Valeria

e truth, and an ardent hater of the edict of persecution. Faustus had therefore promised to conduct him to a private meeting of the Christians, where he might be more fully instructed by th

knocked. The white-haired porter partly opened the door, and recognizing the fore

tus. "He is a good friend of

Flora, or Pomona, nor of any of the fair goddesses which to-day people the galleries of Rome. In the spacious atrium, or central apartment of the house, which was partially lighted by bronze candalabra, was gathered a company of nearly a hundred persons, seated on couches around the hall-the men on the right and the women on the left. A solemn stillness brooded

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softly singing the holy words which still give such consolation to the stricken heart, "Beati sunt mortui qui in Domino morientur-Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," through the shadowy cypress alleys wound the solemn procession. Soon it reached an archway, like that shown in our first chapter, the entrance to the catacomb of St. Calli

d him. His footsteps faltered, and he almost fell to the rocky pavement. The procession swept on, the glimmering lights growing dimmer and dimmer, and then turning an angle they suddenly disappeared. Fear lent wings to his feet, and he fled along the narrow path with outstretched hands, sometimes touching with a feeling of horrible recoil the bones or ashes of the dead. He hurried along, groping from side to side, and when he reached the passage down which the funeral procession had disappeared, no gleam of it was visible, nor could he tell, so suddenly the lights had disappeared, whether it had turned to the right or to the left. The darkness was intense-a darkness that might be felt, a brooding horror that oppressed every sense. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his faint cry was swallowed up in the deep and oppressive silence. Had the vengeance of the gods overtaken him

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ock. The body of Lucius lay upon the bier before an open tomb, hewn out of the wall. The venerable presbyter, by the fitful torchlight which illumined the strange group, and lit up the pious paintings and epitaphs upon the wall, read from a scroll the strange words, "And I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Wor

eat tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and ser

's page, and more sublime than even Homer's hymns. If these things were true, he thought, he would gladly change places with the martyr on h

name and the words, "DORMIT IN PACE-He sleeps in peace," was cemented against the opening. With a trowel, a palm bra

g the hand of the venerable Primitius,

my friends insist that I must remain concealed till this outburst of persecution shall have passed.[20] Hila

me alarm at the delay of his friend. In the bright moonlight they walked back to the city. Isidorus thought well to evade giving an account of hi

he Catacomb is, devotes much of her wealth to burying the poor of the Church, and her steward had no difficulty in purchasing

TNO

ove given, see Bingham'

oncealed in the Catacombs for a whol