CHAPTER XXVII.
LEO AND THE VANDALS.
For three days no news from Rome reached the villa on the Sabine hills. To Damaris and Ethne they were days of solitude spent in prayer for their beloved and for Rome. They prayed the “Our Father,” the great prayer of Christendom, over and over, engraving the unfathomable meanings of its simplicity deeper and deeper into their hearts. And “after that manner they prayed always,” every petition pervaded by the “Our Father.” And so the childlike asking for the daily bread and daily forgiveness became possible and real; the solitude of the prayer to “My Father Who seeth in secret,” ordained in the Divine ritual, expanded into Our Father’s all-embracing heaven, into the boundlessness of the One Family, into the Our of the most solitary Christian prayer. Also, they prayed the collects of Leo, humble, grand, and simple, the “Grant us the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful;” the prayer to the Pilot of the Church and of each faithful soul, sure to be at the helm through every storm—“Grant that the course of this world may be so peacefully ordered by Thy governance, that Thy Church may serve Thee in all godly quietness.”
These especially for this earth, and then looking beyond to the results in heaven—“Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that Thy faithful people do unto Thee true and laudable service, grant, we beseech Thee, that we may so faithfully serve Thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain Thy heavenly promises, through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord.”
And perhaps oftenest of all they offered up that prayer of Leo’s which, intertwining commands and promises, unfolds the depths of both command and promise for earth and heaven—“Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain that which Thou dost promise, make us to love that which Thou dost command.”
Thus, often resting their hearts on the staff of Leo’s faithful words, the two women lived through those days of terrible suspense. And on the fourth came the good tidings, that once more, as far as possible, Leo had saved Rome. The messenger told how the peaceful procession of the clergy, the great Bishop leading them, had gone forth from the gates of the defenceless city, along the Ostian Way, and had met the Vandal king.
Less merciful than the Huns, Genseric had yet been moved as never before by that stately, saintly presence, and although he would not relinquish the plunder of the city, he gave orders to his soldiers that there should be no torture of the captives, no slaughter of the unresisting, nor any setting of the buildings on fire.