o rest of the heart. I was tranquil in my
monastery. The tempest arose; I am in its waves, suffering with the loss of
quiet a shipwreck of mind. The gout oppresses you; I also am terribly
pained by it. It will be well if, under these strokes of the scourge, we
perceive them to be gifts, by which the sense of the flesh may atone for
sins which delights of the flesh may have led us to commit.

"The shortness of my letter will show how weak and how occupied I am, who
say so little to one whom I love so much."[205]

St. Gregory tells us that king Rechared, after the martyrdom of his brother
St. Hermenegild, was converted from the Arian heresy, and brought the whole
Visigothic nation to the Catholic faith. "The brother of a martyr fitly
became a preacher of the faith. If Hermenegild had not died a martyr, this
he would not have been able to do; for 'except the grain of wheat falling
into the ground dieth, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth
forth much fruit'. This we see to be doing in the members which we know to
have been done in the Head. In the nation of the Visigoths one died that
many might live."[206]

A letter of St. Gregory to this king Rechared is extant, which one of the
greatest French bishops, Hincmar of Reims, nearly three hundred years after
it was written, thought worthy to be sent as a present to the emperor
Charles the Bald. I quote portions of it:[207]

"Most excellent son, words cannot tell the delight which I receive from
your work and from your life. When I hear the power of that new miracle
wrought in our days, that by means of your Excellency the whole nation of
the Goths has been brought over from the error of the Arian heresy to the
solidity of the right faith, I exclaim with the prophet, 'This is the
change of the hand of the Most High'. Is there a heart of stone which would
not be softened on hearing of so great a work into praises of Almighty God
and affection for your Excellency? Often, when my sons meet, it is my
pleasure to tell them of the deeds wrought by you, and to join my
admiration with theirs. I get angry with myself that I am lazy, useless,
and inert, while kings are labouring for the gain of the heavenly country
by the ingathering of souls. What, then, shall I allege to the Judge at
that tremendous tribunal, if I come before Him then with empty hands, while
your Excellency leads a long train of the faithful whom you have drawn into
the grace of the true faith by zealo