were handed to the priest for
consecration. The earliest services in the catacombs were undoubtedly
those connected with the communion of the Lord's Supper. The mystery
of the mass and the puzzles of transubstantiation had not yet been
introduced among the believers; but all who had received baptism as
followers of Christ, all save those who had fallen away into open and
manifest sin, were admitted to partake of the Lord's Supper. Possibly
upon some occasions these chapels may have been filled with the sounds
of exhortation and lamentation. In the legends of the Roman Church we
read of large numbers of Christians being buried alive, in time of
persecution, in these underground chambers where they had assembled for
worship and for counsel. But we are not aware of any proof of the truth
of these stories having been discovered in recent times. This, and
many other questionable points in the history and in the uses of the
catacombs, may be solved by the investigations which are now proceeding;
and it is fortunate for the interests, not only of truth, but of
religion, that so learned and so honest-minded a man as the Cavaliere de
Rossi should have the direction of these explorations.

Few of the chapels that are to be seen now in the catacombs are in their
original condition. As time went on, and Christianity became a corrupt
and imperial religion, the simple truths which had sufficed for the
first Christians were succeeded by doctrines less plain, but more
adapted to touch cold and materialized imaginations, and to inflame dull
hearts. The worship of saints began, and was promoted by the heads of
the Church, who soon saw how it might be diverted to the purposes of
personal and ecclesiastical aggrandizement. Consequently the martyrs
were made into a hierarchy of saintly protectors of the strayed flock of
Christ, and round their graves in the catacombs sprang up a harvest of
tales, of visions, of miracles, and of superstitions. As the Church sank
lower and lower, as the need of a heavenly advocate with God was more
and more impressed upon the minds of the Christians of those days, the
idea seems to have arisen that neighborhood of burial to the grave of
some martyr might be an effectual way to secure the felicity of the
soul. Consequently we find in these chapels that the later Christians,
those perhaps of the fifth and sixth centuries, disregarding the
original arrangements, and having lost all respect for the Art, and all