Christians were
surprised at their devotions, and their refuge became their sepulchre.
Such was the tragic fate of Stephen, slain even while ministering at the
altar; such the event described by Gregory of Tours, when a hecatomb of
victims were immolated at once by heathen hate; such the peril which
wrung from a stricken heart the cry, not of anger but of grief, recorded
on a slab in the Catacombs: _Tempora infausta, quibus inter sacra et
vota ne in cavernis quidem salvari possimus!_--"Oh! sad times in which,
among sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, we are not safe." It
requires no great effort of imagination to conceive of the dangers and
escapes which must have been frequent episodes in the heroic lives of
the early soldiers of the cross.

With what emotions must the primitive believers, seeking refuge in these
crypts, have held their solemn worship and heard the words of life,
surrounded by the dead in Christ! With what power would come the
promise of the resurrection of the body, amid the crumbling relics of
mortality! How fervent their prayers for their companions in
tribulation, when they themselves stood in jeopardy every hour! Their
holy ambition was to witness a good confession even unto death. They
burned to emulate the zeal of the martyrs of the faith, the plumeless
heroes of a nobler chivalry than that of arms, the Christian athletes
who won in the bloody conflicts of the arena, or amid the fiery tortures
of the stake, not a crown of laurel or of bay, but a crown of life,
starry and unwithering, that can never pass away. Their humble graves
are grander monuments than the trophied tombs of Rome's proud conquerors
upon the Appian Way. Reverently may we mention their names. Lightly may
we tread beside their ashes.

Though the bodily presence of those conscripts of the tomb no longer
walked among men, their intrepid spirit animated the heart of each
member of that little community of persecuted Christians, "of whom the
world was not worthy; who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in
dens and caves of the earth, ... being destitute, afflicted,
tormented."[56]

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Latebrosa et lucifugax natio. _Minuc. Felix._

[56] Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:--
"La terre avail gemi sous le fer des tyrans;
Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,
Qui dans les noirs detours des grottes reculees
Derobaient aux bourreaux leurs tetes mutilees."