ignoble foes, would be a
tempting of God, and the appeal would not be responded to. Let the
Pope's legate come, let the ambassadors of all the great Powers come and
promise that the calling of a General Council and the reform of the
Church shall hang on the miracle, and I will enter the flames, trusting
that God will not withhold His seal from that great work. Until then I
reserve myself for higher duties which are directly laid upon me: it is
not permitted to me to leap from the chariot for the sake of wrestling
with every loud vaunter. But Fra Domenico's invincible, zeal to enter
into the trial may be the sign of a Divine vocation, may be a pledge
that the miracle--"

But no! when Savonarola brought his mind close to the threatened scene
in the Piazza, and imagined a human body entering the fire, his belief
recoiled again. It was not an event that his imagination could simply
see: he felt it with shuddering vibrations to the extremities of his
sensitive fingers. The miracle could not be. Nay, the trial itself was
not to happen: he was warranted in doing all in his power to hinder it.
The fuel might be got ready in the Piazza, the people might be
assembled, the preparatory formalities might be gone through: all this
was perhaps inevitable now, and he could no longer resist it without
bringing dishonour on himself? Yes, and therefore on the cause of God.
But it was not really intended that the Franciscan should enter the
fire, and while _he_ hung back there would be the means of preventing
Fra Domenico's entrance. At the very worst, if Fra Domenico were
compelled to enter, he should carry the consecrated Host with him, and
with that Mystery in his hand, there might be a warrant for expecting
that the ordinary effects of fire would be stayed; or, more probably,
this demand would be resisted, and might thus be a final obstacle to the
trial.

But these intentions could not be avowed: he must appear frankly to
await the trial, and to trust in its issue. That dissidence between
inward reality and outward seeming was not the Christian simplicity
after which he had striven through years of his youth and prime, and
which he had preached as a chief fruit of the Divine life. In the
stress and heat of the day, with cheeks burning, with shouts ringing in
the ears, who is so blest as to remember the yearnings he had in the
cool and silent morning and know that he has not belied them?

"O God, it is for the sake of the