chamber are not older than the seventh century. After this, I wandered
on after my guide through innumerable narrow galleries hewn out of the
soft reddish-brown rock, and opening in all directions; all lined with
horizontal cavities for corpses, tier above tier, in which once were
crowded together old and young,--soldiers, martyrs, rich and poor
mingling their dust together, as in life they had shared all things in
common. Here social distinctions were abolished; side by side with the
obscure and unknown slave were some of the most illustrious names of
ancient Rome. These shelves are now empty, for nearly all the bones
and relics of the dead have been removed to different churches
throughout Europe. Even the inscriptions that were placed above each
grave--on marble tablets--have been taken away, and now line the walls
of the museums of St. John Lateran and the Vatican. A few, however,
remain in their place; and I know nothing more affecting than the
study of these. For the most part, they are very short, containing
only the name and date; sometimes only an initial letter or a
rudely-drawn cross, indicating that it was a time of sore trial, when
such hurried obsequies were all that the imminent danger allowed.
Sometimes I came upon a larger record--such as, "Thou sleepest sweetly
in God;" "In the sleep of peace."

But the most touching of all the inscriptions were those which were
scratched rudely in a few places on the walls by visitors to the tombs
of their fellow-Christians. The survivors came often to weep over the
relics of the dead. Here a husband records the virtues of a beloved
wife; there, a son invokes the precious memory of a pious father or
mother; and all of them express their calm resignation and unshaken
hope. One inscription especially struck me. It was very rude, and
almost obliterated, for seventeen hundred years had passed over it. It
was a husband's lamentation over a dead wife: "O Sophronia! dear