Balbina hastened to obey. The chains with which Nero bound St. Peter had been devoutly preserved by the Christians, and she had no trouble in finding them. With the Pope’s consent she gave them into the keeping of Theodora, the sister of St. Hermes, the Roman magistrate who had been martyred under Trajan a few years earlier. Theodora seems to have deposited them in St. Peter’s own little Church on the Esquiline, and we can infer that it was there that the wonderful scene described in the Roman Breviary took place more than four hundred years later. How one wishes one could have seen the fair young Empress in her straight Byzantine robe, stiff with gold and gleaming with jewels, kneeling with clasped hands, her eyes wide with wonder, in the half light of the old chapel, while St. Leo, not too absorbed in devotion to be keenly interested in his examination, as he was in everything that seemed worthy of attention at all—stood where the sun rays fell through one dim window, and, the chain from Jerusalem in one hand and the Roman one in the other, held them close together to compare and judge of them. As he did so, they touched—and then the marvel happened. Link sprang to meet link, ring welded into ring, and while the Pontiff gazed mute and awestruck, that which he held had become one chain without scar or flaw to show the point of union—the Chain still guarded, still venerated on the very spot where the portent occurred. Eudoxia built a noble Church as a shrine for the relic; this Church was restored and added to as the ages passed on, and exactly one thousand years after Eudoxia’s time, in 1477, Sixtus IV and his nephew, Giuliano della Rovere, caused a splendid casket with bronze doors to be made and placed under the High Altar to receive St. Peter’s Chains. There they now lie, and on the 1st of August, every year, there is high festival in San Pietro in Vincoli; the walls are hung from top to bottom with crimson brocade, the pavement is strewn all the way from the door to the High Altar with freshly gathered box sprigs, and their fresh, clean fragrance mingles with the perfume of incense and the peculiar sweetness that pure wax candles give out when lighted in great numbers close together. There is High Mass with solemn music and the celebrant and his assistant wear their richest vestments. The Church is crowded with worshippers and wreathed in flowers, and when the two Chains which became one in the hands of St. Leo are shown to the faithful, the sight seems to bridge the centuries for us, and fills our hearts with love and gratitude to God for giving us our first great Pastor, who bore them so rejoicingly for his and our Master’s sake.