tian traveller can associate with the sufferings of the primitive Church, if we except the Catacombs, wherein its earliest assemblies were held in secret, and some, at least, of the victims of the bloody Colosseum interred.

The origin and antiquities of the quarries of ancient Rome, have recently been made the subject of a most interesting work, entitled the "Church in the Catacombs," by Dr. Charles Maitland. He thus remarks on the probable origin of their appropriation, as a refuge for the first persecuted Roman Christians:-" It being proved by historical evidence that the Catacombs were originally dug by the Pagans as sand-pits and quarries, it remains to be shown in what manner the Christians became connected with them. The arenarii or sand-diggers were persons of the lowest grade, and from the nature of their occupation probably formed a distinct class. There is reason to suppose that Christianity spread very early among them, for in time of persecution, the converts employed in the subterranean passages not only took refuge there themselves, but also put the whole church in possession of these otherwise inaccessible retreats. When we reflect upon the trials which awaited the church, and the combined powers of earth and hell which menanced its earliest years, it is impossible not to recognise the fostering care of a heavenly hand, in thus providing a cradle for the infant community. Perhaps to the protection afforded by the Catacombs, as an impregnable fortress from which persecution always failed to dislodge it, the Church in Rome owed much of the rapidity of its triumph; and to the preservation of its earliest sanctuaries, its ancient superiority in discipline and manners. The customs of the first ages, stamped indelibly on the walls of the Catacombs, must have contributed to check the spirit of innovation soon observable throughout Christendom: the elements of a pure faith were written 'with an iron pen in the rock for ever;' and if the Church of

after-times had looked back to her subterranean home, 'to the hole of the pit whence she was digged,' she would there have sought in vain for traces of forced celibacy, the invocation of saints, and the representation of deity in painting or sculpture. Whatever dates may be attributed to other remains, this fact is certain, that the Lapidarian gallery, arranged by the hands of the modern Romanists, contains no support whatever for the dogmas of the Council of Trent. Resting upon this distinction, virtually drawn by themselves, between what belongs to a pure age, and what to the times of innovation, we may safely refer to the latter a number of inscriptions of doubtful date, preserved in the vaults of St. Peter's, which contain prayers to the Virgin Mary, and other peculiarities of Romanist theology."

It is very curious and interesting to observe the numerous ways in which researches into the remains of elder times are thus found to bear on some of the most important historical questions. Even in our own country, the ruins of an ancient church, not long since discovered in Cornwall, have been produced in evidence of the purity of the primitive English Church from many of the errors of the Church of Rome, which some false sons are now labouring to engraft anew upon it. Dr. Maitland has been most successful in tracing out many singular evidences of clumsy medieval imposture, or gross blunders of ignorant superstition, by means of the ancient monuments of the Catacombs. Meanwhile, it is interesting to contemplate these subterranean retreats as the shelter and hiding-place of the early Church; and, when they failed as such, also the scenes of her sufferings. For there is no doubt of the fact, that they have been rendered memorable by the mar tyrdom of witnesses for the truth, as well as consecrated by the practice of Christian rites. Among the wells and basons still visible in various passages of the Catacombs, some are pointed out as the fonts where baptism was

administered to the early converts. Chapels, with altars, episcopal chairs, and other indications of Christian worship, still remain also in the same retreats. Some of these belong to very different eras, but there is not wanting authentic and trustworthy proof that some of them pertain to the periods of persecution of the first and second centuries. Dr. Maitland gives the following inscription, which was found over a grave in the cemetry of Callistus, as affording clear evidence of the practice of the early Christians to withdraw to the Catacombs as to a house of prayer. It belongs to the reign of the Emperor Antonine, -not the beneficent ruler, on whom the Romans conferred the title of Pius, but his successor, in the following century, in whose reign the fifth Christian persecution occurred :-

"In Christ. Alexander is not dead, but lives beyond the stars, and his body rests in this tomb. He lived under the Emperor Antonine, who, foreseeing that great benefit would result from his services, returned evil for good. For, while on his knees, and about to sacrifice to the true God, he was led away to execution. O, sad times! in which sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, afford no protection to us. What can be more wretched than such a life? and what than such a death? when they could not be buried by their friends and relations-at length they sparkle in heaven. He has scarcely lived, who has lived in Christian times."

