s,--rival
generals, whose dissensions compromised the safety of the Empire. He was
absent on important missions when the death of Sixtus, A.D. 440, left
the Papacy without a head. On Leo were all eyes now fixed, and he was
immediately summoned by the clergy and the people of Rome, in whom the
right of election was vested, to take possession of the vacant throne.
He did not affect unworthiness like Gregory in later years, but accepted
at once the immense responsibility.

I need not enumerate his measures and acts. Like all great and patriotic
statesmen he selected the wisest and ablest men he could find as
subordinates, and condescended himself to those details which he
inexorably exacted from others. He even mounted the neglected pulpit of
his metropolitan church to preach to the people, like Chrysostom and
Gregory Nazianzen at Constantinople. His sermons are not models of
eloquence or style, but are practical, powerful, earnest, and orthodox.
Athanasius himself was not more evangelical, or Ambrose more impressive.
He was the especial foe of all the heresies which characterized the age.
He did battle with all who attempted to subvert the Nicene Creed. Those
whom he especially rebuked were the Manicheans,--men who made the
greatest pretension to intellectual culture and advanced knowledge, and
yet whose lives were disgraced not merely by the most offensive
intellectual pride, but the most disgraceful vices; men who confounded
all the principles of moral obligation, and who polluted even the
atmosphere of Rome by downright Pagan licentiousness. He had no patience
with these false philosophers, and he had no mercy. He even complained
of them to the emperor, as Calvin did of Servetus to the civil
authorities of Geneva (which I grant was not to his credit); and the
result was that these dissolute and pretentious heretics were expelled
from the army and from all places of trust and emolument.

Many people in our enlightened times would denounce this treatment as
illiberal and persecuting, and justly. But consider his age and
circumstances. What was Leo to do as the guardian of the faith in those
dreadful times? Was he to suffer those who poisoned all the sources of
renovation which then remained to go unrebuked and unpunished? He may
have said, in his defence, "Shall I, the bishop of this diocese, the
appointed guardian of faith and morals in a period of alarming
degeneracy,--shall I, armed with the sword of Saint Peter, sto