rket, and here taking notice that certain
youths of fine features and complexion were exposed to sale, he inquired
what countrymen they were, and was answered, that they came from
Britain. He asked if the people of that country were Christians or
heathens, and was told they were still heathens. Then Gregory, fetching
a deep sigh, said: "It was a lamentable consideration that the prince of
darkness should be master of so much beauty, and have so comely persons
in his possession: and that so fine an outside should have nothing of
God's grace to furnish it within."[4] This incident {570} made so great
an impression upon him, that he applied himself soon after to pope
Benedict I., and earnestly requested that some persons might be sent to
preach Christianity in Britain. And not finding any one disposed to
undertake that mission, he made an offer of himself for the service,
with the pope's consent and approbation. Having obtained leave, he
privately set forward on his journey, in company with several monks of
his own monastery. But when his departure was known, the whole city was
in an uproar, and the people ran in a body to the pope, whom they met
going to St. Peter's church. They cried out to him in the utmost
consternation: "Apostolical father, what have you done? In suffering
Gregory to go away, you have destroyed Rome: you have undone us, and
offended St. Peter." At these pressing instances the pope dispatched
messengers to recall him and the saint being overtaken by them on the
third day, was obliged, though with great reluctance, to return to Rome.
Not long after, the same pope, according to John the deacon, and the
Benedictins, or, as Paul the deacon and Baronius say, his successor
Pelagius II., made him one of the seven deacons of the church at Rome,
who assisted the pope. Pelagius II. sent him to Constantinople in
quality of Apocrisiarius, or Nuncio of the holy see, to the religious
emperor Tiberius, by whom the saint was received and treated with the
highest distinction. This public employment did not make him lay aside
the practices of a monastic life, in order to which he had taken with
him certain monks of his house, with whom he might the better continue
them, and by their example excite himself to recollection and prayer. At
the request of St. Leander, bishop of Seville, whom he saw at
Constantinople, he wrote in that city his thirty-five books of Morals
upon Job, giving chiefly the moral and allegorical interp