The Young Man and the World

by Albert J. Beveridge

You say that you are a soldier of heaven, battling with the world—meaning that you represent righteousness as opposed to evil. That is your attitude—your conception of your mission. Very well, the secret of your strength has never been so well stated as in the words of the Apostle, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."

Four of the most extraordinary doers of God's work in the world were Luther, Loyola, Wesley, and Savonarola. Each of this company of practical and militant Christianity has life instruction for you. But in the art of preaching, as such, Savonarola has more than either of the others, although Wesley is nearly his equal, and, as an organizer, vastly his superior. He perfectly illustrates the miraculous power of conviction in mere oratory.

I would advise every young man who intends to enter the pulpit to read carefully the best life of this wonderful preacher, reformer, and statesman. And supplement your study of him and his methods by reading George Eliot's historical novel, "Romola."

The great Dominican was a Lombard, of harsh accent and strange face, come to live in the most cultured city in the world. Florence was then in the full flowering of literature and art; and in her overripe perfections the poison was distilling of greed and cruelty and lubricity and all loathsomeness.

Over this capital of learning, genius, and sin ruled "The Magnificent" Medici, sitting with easy power on his splendid throne and wielding his scepter with the accurate skill of a perfect craft and the strong decision of a fearless heart.

But you know the story. It was not an inviting field for a preacher who burned to utter the Word and at the same time hoped to enjoy the smiles and favors of the great. It was not an encouraging prospect for any one who wanted to restore the reign of righteousness, even though he were willing to pay the price of martyrdom.

But Savonarola accomplished all this and more; for he crowned the renaissance of letters and art with the renaissance of Christian morals and religion whose pure and beautiful influence reaches even unto our day.

And he did it by faith more than by all other things put together—a faith so rapt that, to our less passionate natures, it seems to have been the very insanity of fanaticism. But it did the work; and that is the thing after all.

His sermons do not seem to be more remarkable when you read them than those of many another pulpiteer, although they are full of thought. We are told, however, that his voice had in it a terrible earnestness, and his manner was so impassioned that he sometimes seemed to forget himself.

But all agree that the magic with which he wrought his wonders from the pulpit was the feeling that everybody had that Fra Girolamo believed what he said, knew what he said, meant what he said.