The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

534

THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

"Weep not, dear husband and daughters, Petronia lives
in God, and is buried in peace."
"My wife Albans, I grieve thy loss, for the divine
Author gave thee to me as a sacred gift. Yet sleep in
peace, for thou wilt arise, and temporary rest is granted
thee."
"Here sleeps Gorgonius, friend of all, and enemy of
none.)
"Farewell, sweetest child! when thou-shalt, in bliss,
enter the Kingdom of Christ, forget not thy mother, and
from son become guardian."
"Here Gordianus, Messenger from Gaul, with all his
family, slain for the faith, rest in peace. Theophila, their
servant, had this done."
The pagan inscriptions express only grief and dismay,neither hope, nor a belief in immortality They present a
strange contrast to those of the Christian dead.
"Marius has been snatched away from light and life."
"Rest lightly on the bosom of Caius, Oh earth, who has
been thrust out of life and light into darkness."
"Lucia Vera, wife of Claudius, has been-dragged by the
cruel gods to the shades of darkness. Let them be accursed."
Whatever may have been the origin of the Catacombs,
which undermined pagan Rome and the surrounding country, it is evident that they became a refuge for the persecuted,
a dwelling-place for martyrs, and a rest for the dead. The
Roman law protected before all, and above everything in
the world, the places sacred to sepulture. Neither will,
testament, nor donation could alieiiate the burial place.
Thus protected by the respect of the Roman people for the
dead, the early Christians prepared their cemeteries, which
were also their temples, without fear of molestation.