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and thinks by a muttered Ave or Paternoster to atone for his crime.

As little do we find in the Catacombs in favor of the worship of the Virgin, which is so strikingly characteristic of modern Romanism. We discover no Ave Maria or Ora pro nobis addressed to Mary as the intercessor with God. The first certain representation of the Virgin Mary does not occur till the fourth century, and it is not common till the sixth. Even then she appears, not as the principal figure, much less as an object of adoration, but only as accessory to the Divine infant, frequently vailed from head to foot; never as the mournful mater dolorosa, or with the transpierced heart of the later artists, but rather as the "blessed among women."

We have seen how utterly baseless are the Romish figments of purgatory, invocation of saints, and prayers for the dead. The celibacy of the clergy, another cherished, and, as all history proves, most pernicious dogma of the Church, is also disproved by numerous inscriptions in the Catacombs, in which Presbyters and Bishops lament the death of their wives, "chaste, just, and holy." "Would to God," says a writer in the Revue Chrétienne," that all their successors had such!" Here is a characteristic epitaph from Aringhi, (Lib. III, c. iii):

LEVITAE CONIVNX PETRONIA FORMA PVDORIS.

Petronia, a priest's wife, the type of modesty.

This was in the Consulate of Festus, as late as 472. But not only does the teaching of the Catacombs show us what was not the practice of the primitive Church; it gives us also many illustrations of its ministry and rites.

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The office of Bishop is indicated by the words ɛî, ɛñɩ, and ε on several tombs. We have also epitaphs of "Presbyters, "Levites," "Pastors," and "Deacons." We read, too, inscriptions to "Lectors," whose duty it was to read the Scriptures aloud in the church. Julian the Apostate in his youth was lector in the Church of Nicomedia.* Often children were dedicated to this office in their tender youth. We read an epitaph of one "who lived twelve years, more or less "-plus minus. The latter is a very common expression.

* Ως καὶ κλήρῳ ἐγκαταλεγῆναι, καὶ ὑπαναγινώσκειν τῷ λαῷ τὰς ἐκκλησιαστικὰς Biẞhovs -Sozom., Lib. V, cap. ii.

Another office now unknown was that of exorcists, originally Jewish, apparently, but early incorporated into the Christian Church.*

The fossors, according to St. Jerome,† were the "first order among the clergy, who, after the example of the holy Tobias, are admonished to bury the dead." They are frequently depicted in the Catacombs, surrounded by the instruments of their art.

There are also indications in the Catacombs of the existence of a female diaconate, and the employment of widows in offices of charity. This fact is confirmed by ecclesiastical history. The order of ministra is recognized by the Council of Chalcedon, and its members restricted to those over forty years of age. Thus we have in the inscriptions the expressions, “widow of God," "handmaid of God," and "a consecrated virgin."

The care of the primitive Church for the young is indicated in the epitaph of a catechumen who died under the age of ten years. The frequent mention of "neophytes" of tender years indicates that the rite of baptism, by which they were admitted to the Church, was administered in infancy. One of these epitaphs is to a child of three years and thirty days, and another to one of twenty-one months.

In addition to the holy eucharist another rite, preserved in modern times we believe only in the Methodist community and among the Moravian brethren, is commemorated in the Catacombs. This is the agape or "feast of charity" mentioned in the Epistle of Jude. In the Catacomb of Marcellinus is a painting representing this feast. Two matrons, over whose heads are inscribed the words IRENE and AGAPE, preside. The guests are supplied with food from a small table supporting a lamb and a cup. To this Tertullian refers in the words: "Our supper by its name, which is the Greek for love, displays its character. . . . We so eat as having to worship God by night; we so talk as knowing that the Lord hears. After washing our hands and bringing lights, each is called upon to sing to God according to his power, either from holy Scripture or from his

* Unus de exorcistis, inspiratus Dei gratia fortiter restitit, et esse illum nequissimum, spiritum, qui prius sanctus putabatur, ostendit.-Firmil., ep ad Cypr., 75.

Primus in clerices fossariorum ordo est, etc.-De Septem. Ordin. Eccles.

own composition. Prayer also concludes the feast."* In course of time this beautiful custom became subject to abuse, and was finally suppressed by the decree of the Quinisextan Council, A. D. 706.

We have thus endeavored to give a faithful representation of the doctrinal teaching of the Catacombs. We have seen how identical it is with that of holy Scripture, how opposed to all the dogmas of Rome. We have only to compare the buried relics of the past with the living present above ground to see at a glance the infinite contrast between the Church of Christ and that of Antichrist. In all things, both in Church and State, what a change has taken place! The leopard no longer leaps in the Flavian amphitheater, nor the ribald "plebs" of Rome utter their vociferous cry," Christiani ad leones!" The flame of sacrifice to the supreme Jove no longer ascends from the Capitoline Hill, nor the haruspices augur from the flight of birds, or from the smoking entrails of sacrificial victims. Instead of this from four hundred cross-crowned campaniles baptized and consecrated bells toll forth the hour of prayer; on a thousand altars the multitude adore, they vainly think, the real presence of the Redeemer, and chant and anthem evermore ascend not to the gods of the Pantheon, but to the still more numerous saints of the Roman calendar.

