graves, by which their general character was varied, there were often personal marks of affection and remembrance affixed to the narrow excavations, which give to the catacombs their most peculiar and touching interest. The marble facing of the tomb is engraved with a simple name or date; or where tiles take the place of marble, the few words needed are scratched upon their hard surface. It is not too much to say that we know more of the common faith and feeling, of the sufferings and rejoicings of the Christians of the first two centuries from these inscriptions than from all other sources put together. In another paper we propose to treat more fully of them. As we walk along the dark passage, the eye is caught by the gleam of a little flake of glass fastened in the cement which once held the closing slab before the long since rifled grave. We stop to look at it. It is a broken bit from the bottom of a little jar (ampulla); but that little glass jar once held the drops of a martyr’s blood, which had been carefully gathered up by those who learned from him how to die, and placed here as a precious memorial of his faith. The name of the martyr was perhaps never written on his grave; if it were ever there, it has been lost for centuries; but the little dulled bit of glass, as it catches the rays of the taper borne through the silent files of graves, sparkles and gleams with a light and glory not of this world. There are other graves in which martyrs have lain, where no such sign as this appears, but in its place the rude scratching of a palm-branch upon the rock or the plaster. It was the sign of victory, and he who lay within had conquered. The great rudeness in the drawing of the palm, often as if, while the mortar was still wet, the mason had made the lines upon it with his trowel, is a striking indication of the state of feeling at the time when the grave was made. There was no pomp or parade; possibly the burial of him or of her who had died for the faith was in secret; those who carried the corpse of their beloved to the tomb were, perhaps, in this very act, preparing to follow his steps,—were, perhaps, preparing themselves for his fate. Their thoughts were with their Lord, and with his disciple who had just suffered for his sake,—with their Saviour who was coming so soon. What matter to put a name on the tomb? They could not forget where they had laid the torn and wearied limbs away. In pace, they would write upon the stone; a palm-branch should be marked in the mortar, the sign of suffering and triumph. Their Lord would remember his servant. Was not his blood crying to God from the ground? And could they doubt that the Lord would also protect and avenge? In those first days there was little thought of relics to be carried away,—little thought of material suggestions to the dull imagination, and pricks to the failing memory. The eternal truths of their religion were too real to them; their faith was too sincere; their belief in the actual union of heaven and earth, and of the presence of God with them in the world, too absolute to allow them to feel the need of that lower order of incitements which are the resort of superstition, ignorance, and conventionalism in religion. In the earlier burials, no differences, save the ampulla and the palm, or some equally slight sign, distinguished the graves of the martyrs from those of other Christians.
It is not to be supposed that the normal state of the Christian community in Rome, during the first three centuries, was that of suffering and alarm. A period of persecution was the exception to long courses of calm years. Undoubtedly, during most of the time, the faith was professed under restraint, and possibly with a sense of insecurity which rendered it attractive to ardent souls, and preserved something of its first sincerity. It must be remembered that the first Christian converts were mostly from among the poorer classes, and that, however we might have admired their virtues, we might yet have been offended by much that was coarse and unrefined in the ex-
