The Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, despatched a messenger
to inform the King of the treasure which he had discovered; and received
a peremptory order from Alaric, that all the consecrated plate and
ornaments should be transported, without damage or delay, to the church
of the apostle.

From the extremity, perhaps, of the Quirinal hill, to the distant
quarter of the Vatican, a numerous detachment of Goths, marching in
order of battle through the principal streets, protected, with
glittering arms, the long train of their devout companions, who bore
aloft on their heads the sacred vessels of gold and silver; and the
martial shouts of the Barbarians were mingled with the sound of
religious psalmody. From all the adjacent houses a crowd of Christians
hastened to join this edifying procession; and a multitude of
fugitives, without distinction of age, or rank, or even of sect, had the
good fortune to escape to the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the
Vatican. The learned work, concerning the _City of God_, was professedly
composed by St. Augustine, to justify the ways of Providence in the
destruction of the Roman greatness. He celebrates, with peculiar
satisfaction, this memorable triumph of Christ; and insults his
adversaries by challenging them to produce some similar example of a
town taken by storm, in which the fabulous gods of antiquity had been
able to protect either themselves or their deluded votaries.

In the sack of Rome, some rare and extraordinary examples of Barbarian
virtue have been deservedly applauded. But the holy precincts of the
Vatican, and the apostolic churches, could receive a very small
proportion of the Roman people; many thousand warriors, more especially
of the Huns, who served under the standard of Alaric, were strangers to
the name, or at least to the faith, of Christ; and we may suspect,