Yet a blight seems to rest upon all things. The degenerate Roman of to-day creeps sluggishly along the road constructed over two thousand years ago by the Censor Appius Claudius. Upon the solid basalt pavement along which marched the legions that conquered the world now lumbers an occasional diligence. The great imperial city has dwindled from a population of two millions to less than one tenth of that number. The gardens, palaces, and stately villas, where Roman courtiers, wits, and poets dreamed life away in an elysium of pleasure, have given place to the desolation of the Campagna. Across the far horizon stretch the broken arches of a ruined aqueduct, gleaming in the twilight, vast and shadowy, like a spectral procession of the vanished deities of Rome. But

* Apologeticus, cap. 39. Ita saturantur, ut qui meninerient etiam per noctem adorandum sibi esse; ita fabulantur, ut qui sciunt, dominum, audire, etc. Tertull. Apol., cap. xv.

nature is unchanged, and the golden sunlight falls, and the sapphire sea expands, and the purple hills of Albano stretch into the distance as fair and lovely as of yore.

Yet beneath the living death that cumbers the ground, in those chambers of silence which we have been studying, we find the evidences of that undying life of Christianity for which we seek in vain in that city of churches, the Apostolic See of Christendom-the vaunted seat of Christ's vicegerent upon earth. We turn away from the gorgeous ritual, the stately pomp, the sublime music, the porphyry pillars and the frescoed arches of the Sistine Chapel, with its powerful hierarchy of priests, prelates, and Cardinals, to the lowly chambers of the Catacombs, where the Christian hymn of a persecuted remnant of the saints ascended from beside the martyr's grave, as the truer type of Christ's spiritual temple upon earth. With a deeper significance than that with which it was first uttered we adopt the language of Tertullian, and exclaim, Id est verum, quodcunque primum; id esse adulterum, quodcunque posterius: "Whatever is first is true; whatever is more recent is spurious.'

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*Tertull., Adv. Prax., Oper. ii, p. 405.

NOTE. The entire subject of Christian evidences from the Catacombs, which has been so cursorily glanced at in the foregoing article, is treated with great fullness of detail and copious pictorial illustration in a work by the present writer, now in course of publication by Messrs. Carlton and Lanahan, entitled, "The Catacombs of Rome, and their Testimony relative to Primitive Christianity." It discusses at length the structure, origin, and history of the Catacombs; their art and symbolism; their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology, ministry, rites, and institutions of the primitive Church, and Christian life and character in the early ages. The gradual corruption of doctrine and practice and introduction of Romanist errors, as the cultus of Mary, the primacy of Peter, prayers for the dead, the invocation of saints, the notion of purgatory, the celibacy of the clergy, rise of monastic orders, and other allied subjects are fully treated.

ART. III.-EARLY METHODISM IN THE WEST.

THE early settlers of the West entered the great Mississippi Valley on two diverging lines of travel. One led through the defiles of Virginia and the Cumberland Gap into the Holston and French Broad territory, extending thence westward and northward into Tennessee and Kentucky; the other across the Alleghany Mountains through the Redstone country, and along the region of the upper Ohio and the Kanawhas. Along the shores of the "Beautiful River" the immigrants met and mingled. Hardy and intrepid, they labored side by side for the same civilization, nurtured the same sentiments of national faith, and fought for the same freedom. This was their inheritance, and they divided it among them.

Hard after the pioneer settlers trod the pioneer Methodist itinerants. Almost before clearings were made or cabins erected, and long before the savage was subdued and Indian hostilities had ceased, the preacher was tracking his way from settlement to settlement, and hunting up the lost sheep of his Master's fold. The first cismontane preacher was Jeremiah Lambert, who traveled the Holston Circuit in 1783. Four years later the work was extended, comprehending the Nolachuky Circuit and the entire State of Kentucky and the Cumberland region. Eight preachers now traveled in the West. When the Western Conference met in October, 1800, fifteen preachers were appointed for the entire Western country. We may get some idea of the extent of their circuits by examining the appointments. Henry Smith's circuit embraced all of Southern Ohio between the Scioto and the Miami rivers. Benjamin Lakin traveled in Northern Kentucky, between Maysville and the Licking River; William Burke's circuit extended a hundred miles each way in Central Kentucky; while the Presiding Elder, William M'Kendree, superintended the entire work, comprising portions of Virginia, East and Middle Tennessee, all Kentucky, and as much of Ohio as was then settled.

The only mode of traveling was on horseback; and as there were no graded highways, and the roads merely traced out,

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