Gregory to Azimarchus, scribo. As much as the report of your shipwreck grieved us when we learned of it, so much did the following letter relieve us, since we learned that your Magnificence had reached Sicily unharmed. And we give thanks to our Creator, who protected you with his wonted mercy and delivered you from the peril of the sea. Wherefore it is needful that you should always so keep before your eyes God's mercy—which you perceive to have been so often bestowed upon you—in every act, that his grace may be heaped upon you; and that, as he has snatched you from outward perils, so also he may deliver you from inward ones. Greeting you therefore with fatherly sweetness, we ask that, whenever occasion offers itself, you would relieve us with news of your safety.