“Throughout the universal Church Peter is still saying day by day, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God;’ and every tongue which confesses the Lord is clothed with the majesty of this voice. This faith overcomes the devil and dissolves the fetters of his captives; those who are torn away from the world it engrafts into heaven, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.”
And from day to day, in those days of earthquakes and storms, went up the prayer for ever associated with Leo’s name and with this great conflict—
“Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by Thy governance, that Thy Church may serve Thee in all godly quietness, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Never could the world have seemed less peaceably ordered than then; yet it was indeed not under the governance of Valentinian, or of Aetius, or of Peter, but of God. Never could there have been less external quiet; but the Church, and Leo, kept the “godly quietness” within, in the presence of God. Never could the waves have seemed more likely to overwhelm the Rock than then; but it stood firm as ever. “Our fathers all ate the same spiritual meat, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”
And again from every basilica and every house rose Leo’s prayer—“Grant us the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful, that we who cannot do anything that is good without Thee, may by Thee be enabled to live according to Thy Will.” Leo’s prayers were indeed fulfilled for him in the way his inmost soul desired. Of Leo personally scarcely a trace is left, as to the persons he loved, the life he lived, the death he died; his only monument, the rescue of his Rome, and the Rock of the great Apostle’s great confession of the Christ, on which he stood, and which he held for the Church.
Sorely indeed were the strong words of consolation needed in the household on the Aventine. No further sound reached them from Aquileia, no record of individual heroism or deliverance. What voice indeed could come from ashes and a charnel-house?
The fame of only one act seemed borne above that raging storm of murder and rapine; only one name was borne to them through the death-silence that succeeded. It was reported that the good and beautiful young matron Digna, the friend of their house and of Marius, had covered her head like a Roman matron of old, and from the tower on the walls adjoining her house had plunged into the glassy waters of the Natiso which flowed deep and strong below, to escape the insults of the Huns.
When these tidings reached them, for the first time Damaris uttered a cry of despair. “Alas! alas!” she said, “too surely our Marius is slain, or he would have saved her.”
But Fabricius shook his head.
“Fond mother’s thought! Against such a flood of furious savagery Marius would have been as powerless as when he lay a babe in thine arms;” and then, with a flash of the old patrician fire, he added, “It is not Digna only, it is our old Rome, who chose death rather than dishonour at Aquileia; our Rome has fallen, she is dead, but never could she have perished save by suicide. Our vices have killed us. Yet she has fallen fighting to the last, not as a slave and captive, but as free and the mother of the free. The brave garrison of Aquileia could not save our Rome from ruin, but they have saved it from the worst dishonour; Digna stands for ever as a symbol of her great old glory. And Marius, thank God, our Marius was there!”