SAVONAROLA.

By WALTER LEWIS FERRIS, of Beloit College.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

Walter Lewis Ferris was born April 23, 1882, at Columbus, Wisconsin, and is the son of H. J. Ferris, a prominent Congregational minister of that place. He prepared himself for college at the Columbus High School and at the Beloit Academy, and entered Beloit College in the fall of 1901. He was an active student and leader in many of the student organizations of his college: Captain of the track team; President of the Musical Association; President of the Honor Committee; prominent member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity; an earnest worker in the college Y. M. C. A.; member of the College Glee Club during his entire college course, and during his senior year was leader and conductor of the same. In his junior year Mr. Ferris won first place with his oration on Savonarola, at the Inter-State Contest, which was held at Notre Dame, Indiana. This being the fifth time this honor has fallen upon a Beloit contestant and the eighth time upon a Wisconsin man. He graduated in June, 1905, and is now a student in the Yale Divinity School.

THE ORATION.

Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest at Notre Dame, Indiana, May 4, 1904, taking first prize. Judges: Messrs. SHAMBaugh, HUGHES, THWING, CHALMERS, CALLEN, and STEVENS.

In the heart of Tuscany lies the beautiful city of Florence. From out her depths rise massive domes and graceful towers, and stately palaces lift their turrets toward the sky. Round about her stand mighty hills, like sentinels keeping eternal guard. Within the sweep of those hills great epochs of history have been made. Here

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great men have lived and played their parts in life's drama, and, dying, left the impress of their immortal personalities upon history. Men of Olympic genius they were, of whose majestic company were Dante, Michael Angelo, Raphael, supreme in the sphere of their individual influence. But among them all there is one who, because of the nobleness of his daring and the heroism of his sacrifice, stands preeminent. For here Girolamo Savonarola, dominated by an immortal conviction, lived and struggled for justice and purity and freedom, and ceased only when the darkness and despair of his time made him its greatest martyr.

In the latter part of the fifteenth century Italy was groaning beneath a load of oppression and cruelty. Vice ruled supreme in church and state. In Florence Lorenzo de' Medici was holding the populace spellbound by the splendor of his rule. But beneath a show of magnificence and culture were hidden all the festering evils of Mediæval tyranny. Aristocracy was dominant. The rich had become insolent, the poor had been degraded. It was a world where lust, avarice, treachery and murder were rampant, and over it all was thrown a mantle of artistic taste and hollow gaiety. Fair Florence was dancing in a wild pagan revelry, "with a smear of blood upon her garments, and a loathsome song upon her lips;" with chains about her which she thought garlands; but in her mirth there sounded a note which was more than half despair.

It was into such a city as this that Savonarola came, toiling over the Apennine hills, a barefoot Dominican monk. Ten years before, in brilliant Ferrara, he had turned from the world, sick at heart with sight of the vice and misery of Italy. In the quiet of the cloister he hoped to find comfort for his restless soul. But not even there could he gain the peace which he sought, for he had but parted the veil and disclosed the awful corruption of the Church. And now he had come to Florence with a burden upon his heart; with a yearning for purity and simplicity; with a hatred of sin so intense that it did not flinch before the power of a tyrant. For seven years he labored to alleviate the misery of the poor; for those seven years there grew upon him the conviction that love and justice should be alike the law of Church and State. Then the hour came. His voice was raised in the midst of the city, crying out in passionate protest against immorality and injustice, calling upon Florence to turn from her luxury and sin before the doom of Heaven should fall.

A great reform is the result of a great ideal. The vision of the prophet goes before and conditions the conception of his mission. Savonarola was of the lineage of the idealist, yet his motive was as practical as his aim was noble. His sensitive heart responded to the note of anguish which sounded beneath the revelry of the city. He saw Florence corrupt and shameless, and the sight of

her guilt wrung his heart. Like a tender father he sorrowed over her as over a lost child of his love, and he fasted and prayed and labored that he might save her from the penalty of sin. Day by day his vision grew. In anticipation he saw Florence purified and fair, with Jesus of Nazareth enthroned King in her midst. Through a regenerate city he even dared hope that the universal church of God might be cleansed of its defilement and be reënthroned in divine purity. In the inspiration of that vision his mission was born, and he set his face toward the goal of full accomplishment, comforted by the knowledge of divine guidance, borne onward by the impetus of a mighty conviction.

Florence turned at last from her pleasures to listen to this prophet of reform, compelled by the force of his personality and the truth which he uttered. There was that in his preaching which appealed to men of every class and drew them to him. The scholar delighted in his breadth of knowledge, the artist in his genius for language, the common crowd in the force of his invective, the politician in the keen insight of the statesman. Yet it was not these things alone which won for him the attention of Florence. The secret of his power lay deeper. The mystery of his compelling personality and the source of his authority were in his spiritual preeminence. Day after day in the silence of his bare cell he prayed for strength to accomplish his great task, and as he ascended

the pulpit of the Duomo and stood before the eager throng, his body worn by fasting and toil, his face furrowed by suffering and sorrow, there was something in his very presence which thrilled and commanded. His voice was the hand of the skilled musician as it played at will upon the vibrant chords of their hearts; but it was the light of the immortal truth shining clear in his eye which brought conviction to that people. It was his burning indignation against wrong and injustice, bodied in the terrible earnestness of his speech, which swayed them by the breath of its passion. The thoughts which had driven him as a boy to the convent, accumulating authority through the years, now borne upon the surge of a resistless eloquence, wrought invincibly in Florence, and swept away her sin and shame.

Thus the Dominican monk won the mastery in Florence. Political circumstance aided the growth of his influence. Lorenzo de' Medici had died, leaving behind him political chaos. The French king was coming, and no one knew how the city might fare. The shadow of some great peril lay upon Florence. In that hour of fear the citizens turned to the one man who could lead them, to the one leader whom they could trust, and Savonarola's power became as absolute as ever monarch wielded. And now it seemed as though the ideals of his life were in the way of being realized, for when the war-cloud had passed it was found that a change had come over the city. The wild pagan