But if pretension to the primacy had not yet been put forth, there had arisen the practical situation, which called the bishops of Rome to a kind of sovereignty of the city. The officials of the empire, a distant exarch at Ravenna, a feeble prætor at Rome, had no power either to protect or to rescue. The bishop instinctively, almost involuntarily, whenever he was a man of strength or note, was put into the breach. Whatever could be done by negotiation, he, a man of peace, was naturally called to do. Innocent procured from Alaric the exemption of the churches from attack even in the first and most terrible siege; there wounded men and flying women found refuge in the hottest of the pillage, and Marcella struggling, praying for the deliverance of her young nun, through the brutal crowd which had invaded her house, was in safety with her charge, as we have seen, as soon as they could drag themselves within the sanctuary. This was already a great thing in that dread conflict of force with weakness--and it continued to be the case more or less in all the successive waves of fire and flame which passed over Rome. And when the terrible tide of devastation was over, one patriot Pope at least took the sacred vessels of gold and silver, which had been saved along with the people in their sanctuaries, and melted them down to procure bread for the remnant, thus doubly delivering the flock committed to his care. These facts worked silently, and there seems no reason to believe other than unconsciously at first, towards the formation of the great power which was once more to make Rome a centre of empire. The historian is too apt to perceive in every action an early-formed and long-concealed project tending towards one great end; and it is common to recognise, even in the missionary expeditions of the Church, as well as in the immediate protection exercised around her seat, this astute policy and ever-maturing, ever-growing scheme. But neither Leo nor Gregory require any such explanation of their motives; their duty was to protect, to deliver, to work day and night for the welfare of the people who had no other protectors: as it was their first duty to spread the Gospel, to teach all nations according to their Master's commission. It is hard to take from them the credit of those measures which were at once their natural duty and their delight, in order to make all their offices of mercy subservient to the establishment of a universal authority to which neither of them laid any claim.