And that you are yet alive is due to God, who spares you that you
may be admonished to repent and reform your lives. It is He who has
permitted you, ungrateful as you are, to escape the sword of the
enemy, by calling yourselves His servants, or by finding asylum in
the sacred places of the martyrs.
It is said that Romulus and Remus, in order to increase the
population of the city they founded, opened a sanctuary in which
every man might find asylum and absolution of all crime,--a
remarkable foreshadowing of what has recently occurred in honour of
Christ. The destroyers of Rome followed the example of its founders.
But it was not greatly to their credit that the latter, for the sake
of increasing the number of their citizens, did that which the former
have done, lest the number of their enemies should be diminished.