ent for all
their wants.

At night, too, were made the most mournful expeditions of all. These
were in search of the dead which had been torn by the wild beasts or
burned at the stake. These loved remains were obtained at the greatest
risk, and brought down amid a thousand dangers. Then the friends of the
lost would perform the funeral service and hold the burial feast. After
this they would deposit their remains in the narrow cell, and close the
place up with a marble tablet graven with the name of the occupant.

The ancient Christian, inspired by the glorious doctrine of the
resurrection, looked forward with ardent hope to the time when
corruption should put on incorruption, and the mortal, immortality. He
was unwilling that the body which so sublime a destiny awaited should be
reduced to ashes, and thought that even the sacred funeral flames were a
dishonor to that temple of God which had been so highly favored of
heaven. So the cherished bodies of the dead were brought here out of the
sight of man, where no irreverent hand might disturb the solemn
stillness of their last repose, to lie until the last trump should give
that summons for which the primitive Church waited so eagerly, in daily
expectation. In the city above the Christian religion had been
increasing for successive generations, and during all this time the dead
had been coming here in ever-increasing numbers, so that now the
Catacombs formed a vast city of the dead, whose silent population
slumbered in endless ranges, rank above rank, waiting till

"The wakeful trump of doom should thunder through the deep."

In many places the arches had been knocked away and the roof heightened
so as to form rooms. None of them were of very great size, but they
formed areas where the fugitives might meet in larger companies and
breathe more freely. Here they passed much of the time, and here, too,
they had their religious services.

The nature of the times in which they lived will explain their
situation. The simple virtues of the old republic had passed away, and
freedom had taken her everlasting flight. Corruption had moved over the
empire and subdued every thing beneath its numbing influence. Plots,
rebellions, and treasons cursed the state by turns, but the fallen
people stood by in silence. They saw their bravest suffer, their noblest
die, all unmoved. The generous heart, the soul of fire, awaked no more.
Only the basest passions aroused their degenerate f