ious admonition,
addressed to him in the following words: "These," said she, "are the
consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter: if you presume to touch
them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your conscience.
For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend." 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. Augustin, 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. [100]

[Footnote 99: Orosius (l. vii. c. 39, p. 573-576) applauds the piety of
the Christian Goths, without seeming to perceive that the greatest part
of them were Arian heretics. Jornandes (c. 30, p. 653) and Isidore of
Seville, (Chron. p. 417, edit. Grot.,) who were both attached to the
Gothic cause, have repeated and embellished these edifying tales.
According to Isidore, Alaric himself was heard to say, that he waged war
with the Romans, and not with the apostles. Such was the style of the
seventh century; two hundred years before, the fame and merit had been
ascribed, not to the apostles, but to Christ.]

[Footnote 100: See Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 1-6. He
particularly appeals to the examples of Troy, Syracuse, and Taren