OUR DEBT TO THE LATIN RACE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 5, 2 February 1899, Page 20

OUR DEBT TO THE LATIN RACE.

Theke is a thought in connection with Savonarola (says the Buffalo Union and Times') that we should like to press home. One hears much nowadays about the decadence of the Latin race, but one hears very little about the gratitude that is due to the people of that race, and especially to the Italians, for what they havedone in the interests of civilisation. And yet it was Italy that lit the torch of modern culture, and it was from her that the nations of northern Europe borrowed their lights. It was Italy that gave the world St b rancis and Savonarola— men who represent in a matchless war the charm and the glory of the spiritual. It was Italy that epitomised the Middle Ages in Dante and the Renaissance lin Michael Angelo. Italy was the mother of Leonardo da Vinci. It was Italy that produced Petrarch and Raphael, Columbus and Galileo. Grant that she fell into a decay from which she has not yet fully emerged nevertheless she gave birth to the great exemplar whose martyrdom is now being celebrated ; she gave birth to poets, and artists, and philosophers, and scientists, and men of action, without whose labours for truth and beauty and goodness the world would be indeed dark to-day ; and whenever and wherever her name is mentioned it should surely be done with gratitude and veneration All honour done to Savonarola should be mingled with honour to the fair and glorious and suffering land of his nativity