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Page 29 text:
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T h e N a u t i 1 U S The Career of Savonarola ETHEL KIMBALL EDITOR’S NOTE—This oration won first place in the preliminary oratorical contest held at Petersburg Illinois, May 11, and second place at the State Oratorical Contest, at Champaign, May 18. The thought and composition has been highly spoken of by the best University men in the State. There are few names more deserving of honor than that of the Florentine monk, Savonarola, whose career as an energetic, enthusiastic reformer entitles him to a place among the world’s greatest heroes. It may be of interest to note the character of his reforms and the value of his influence upon some of the great movements in history. In order to understand and appreciate his reforms, it is necessary first to observe the tendencies and characteristics of the age in which he lived. It was pre-eminently an age of progress, a time when all things seemed to be assuming new life and energy. Men were emerging from the apathy into which they had fallen during the Mediaeval era, and everywhere was manifested an ardent desire for learning and a growing enthusiasm for classic literature and art. But, though marked by such activity, the age was full of corruption in both church and state. Princes were usurping great cities, refusing to grant the popular demand for liberty; people were reigning like emperors instead of ecclesiastical rulers, and monks were degrading their sacred office by luxurious, licentious living; the majority of the people were infidels, not because their reason taught them to disbelieve the teachings of the Bible, but, for the most part, because of sheer recklessness and stupid indifference to all save their own pleasure and personal interests. Savonarola, living as he did in one of the most progressive and beautiful, yet most wicked and worst oppressed cities in Italy, saw all this corruption aud determined to remedy it. Through his eloquent preaching he gained a wonderful power over the people of Florence, and by means of this he was enabled to bring about great political reforms in his city. He sympathized with the masses in their efforts to win greater liberty and to free themselves from their oppressor, Lorenzo de Medici; he urged them on and fired them with enthusiasm. They listened breathlessly to his every word and drank in his message as with one will. Lorenzo’s followers, numerous and strong, were doing all in their power to bring about his downfall; all Italy was ablaze with indignation at his audacious persistency; the church and the whole aristocracy of Europe were inflamed against him; yet he rushed on boldly, fearing no power, trembling at no threat; disregarding
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Page 30 text:
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The Nautilus all opposition, gathering: support from the people as he advanced. So earnest was he in his opposition to tyranny, that whenever the French armies of Charles VIII invaded Italy, he opened to them the gates of Florence and hailed them as deliverers; for if they should conquer the city, the Medici would be driven out and the people freed from oppression. But not withstanding his zeal for the popular cause, Savonarola was not an extremist, his reforms were not radical. When the Medici were at last driven from the city, he used all his power in preventing bloodshed and violence, and in the constitution which he caused to be drawn up at that time he showed great wisdom as well as democracy. He secured to the people the election of their own magistrates, and gave them all the powers and privileges he thought them capable of using wisely; but he realized the ignorance of the masses and their consequent incapacity to govern, and so withheld from them universal suffrage placing the more important functions of government in the hands of the higher classes, who alone had the intelligence necessary in managing affairs of state. He firmly upheld government by the people, but he would give the greatest power to that part of the populace best fitted to receive it. His reformers, however, were not confined to law-giving and constitution-making, but extended to all political issues wherein the people were concerned. He brought about the establishment of a bank for charitable loans; he advocated the removal of all political abuses, the abolition of usury and uujust taxation, the higher education of the masses that they might be better fitted for the social and political life; he encouraged, in fact, everything which might tend to relieve the ignorant and oppressed and to place them more nearly on an equality with the upper classes. But great as w'ere his political reforms, his work as a reformer of morals was greater. In his preaching he did not adhere to conventional topics, he did not seek to please or persuade his listeners, but spoke the truth simply and forcibly, regardless of consequences, swaying the multitude by his deep thunderous tones,his dark, flashing eyes, his appealing gestures, his quivering frame,as he stood before them like a prophet, earnest, fiery, almost fierce in his denunciation of sin. They shuddered as they heard his terrible prophecies of punishment to be sent upon them by the Almighty, and felt that their eternal doom was certain if they did not turn and repent immediately. Men gave up wealth and position, and retired to monasteries that they might atone for their sins by prayer and fasting; great scholars abandoned their books and their scientific investigations, turning their whole attention to the betterment of humanity; voluptuous youths forsook their revels and became pious 18
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