of heaven and earth, and of the presence of God with them
in the world, too absolute to allow them to feel the need of that lower
order of incitements which are the resort of superstition, ignorance,
and conventionalism in religion. In the earlier burials, no differences,
save the ampulla and the palm, or some equally slight sign,
distinguished the graves of the martyrs from those of other Christians.

It is not to be supposed that the normal state of the Christian
community in Rome, during the first three centuries, was that of
suffering and alarm. A period of persecution was the exception to long
courses of calm years. Undoubtedly, during most of the time, the faith
was professed under restraint, and possibly with a sense of insecurity
which rendered it attractive to ardent souls, and preserved something
of its first sincerity. It must be remembered that the first Christian
converts were mostly from among the poorer classes, and that, however
we might have admired their virtues, we might yet have been offended by
much that was coarse and unrefined in the external exhibitions of their
religion. The same features which accompany the religious manifestations
of the uncultivated in our own days, undoubtedly, with somewhat
different aspect, presented themselves at Rome. The enthusiasms,
the visions, the loud preaching and praying, the dull iteration and
reiteration of inspired truth till all the inspiration is driven out,
were all probably to be heard and witnessed in the early Christian days
at Rome. Not all the converts were saints,--and none of them were
such saints as the Catholic painters of the last three centuries have
prostituted Art and debased Religion in producing. The real St. Cecilia
stood in the beauty of holiness before the disciples at Rome far purer
and lovelier than Raphael has painted her. Domenichino has outraged
every feeling of devotion, every sense of truth, every sympathy for the
true suffering of the women who were cruelly murdered for their faith,
in his picture of the Martyrdom of St. Agnes. It is difficult to destroy
the effect that has been produced upon one's own heart by these and
innumerable other pictures of declining Art,--pictures honored by the
Roman Church of to-day,--and to bring up before one's imagination, in
vivid, natural, and probable outline, the life and form of the converts,
saints, and martyrs of the first centuries. If we could banish all
remembrance of all the churches and a