doubtful--to this fundamental division of ancient Roman society.

"No one, we think, will be rash enough to maintain, either that this
omission is the result of mere accident, or that no individual slave or
freedman was ever buried in the catacombs. Rather, these two cognate
facts, the absence from ancient Christian epitaphs of all titles of rank
and honor on the one hand, or of disgrace and servitude on the other, can
only be adequately explained by an appeal to the religion of those who
made them. The children of the primitive Church did not record upon their
monuments titles of earthly dignity, because they knew that with the God
whom they served 'there was no respect of persons'; neither did they care
to mention the fact of their bondage, or of their deliverance from
bondage, to some earthly master, because they thought only of that higher
and more perfect liberty wherewith Christ had set them free; remembering
that 'he that was called, being a bondman, was yet the freeman of the
Lord, and likewise he that was called, being free, was still the bondman
of Christ.'

"And this conclusion is still further confirmed by another remarkable fact
which should be mentioned, namely, that there are not wanting in the
catacombs numerous examples of another class of persons, sometimes ranked
among slaves, but the mention of whose servitude, such as it was, served
rather to record an act of Christian charity than any social degradation;
I allude to the alumni, or foundlings, as they may be called. The laws of
pagan Rome assigned these victims of their parents' crimes or poverty to
be the absolute property of any one who would take charge of them. As
nothing, however, but compassion could move a man to do this, children
thus acquired were not called _servi_, as though they were slaves who had
been bought with money, nor _vernae_, as though they had been the children
of slaves born in the house, but _alumni_, a name simply implying that