barbarians on Christ's account, are haters of the name of Christ. The
shrines of the martyrs and the basilicas of the apostles received, in
the devastation of the city, not their own people only, but every
fugitive; and the fury and greed of the invaders were quenched at these
holy thresholds. Yet with thankless arrogance and impious frenzy these
men, who took refuge under that Name in order that they might enjoy the
light of fugitive years, perversely oppose it now, that they may
languish in sempiternal gloom.

Never has it been known, in so many wars as are recorded from before the
foundation of Rome to the present day, that an enemy, having reduced any
city, should have spared those who had fled to the temples of their
gods; not even the Romans themselves, whose moderation in victory has so
often been justly praised, have respected the sanctuary of vanquished
deities. The devastation and massacre and pillage and conflagrations of
the sack of Rome were nothing new. But this one thing was new and
unheard of--these savages became suddenly so mild as to set apart
spacious basilicas and to fill them with people on whom they had mercy;
no one might be killed therein nor any dragged from thence. Who does not
see that this is due to the name of Christ and to a Christian age? Who
can deny that these sanguinary hordes were bridled by Him Who had said:
"I will visit their sins with the rod, but will not take my mercy from
them"?

All natures, because they exist and therefore have their manner and
species and a certain peace with themselves, are good; and when they are
in the places belonging to the order of nature, they preserve the being
which they have received.

The truest cause of the felicity of the good angels is to be found in