The feeble Valentinian was present in the city; he had fled to Rome, it was said, as a safer refuge, for the moment, than his Imperial Ravenna, enclosed in her marshes. The port of Ravenna on the Adriatic was too near the fallen city of Aquileia, so long the queen of the Adriatic; too near the hordes of the Huns. Aetius, the great general, the Count of Italy, seemed to fail them. The foremost place which he obtained for himself by basely betraying his great rival Boniface, Count of Africa, had proved no post of ease or real power to him. The feeble Emperor himself had become his rival, using him (as was afterwards terribly proved) not a moment longer than the hour of danger lasted. Boniface was dead; Africa, through his treachery, was lost to the Empire, to civilization, and, as it was proved afterwards, to Christianity; and Italy lay bare to the foe. He himself had become the dread and detestation of the weak and wicked court, and now it seemed as if a palsy had fallen on his own strong will and clear intellect; it was rumoured that Aetius was counselling the Emperor that they should take flight together and abandon Rome to her fate. Only Leo was left. But Leo stood firm, a rock of strength because he stood on the Rock. Still his protecting presence and his words of power were there—“Christ Himself has not abandoned the care of His beloved flock.” “Throughout the universal Church Peter is still saying day by day, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God;’ and every tongue which confesses the Lord is clothed with the majesty of this voice. This faith overcomes the devil and dissolves the fetters of his captives; those who are torn away from the world it engrafts into heaven, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.” And from day to day, in those days of earthquakes and storms, went up the prayer for ever associated with Leo’s name and with this great conflict— “Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by Thy governance, that Thy Church may serve Thee in all godly quietness, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Never could the world have seemed less peaceably ordered than then; yet it was indeed not under the governance of Valentinian, or of Aetius, or of Peter, but of God. Never could there have been less external quiet; but the Church, and Leo, kept the “godly quietness” within, in the presence of God. Never could the waves have seemed more likely to overwhelm the Rock than then; but it stood firm as ever. “Our fathers all ate the same spiritual meat, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”