CHAPTER XIII.

CHARITY.

As we do not choose to enter the house of Agnes, either with the wolf or with the fox, we will take a more spiritual mode of doing so, and find ourselves at once inside.

The parents of Agnes represented noble lines of ancestry, and her family was not one of recent conversion, but had for several generations professed the faith. As in heathen families was cherished the memory of ancestors who had won a triumph, or held high offices in the state, so in this, and other Christian houses, was preserved with pious reverence and affectionate pride, the remembrance of those relations who had, in the last hundred and fifty years or more, borne the palm of martyrdom, or occupied the sublimer dignities of the Church. But, though ennobled thus, and with a constant stream of blood poured forth for Christ, accompanying the waving branches of the family-tree, the stem had never been hewn down, but had survived repeated storms. This may appear surprising; but when we reflect how many a soldier goes through a whole campaign of frequent actions and does not receive a wound; or how many a family remains untainted through a plague, we cannot be surprised if Providence watched over the well-being of the Church, by preserving in it, through old family successions, long unbroken chains of tradition, and so enabling the faithful to say: “Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom, and we should have been like to Gomorrha.”[53]

All the honors and the hopes of this family centred now in one, whose name is already known to our readers, Agnes, the only child of that ancient house. Given to her parents as they had reached the very verge of hope that their line could be continued, she had been from infancy blest with such a sweetness of disposition, such a docility and intelligence of mind, and such simplicity and innocence of character, that she had grown up the common object of love, and almost of reverence, to the entire house, from her parents down to the lowest servant. Yet nothing seemed to spoil, or warp, the compact virtuousness of her nature; but her good qualities expanded, with a well-balanced adjustment, which at the early age in which we find her, had ripened into combined grace and wisdom. She shared all her parents’ virtuous thoughts, and cared as little for the world as they. She lived with them in a small portion of the mansion, which was fitted up with elegance, though not with luxury; and their establishment was adequate to all their wants. Here they received the few friends with whom they preserved familiar relations; though, as they did not entertain, nor go out, these were few. Fabiola was an occasional visitor, though Agnes preferred going to see her at her house; and she often expressed to her young friend her longing for the day, when, meeting with a suitable match, she would re-embellish and open all the splendid dwelling. For, notwithstanding the Voconian law “on the inheritance of women,”[54] now quite obsolete, Agnes had received, from collateral sources, large personal additions to the family property.

In general, of course, the heathen world, who visited, attributed appearances to avarice, and calculated what immense accumulations of wealth the miserly parents must be putting by; and concluded that all beyond the solid screen which shut up the second court, was left to fall into decay and ruin.

It was not so, however. The inner part of the house, consisting of a large court, and the garden, with a detached dining-hall, or triclinium, turned into a church, and the upper portion of the house, accessible from those parts, were devoted to the administration of that copious charity, which the Church carried on as a _business_ of its life. It was under the care and direction of the deacon Reparatus, and his exorcist Secundus, officially appointed by the supreme Pontiff to take care of the sick, poor, and strangers, in one of the seven regions into which Pope Cajus, about five years before, had divided the city for this purpose; committing each region to one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church.

Rooms were set apart for lodging strangers who came from a distance, recommended by other churches; and a frugal table was provided for them. Upstairs were apartments for an hospital for the bed-ridden, the decrepit, and the sick, under the care of the deaconesses, and such of the faithful as loved to assist in this work of charity. It was here that the blind girl had her cell, though she refused to take her food, as we have seen, in the house. The _tablinum_, or muniment-room, which generally stood detached in the middle of the passage between the inner courts, served as the office and archives for transacting the business of this charitable establishment, and preserving all local documents, such as the acts of martyrs, procured or compiled by the one of the seven notaries kept for that purpose, by institution of St. Clement I., who was attached to that region.

A door of communication allowed the household to assist in these works of charity; and Agnes had been accustomed from childhood to run in and out, many times a day, and to pass hours there; always beaming, like an angel of light, consolation and joy on the suffering and distressed. This house, then, might be called the almonry of the region, or district, of charity and hospitality in which it was situated, and it was accessible for these purposes through the _posticum_ or back door, situated in a narrow lane little frequented. No wonder that with such an establishment, the fortune of the inmates should find an easy application.

We heard Pancratius request Sebastian, to arrange for the distribution of his plate and jewels among the poor, without its being known to whom they belonged. He had not lost sight of the commission, and had fixed on the house of Agnes as the fittest for this purpose. On the morning which we have described the distribution had to take place; other regions had sent their poor, accompanied by their deacons; while Sebastian, Pancratius, and other persons of higher rank had come in through the front door, to assist in the division. Some of these had been seen to enter by Corvinus.