Page:Completecatechis00deharich.djvu/50

exposed to new dangers, when rapacious pagan nations left their own wild homes, and overran the Christian countries in countless swarms, laying' waste all before them with fire and sword. This is called the Migration of Nations. Some of them were named Huns, Alans, Heruli, Goths, Suevi, Lombards, Burgundians, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons; but the most merciless and savage of all these barbarian tribes were the Huns, under their king, Attila, who called himself the Scourge of God. The most celebrated towns were utterly destroyed, and whole countries laid waste and almost depopulated. The Roman Empire, more than one thousand years old, and once so powerful, could no longer resist these savage tribes, and was at last completely overthrown. Odoacer, King of the Heruli, took Rome, and was proclaimed King of Italy in 476. It is impossible to describe the extent of misery which these barbarous hordes inflicted on all Europe, until finally God subdued and civilized them by means of that very Church which they had threatened with destruction. Holy men were sent by the Popes to