martyrs and confessors, for the ultimate victory, some two hundred years later, of the religion of Jesus.
We who live in what is perhaps the evening of the world's story—we mark the glowing words of the New Testament writings, the fervid exhortations and noble resolves of men like Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp—the saintly teachings of great theologians like Irenæus, Tertullian, and Cyprian.
And as we read, we feel that these writers were evidently intensely persuaded of the truth of such sublime and soul-stirring assertions; we know, too, that these writers and teachers lived the beautiful life they taught,—that they died, many of them, with a smile on their lips and a song in their hearts.
But what of the People—the common folk, the ordinary everyday citizen; the slave and the little trader of the thousand cities of the Empire, the soldier of Rome, and the patrician of Rome—what did they think of all this?—these new strange words, these sunlit hopes, these glorious golden promises of the great teachers of Christianity?
The catacombs give us the answer. In quite late years, slowly, painfully, the antiquary and the scholar have opened out the secrets of the long-hidden City of the Dead which lies all round immemorial Rome, and, thanks to their labours, from words and pictures graven and painted on a million graves, comes to us, across the many centuries, the answer with no uncertain voice.
Yes, the People—the slave and the trader, the soldier and the noble—believed the words of the New Testament writings, and accepted the teaching of the early Christian teachers, and believing, struggled to lead the life the Master loved. None for a moment would dare to doubt the mighty power of this strange weird testimony of a million tombs; it is indeed a voice from a thousand graves.
Then, too, what may be termed the terminology, that is the words and expressions used in these vast cemeteries for all that is connected with death and burial, teaches the same truth—that for a believer in the Name, all the gloom and dread and horror usually associated with death are absent in these short epitaphs.
