His name was Fra Mariano, and it was admitted that he was a far better speaker than Savonarola.  Yet he failed utterly, unaccountably.  He had better elocution, a richer voice, more “magnetism,” more attractive qualities every way than Savonarola, and as much learning; but he did not have as much faith.

I am dwelling upon this because I am quite sure that the people are more interested in acquiring faith than they are in all your oratoricals; and because, too, I am quite sure that it is the only certain method of your effectiveness.

Faith is infectious.  James Whitcomb Riley, whose sweetness of character and upliftedness of soul equal his genius, gave me the best recipe for faith in God, Christ, and Immortality I have ever heard: 

“Just believe,” said he; “don’t argue about it; don’t question it; simply say, ‘I believe.’  Next day you will find yourself believing a little less feebly, and finally your faith will be absolute, certain, and established.”

And why not—­you of the schools who split hairs and dispute and come to nothing in the end, and whose knowledge, after all, as Savonarola so well said, comes to nothing—­why not?  For if you cannot prove God and Christ and Immortality, it is very sure you cannot disprove them; and it is safe—­yes, and splendid—­to believe in these three marvelous realities; or conceptions, if you like that word better.

The doctrine of noblesse oblige was one of the most beautiful of human conventions.  It was based upon the proposition that a man being noble and the son of a nobleman could not do a mean thing—­it was not good form.

But if a man gets it into his consciousness that he is the child, not of a nobleman, not of an earthly ruler, not of a great statesman, warrior, scientist, or financier, but of the living God who presides over the universe, how large, how generous, how exalted, and how fine his attitude toward life and all his conduct needs must be.

Savonarola was not alone in the vast crowds he drew by the simple method he followed.  He was not original in that method either.  Do we not read that when “Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them, the people ... gave heed unto those things which Philip spake.”

Of course they gave heed, just as they did to Savonarola.  Recall the expression of the old journalist at the beginning of this paper.  He would never have been bored by Philip or by the Lombard priest.

Paul got the attention even of the blase Athenians, who would not listen to anybody or anything very long, “because he preached unto them of Jesus and the resurrection.”

And you will remember the Master’s experience at Capernaum:  “And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door:  and he PREACHED THE WORD unto them.”