The Christ spirit filled the heart of Savonarola. His soul was wrung with pity for the poor, the unfortunate, the oppressed; and he had sufficient insight into economics to know that where greed, gluttony and idleness abound, there too stalk oppression, suffering and death. The palaces of the rich are built on the bones of the poor.
Others, high in Church authority, saw these things, too, and knew, no less than Savonarola, the need of reform—they gloried in his ringing words of warning, and they admired no less his example of austerity.
They could not do the needed work—perhaps he could do a little, at least.
And so he was transferred to Saint Mark's Monastery at Florence—the place that needed him most.
Florence was the acknowledged seat of art and polite learning of all Italy, and Saint Mark's was the chief glory of the Church in Florence.
Florence was prosperous and so was Saint Mark's, and have we not said that there is something in pure prosperity that taints the soul?
Savonarola was sent to Saint Mark's merely as a teacher and lecturer. Bologna was full of gloom and grime—the bestiality there was untamed. Here everything was gilded, gracious and good to look upon. The cloister-walks were embowered in climbing roses, the walls decorated fresh from the brush of Fra Angelico, and the fountains in the gardens, adorned by naked cupids, sent their sparkling beads aloft to greet the sunlight.
Brother Girolamo had never seen such beauty before—its gracious essence enfolded him round, and for a few short hours lifted that dead weight of abiding melancholy from his soul.
When he lectured he was surprised to find many fashionable ladies in his audience: learning was evidently a fad. He saw that it was expected that he should be amusing, diverting, and incidentally, instructive. He had only one mode of preaching—this was earnest exhortation to a higher life, the life of austerity, simplicity and nearness to God, by laboring to benefit His children.
He mumbled through his lecture and retired, abashed and humiliated.