less, for he felt within himself the power of God and he defied
prince and pope alike and preached the wrath of God and the re
pentance of man.
It was then that he delivered those wonderful sermons, not
abounding in glittering generalities, but describing in the plainest
language every vice and laying bare every abuse so that a mirror
was held up to the souls of his hearers, in which they saw their
most secret faults ringed as with fire. Filled with the ecstasy of
inspiration he no longer resisted the impulse of his soul but be
came the mouth piece of God, the interpreter of themselves to
the people. He foretold the bloodshed and sack of cities, the
passage of armies and the desolation that was to come upon Italy,
and now as we read those sermons they seem like pages of history
in which are portrayed the " sack of Prato, the storming of Brescia,
the battle of Ronca, and the cavern massacre of Vicenza."
It was in 492 that, in a pious frenzy, he saw that memorable
vision and cried: "0 Italy! 0 Rome! I give you over to the hands
of a people who will wipe you out from among the nations! I
see them descending like lions. Pestilence comes marching hand
in hand with war. The deaths will be so many that the buriers
shall go about the city crying: ' Who hath dead ?" Who hath
dead ?' and the one shall bring his father and another his son..
0 Rome! I cry again to you to repent. Repent, Venice! Milan,
repent!" 'Twas then that he prophesized the death of Lorenzo,
of the King of Naples, of the Pope and the scourge of Italy.
Lorenzo died in a few months and now the priest, turned prophet,
turns statesman and by his indomitable perseverance, his remark
able genius and his God-given eloquence, he makes of the beauti
ful, mundane city of Florence a theocratic republic—God was
their supreme ruler and Savonarola interpreter to them.
Now at the pinnacle of his success, in the plentitude of his
powers, he poured forth day by day words so impassioned that
the people were wrought to a pitch of pious frenzy never before,
never since, equalled. Pleasure loving Florence was completely
transformed and the streets that once echoed with the dissolute
songs of Lorenzo now sounded with hymns of praise; Puritanic
plainness prevailed; husbands and wives parted to enter the con
vent and " marriage became an awful rite seldom permitted."
But Alas! the fervor of the people was too hot to last. They