Upon this early Christian memorial, the author remarks:- A number of circumstances in this inscription are worthy of notice the beginning, in which the first two words (Alexander mortuus), after leading us to expect a lamentation, break out into an assurance of glory and immortality—the description of the temporal insecurity in which the believers of that time lived-the difficulty of procuring Christian burial for the martyrs—the certainty of their heavenly reward—and lastly, the concluding sentence, forcibly recalling the words of St. Paul, 'as dying,

yet behold we live;' and again, 'I die daily.' It must be confessed that the epitaph does not directly affirm that Alexander was put to death on account of his religion, but would imply that the private hatred of the emperor found in it a pretext for his destruction."

But what had originated in necessity and fear, became matter of choice in the more peaceful times of early Christianity. The endearing associations which belong to the last resting-place of those who are loved by us, were greatly increased by the still more sacred feelings pertaining to social Christian worship, performed under circumstances of danger which united all by unusually strong ties. In addition to these, there were not wanting those extravagant excesses of feeling by which veneration so speedily degenerated into superstition. Proximity of sepulture to the tombs of the martyrs, was early made an incentive to the continued occupation of the Catacombs as places of burial; and we accordingly find various allusions on the inscribed tablets found in them, to burial in the vicinity of the tombs of favourite saints and confessors. At the same time Dr. Maitland effectually exposes the credulity and ignorance with which hundreds of tombs have been ransacked for the bones of martyrs, on the most frivolous and false grounds. The emblems of common trades, and the familiar symbols of early times, have been converted into the presumed instruments of martyrdom; and thus it has happened, that the remains of a Pagan woolcomber have been venerated by the devout and superstitiously-credulous of many successive generations, for no better reason than that the humble stone-cutter who carved his tomb, added to its brief inscription, the device of his comb and wool-shears; which later credulity converted into the instruments of his martyrdom. Yet even now, though these and many other such follies of superstition have been exposed, they are not abandoned. Still the Catacombs are resorted to when

66

a saint is wanted wherewith to add an increased sanctity to some consecrated place. It was the same spirit which originated nearly all the monuments of Christian Rome. The sufferings of those who had witnessed a good confession for the faith, were degraded into apologies for the superstitious follies of those who professed to maintain the same pure confession in more peaceful times. "The Basilica of St. Peter," says Mr. Eustace, in his Classical Tour, was the first and noblest religious edifice erected by Constantine. It stood on part of the circus of Nero, and was supposed to occupy a spot consecrated by the blood of numberless martyrs exposed or slaughtered in that place of public amusement by order of the tyrant. But its principal and exclusive advantage was the possession of the body of St. Peter; a circumstance which raised it in credit and consideration above the Basilica Lateranensis, dignified its threshold with the honourable appellation of the Limina Apostolorum, or the Threshold of the Apostles, and secured to it the first place in the affection and reverence of the Christian world. Not only monks and bishops, but princes and emperors visited its sanctuary with devotion, and even kissed as they approached the marble steps that led to its portal. Nor was this reverence confined to the orthodox monarchs who sat on the throne of its founder; it extended to barbarians, and more than once converted a cruel invader into a suppliant votary. The Vandal Genseric, whose heart seldom felt emotions of mercy, while he plundered every house and temple with unrelenting fury, spared the treasures deposited under the roof of the Vatican Basilica, and even allowed the plate of the churches to be carried in solemn pomp to its inviolable altars. Totila, who in a moment of vengeance had sworn that he would bury the glory and the memory of Rome in its ashes, listened to the admonitions of the pontiff, and resigned his fury at the tomb of the apostles.