This quiet and useful life was rudely and abruptly ended by a dreadful catastrophe.  Alaric the Goth had seized and sacked Rome.  The world stood aghast.  The sad news reached Jerome in his cell at Bethlehem, who expressed his sorrow in forceful language:  “My voice sticks in my throat; and as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance.  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.”  She, too, was a widow who refused to marry again, but broke up her home, sold her possessions, and with the proceeds founded a hospital into which were gathered the sick from the streets.  She nursed the sufferers and washed their ulcers and wounds.  No task was beneath her, no sacrifice of personal comfort too great for her love.  Many helped her with their gold, but she gave herself.  She also aided in establishing a home for strangers at Portus, which became one of the most famous inns of the time.  Travelers from all parts of the world found a welcome and a shelter on landing at this port.  When she died the roofs of Rome were crowded with those who watched the funeral procession.  Psalms were chanted, and the gilded ceilings of the churches resounded to the music in commendation of her loving life and labors.

These and other characters of like zeal and fortitude exemplify the spirit of the men and women who interested the West in monasticism.  Much as their errors and extravagances may be deplored, there is no question that some of them were types of the loftiest Christian virtues, inspired by the most laudable motives.