The city which has
taken the whole world is itself taken." Rude barbarians invaded the
sanctity of Marcella's retreat. They demanded her gold, but she pointed
to the coarse dress she wore to show them she had no buried treasures.
They did not believe her, and cruelly beat her with cudgels. A few days
after the saintly heroine of righteousness went to her long home to
enjoy richly-merited rest and peace.
"Who can describe the carnage of that night?
What tears are equal to its agony?
Of ancient date a sovran city falls;
And lifeless in its streets and houses lie
Unnumbered bodies of its citizens.
In many a ghastly shape doth death appear."
Marcella and her monastic home fell in the general ruin, but in the
words of Horace, she left "a monument more enduring than brass." Her
noble life, so full of kind words and loving deeds, still stirs the
hearts of her sisters who, while they may reject her ascetic ideal,
will, nevertheless, try to emulate her noble spirit. As Jerome said of
Paula: "By shunning glory she earned glory; for glory follows virtue as
its shadow; and deserting those who seek it, it seeks those who
despise it."
Still another woman claims our attention,--Fabiola, the founder of the
first hospital. Lecky declares that "the first public hospital and the
charity planted by that woman's hand overspread the world, and will
alleviate to the end of time the darkest anguish of humanity.
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