ilarity between them, which will help
us to translate the old Hebrew conceptions into our modern life.

The physician's household at Ferrara, into which Savonarola was born on
September 21, 1452, was probably no more distinguished amid other
families of the town than that of Zacharias and Elisabeth in the hill
country of Judaea.

And as we read of the invincible love of truth which characterized the
keen and intelligent lad, we are forcibly reminded of the Baptist,
whose whole life was an eloquent protest on behalf of reality. In one
of his greatest sermons Savonarola declared that he had always striven
after truth with all his might, and maintained a constant war against
falsehood. "The more trouble"--they are his own words--"I bestowed
upon my quest, the greater became my longing, so that for it I was
prepared to abandon life itself. When I was but a boy, I had such
thoughts; and from that time, the desire and longing after this good
has gone on increasing to the present day."

We cannot read of Savonarola's saintly life, over which even the breath
of calumny has never cast a stain--of his depriving himself of every
indulgence, content with the hardest couch and roughest clothing, and
just enough of the plainest food to support life--without remembering
the camel's cloth, the locusts and wild honey of the Baptist.

If John's lot was cast on evil days, when religion suffered most in the
house of her friends, so was it with Savonarola. The fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries witnessed the increasing corruption and
licentiousness of popes and clergy. The offices of cardinal and bishop
were put up to auction, and sold to the highest bidder. The bishop
extorted money from the priests, and these robbed the people. The
grossest immorality was prevalent in all ranks of the Church, and
without concealment. Even the monasteries and convents were often dens
of vice. "Italy," said Machiavelli, "has lost all piety and all
religion. We have to thank the Church and the priests for our
abandoned wickedness."

As John beheld the fire and fan of impending judgment, so the burden of
Savonarola's preaching was that the Church was about to be chastised,
and afterwards renewed. So powerful was this impression on the
preacher's mind that it can best be described in his own words as a
vision. He tells us that on one occasion the heavens seemed to open
before him, and there appeared a representation of the calamities that
wer