“Leo’s hands would never consecrate me!” he replied, with a slight touch of bitterness unusual with him. “Have I not been, and am I not still, a slave? And Leo does not admit slaves to the priesthood. They told me amid the Sabine hills that he wrote to the bishops of Campania, that ‘a servile meanness made some slaves seek the honour of the priesthood, seeking that they who found no approval from man might find approval from God; but the sacred ministry,’ he said, ‘would be polluted by the meanness of such association. None who are bound to the service of others’ (_qui originali aut alicui conditione obligati sunt_), he wrote, ‘or in any way not free by birth or station, was fit to serve in the camp of God.’”[2] “But Patrick was a slave!” she exclaimed. “Patrick was born free,” he replied. “But thou also wert born free!” she said, her face brightening. “Leo could never mean to exclude such as thee!” “I know not, little sister,” he replied. “Many indeed of the slaves of the Romans are captives born free, but the Roman law gives the purchaser indelible rights over the purchased.” Ethne’s eyes filled with tears. “Does Christianity itself, even the Heavenly City, which is free, and the mother of us all, turn against us? Is there no refuge at all in this world for the wronged?” “As thou sayest,” he replied, “the heavenly Jerusalem is free; we shall all be free there. And here we can always be free in soul! Moreover,” he added, “slavery does often indeed degrade the slave, and make him through all his being slavish and unfit for any high office. And on me, beloved, this does not weigh heavily after all. God helping us, we have another calling, the old reigning and serving for our own people.” “At all events,” said Ethne, “we may add Leo’s prayer to Patrick’s hymn—‘Grant us the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful, that we who cannot do anything that is good without Thee, may by Thee be enabled to live according to Thy will.’ It is the great Bishop’s prayer for us, and for himself,” she added; “let us say it together for him as well as for ourselves.” The entertainments, banquets, and visits of state occasioned by the return of Fabricius to Rome, necessarily made the position of the Irish captives more difficult. Although their being members of the Aventine household was their best protection, Fabricius and Damaris could not bear to have them regarded as in bondage; and yet as guests the world could not receive them.