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used on Good Friday only), white, green, violet, and red, and have 

 each their separate festivals and fasts at which they are respectively 

 used as the prevailing colour. In precious stones, the diamond 

 has the same significance as white and silver. The niby signifies 

 love, dignity, royalty ; the carbuncle, blood and suffering — our 

 Lord's passion and martyrdom ; fivf carbuncles on a cross mean 

 our Lord's five wounds. The sapphire denotes truth ; the emerald, 

 exalted faith ; and the pearl, innocence and humility. 



In treating of Christian Symbolism, I have necessarily dealt 

 with it as a whole, embracing its principles from their conception 

 in poverty and persecution, among the poor and ignorant outcasts 

 from society, hiding in the catacombs by hundreds ; — and how 

 vast these catacombs were, may be understood by the fact that 

 they measure from 800 to 900 miles in extent, and are assumed to 

 contain from six to seven millions of Christian dead. The primi- 

 tive Christians met here by stealth, hunted down like malefactors, 

 holding their lives by a thread that a breath might sever; denounced, 

 pursued, torn by wild beasts in the arena, mid the exultant roars 

 of the still more cruel crowd. There is no fancy sentiment in this 

 view of Christian Symbolism ; no poetical mind adorning its 

 devotional aspirations in a garb of Oriental splendour. It is a bare 

 struggle for spiritual existence ; a tenacious and desperate hold of 

 drowning humanity, which none might sustain but such as reali2ed 

 the full meaning of the words " other hope have I none," " simply 

 to Thy cross I cling." And from this point of view, what a world 

 of meaning is there ! What a vista of bygone hopes and fears, 

 joys and sorrows, we gain by a contemplation of those crude, hard 

 outlines of crosses and doves, serpents and fishes, which are 

 scratched, rather than sculptured, on the walls of the catacombs, 

 and in the relics of the purlieus of Ancient Rome. 



But when Constantine embraced Christianity, all was clianged. 

 Christian Art, still pure, intolerant, and ascetic in its principles, as 

 opposed to Pagan Art, sought development and expanse by the 

 free amplitude of its details. The use of gorgeous materials and 

 colours became the rule, and emblems of shame and servitude were 

 adopted in their turn as the proud insignia of victory. Christianity 



