Girolamo Savonarola was born in Ferrera, Italy. He entered the Dominican order in 1474, but his studies in the Old Testament prophets and the Book of Revelation helped to make him a powerful preacher against the evils that corrupt society. His utterances had a prophetic tinge. He believed that God had given him a mission of calling people to repentance before the impending day of judgment. Savonarola created a democratic government in Florence and burned immoral works of art. He preached against the worldliness and of the clergy and the corruption of secuar life, and was especially opposed to the ruling class. Pope Alexander VI offered him a lucrative job in Rome (to shut him up). When Savonarola rejected this, he was taken into custody, arrested, tortured, examined and condemned to die. His last words were, "My Lord was pleased to die for my sins." He was strangled and his body burned.
John Glass, born this day in Auchtermuchty, Scotland, became so convinced that churches are gatherings of true believers rather than social clubs for anyone born in a parish that he formed the Glassite church, a sect of independent Presbyterians operating on the principle that he taught, sometimes also called Sandemanians.
