of eloquence, he had to learn how to develop and control the splendid gifts conferred upon him.

It was not until the year 1485 that he rose superior to the physical disadvantages which had marred his earlier efforts in the pulpit. We have no record of the various means to which he had recourse, in order to overcome the natural defects of which his first auditors complained. But he was one who would be unlikely to rest contented until he had discovered the causes of his failure; and he had so learned the lesson of self-control and self-abnegation, as to be able to receive with meekness, if not with thankfulness, the suggestions of those who could point out his defects, and show him how to remedy them. Humbert de Romanis, the General of the Order of Dominicans, many years before had urged those in whom there was a talent for preaching that most excellent gift-to cultivate it assiduously. No doubt his work was familiar to Savonarola, and its precepts were obeyed. There must have been long and patient training of his vocal powers; for we find him by-and-by no longer speaking with weak, harsh tones, but filling the vast, crowded area of the Duomo at Florence with his clear, loud, ringing voice. Nothing but welldirected, honest, and long-continued culture in all that pertained to the art of oratory, could have wrought the change which soon became manifest to all.

The first decided success which he achieved was at San Gemiano, a small village in the mountains, thirty or forty miles to the south of Florence. Here he began to pour out the long pent-up feelings of

his heart. He denounced the wide-spread corruption of morals, and pointed to the heavy judgment of God that was impending. His language was more bold and free, and his words began to move, with unwonted power, the hearts of his hearers.

During what we may appropriately call his period of training for the pulpit, he also devoted himself, with patient zeal, to the study of the sacred Scriptures. How constantly and carefully he studied the sacred volume, may be inferred from the appearance of his Bible, which was recently to be seen by the visitor to the monastery of St. Mark's, at Florence, in one of the rooms which he so long occupied. It bears every mark of having been well thumbed, and is filled with notes, written in an exceedingly minute hand, on the margins of the pages. He was early led to begin a series of expository sermons, and it was in such expositions that he exhibited that wonderful power in the pulpit which marked his after years. At Brescia, in 1486, he gave a series of expository sermons on the Book of Revelation. Such was the effect of these that his reputation soon began to spread far and wide. Among his extant works are to be found sermons on the Books of Exodus, Ruth, Esther, Job, the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, Micah, Zechariah, and the First Epistle of John. Among the sermons, of which only some fragments remain, are thirteen on Noah's Ark, some of which produced the most profound sensation.

The sermons at Brescia, in 1486, were preached during a tour on which he had been sent through the various cities of Lombardy. His reputation was constantly increasing. At Reggio, he attended a convocation of the Dominicans, which had collected together a number of prominent men. Among them was the celebrated Giovanni Pico, Prince of Mirandola, then a young man in high repute at the court of Lorenzi de Medici, at Florence. Savonarola had sat an attentive listener, but keeping silence himself, while various doctrinal subjects were discussed. But when questions of morals and discipline came under consideration, he rose and spoke with remarkable earnestness and energy. Pico was deeply impressed with his earnestness, his eloquence, and with the high moral and religious enthusiasm which shone out in his words and his manner. On his return to Florence, he urged Lorenzi de Medici to send for the eloquent preacher, and he seems to have been finally successful, for in 1490 Savonarola was recalled by his ecclesiastical superiors, and took up his abode again in the monastery of St. Mark.

He did not deem it expedient at first to appear in the pulpit in a city where his failure had been so decided. He contented himself