Letter LXXX.^22762276    Placed in 371 or early in 372.

To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.

The worse the diseases of the Churches grow, the more do we all turn to your excellency, in the belief that your championship is the one consolation left to us in our troubles.  By the power of your prayers, and your knowledge of what is the best course to suggest in the emergency, you are believed to be able to save us from this terrible tempest by all alike who know your excellency even to a small extent, whether by hearsay or by personal experience.  Wherefore, cease not, I implore, to pray for our souls and to rouse us by your letters.  Did you but know of what service these are 172to us you would never have lost a single opportunity of writing.  Could I only, by the aid of your prayers, be deemed worthy of seeing you, and of enjoying your good qualities, and of adding to the story of my life a meeting with your truly great and apostolical soul, then I should indeed believe that I had received from God’s mercy a consolation equivalent to all the afflictions of my life.