THE CATACOMBS. 235 



young gallants reeled home from a debauch, breaking 

 the noses of the street statues on their way. And at 

 such an hour there were men and women who stole 

 forth from their various houses, and with mantles 

 covering their faces, hastened to a lonely spot in the 

 suburbs, and entered the mouth of a dark cave. They 

 passed through long galleries, moist with damp and 

 odorous of death, for coffins were ranged on either side 

 in tiers one above the other. But soon sweet music 

 sounded from the depths of the abyss ; an open cham- 

 ber came to view, and a tomb covered with flowers, laid 

 out with a repast, encircled by men and women, who 

 were apparelled in Avhite robes, and who sang a psalm 

 of joy. It was in the catacombs of Rome where the 

 dead had been buried in the ancient times that the 

 Christians met to discourse on the progress of the faith ; 

 to recount the trials which they suffered in their homes; 

 to confess to one another their sins and doubts, their 

 carnal presumption, or their lack of faith ; and also to 

 relate their sweet visions of the night, the answers to 

 their earnest prayers. They listened to the exhorta- 

 tions of their elders, and perhaps to a letter from one 

 of the apostles. They then supped together as Jesus 

 had supped with his disciples, and kissed one another 

 when the love feast was concluded. At these meetings 

 there was no distinction of rank ; the high-born lady 

 embraced the slave whom she had once scarcely regarded 

 as a man. Humility and submission were the cardinal 

 virtues of the early Christians ; slavery had not been 

 forbidden by the apostles because it was the doctrine 

 of Jesus that those who were lowest in this world 

 would be the highest in the next; his theory of heaven 

 being earth turned upside down. Slavery therefore 

 was esteemed a state of grace, and some Christians 



