Such is one phase of the Savonarola here portrayed to us; and herein is placed before us the secret of his greatness and strength.  This firm assertion of the highest right his consciousness recognises, amid all difficulty, hardness, and disappointment; this persistent endeavour by precept and example to rouse men to a truer and better life than their own varied self-seekings; this unflinching struggle against everything false, mean, and base,—­these things make him a power in the State before which King and Pope are compelled to bow in respect or fear.  Over even the larger nature of Romola his words at this time have sway,—­the sway which more distinct perception of all the relations of duty gives over a spirit equally earnest to seek the right alone.

In time there comes a change, almost imperceptibly, working from within outwards, first clearly announced through the changed relations of others to him, though these are but symptomatic of change within himself.  The political strength of his sway is broken, its moral strength is all but gone.  The nature of the change in himself he unwittingly defines in those last words to Romola already quoted, “The cause of my party is the cause of God’s kingdom.”  Various external circumstances have contributed to bring about the result thus indicated; but on these it is unnecessary to dwell.  God’s kingdom has lowered and narrowed itself into his party.  The spirit of the partisan has begun to overshadow the purity of the patriot, to contract and abase the wide aim of the Christian; and he has come to substitute a law of right modified to suit the interests of the party, for that law which is absolute and unconditional.  He whom we listened to in the Duomo as the fervid proclaimer of God’s justice, stands now before us as the perverter of even human justice and human law.  The very nobleness of Bernardo del Nero strengthens the necessity that he should die, that the Mediceans may be thus deprived of the support of his stainless honour and high repute; though to compass this death the law of mercy which Savonarola himself has instituted must be put aside.  As we listen to the miserable sophistries by which he strives to justify himself—­far less to Romola than before his own accusing soul—­we feel that the greatness of his strength has departed from him.  All thenceforth is deepening confusion without and within.  Less and less can he control the violences of his party, till these provoke all but universal revolt, and the “Masque of the Furies” ends his public career.  The uncertainties and vacillations of the “Trial by Fire,” the long series of confessions and retractations, historically true, are still more morally and spiritually significant.  They tell of inward confusion and perplexity, generated through that partial “self-pleasing” which, under guise so insidious, had stolen into the inner life; of faith and trust perturbed and obscured thereby; of dark doubts engendered whether God had indeed ever spoken by him.  We feel it is meet the great life should close, not as that of the triumphant martyr, but amid the depths of that self-renouncing penitence through which once more the soul resumes its full relation to the divine.