CHAPTER XXI.
ON THE SABINE HILLS.
It was not many days after the rescue of Rome from the Huns by Leo that Baithene came back from Ireland. He found the city full of noise and stir, the people crowding to the Circensian games; the Coliseum echoing to the shouts of the spectators of the chariot races, athletic games, and dramatic performances.
Rome had not indeed received her deliverer as for a time misguided Troyes had received the Bishop who had risked his life for her. But her response to the great gift of her rescue was far from satisfactory to Leo.
When Baithene reached the Aventine, he found the family absent in the basilica, at the Festival of St. Peter and St. Paul. He followed them thither, and through the betrothal veils recognized Ethne and Lucia, with Damaris, Fabricius, and Marius. And resounding through the lofty pillared spaces, once more he heard the voice of Leo in grave warning and remonstrance.
“The religious devotion, beloved,” he said, in deep and mournful tones, “with which, at the time of our chastening and our liberation, all the people of the faithful flowed together to render thanks to God in acts of praise was soon neglected by almost all. This has given sore pain to my heart, and has also smitten it with fear. For the peril is great when men are ungrateful to God, and by their forgetfulness of His benefits show that they neither feel compunction at reproof, nor rejoice in their remission and pardon. Therefore, beloved, I dread lest this voice of the prophet should be applicable to us—‘I have scourged them and they have not mourned, they would not accept correction’; for how can correction have been accepted by hearts so turned away? It shames me to say it, but it is necessary not to be silent; more is rendered to demons than to apostles, and insane spectacles are more frequented than the shrines of the martyrs. Who has restored this city to safety? Who has rescued her from captivity? Who has defended her from slaughter? Is it the games of the circus? or is it the care of the saints, through which the sentence of Divine condemnation was softened, so that we who had deserved wrath might be preserved for pardon?