Illustrations of my point are scattererd all through history. Savonarola illustrates it. He did not deliberately choose to get himself killed. But the time for the opening of a new era in the life of man was approaching. Savonarola had eyes to see, ears to hear, soul that was sensitive to the movings of the great organism we call Humanity. He saw how inadequate its existing garments were. He saw the open corruption of church and state, the denial on every side of every truth that time had uncovered. And he spoke. He could not do otherwise. He claimed no credit for it. He disowned the idea that he had fashioned any scheme for the church or the world. He said just what John did to those who criticised him. He declared himself only a "voice." That was all. His was the voice of awaking man. And the after years demonstrated the truth of his claim. He was the forerunner of the "great reformation."
The same was true of Rousseau and the French Encyclopedists, of Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams, of the fathers of the French and American Revolutions. And, by the way, nothing could more clearly indicate the putrid and decadent condition of our American civilization today than the selection of a list of heroes whose names are to be inscribed in a hall of fame. We have in that list some names, it is true, who belong in any list of the world's great souls—Washington, Jefferson,
