the mortal remains lying so quietly in their
several niches—martyrs many of them, and
surrounded by the most expressive and touching
symbols of the faith they died for—soon lose
their repulsiveness; and the grim figures
pictured on the walls, that have kept their watch
there century after century, seem to include you
in their protecting influence, while the continual
repetition of the Christian hope of the resurrection,
pictured and symbolised in every conceivable
form and in every available space, imparts an air
of sanctity to the place that soon dispels
all vain fears and imaginings.

The distance under the Campagna to which
these subterranean cemeteries extend has never
yet been ascertained. Within the last few years
many apparently distinct series of them have
been discovered outlying the Eternal City in every
direction; but whether they be really distinct, or
whether they communicate with each other, is
uncertain, as the ramiGcations are so countless
—not only on one level, but in stories
underlying one another—and so many of them are
impenetrable on account of having fallen in, or
of being filled with water, that no successful
attempt has yet been made to follow them to
their extremities.

These excavations were originally distinct
from each other. It would appear to have
been a custom, in the second century, amongst
the earliest Christians in Italy, to celebrate their
holidays-by visiting the newly decorated and
consecrated subterranean cemeteries. On one
of these occasions, when a large crowd of
persons had entered to celebrate a festival of the
Church, it occurred to the ruling authorities
that the opportunity might be advantageously
used to lessen by so many the troublesome
population of the new faith. Accordingly, a
number of huge stones were brought, and the
entrance built up and rigidly guarded till such
time as it was impossible that any of the
unfortunate prisoners could be still living.

To guard against a repetition of such an act,
various apertures were made to afford secret
means of escape. Many of these places of exit still
exist, and are notified to the visitor by the faint
ray of blue light which occasionally finds its way
into the darkness beneath, and to the pedestrian
in the Campagna above by the numberless
doubtful-looking holes, for the most part filled
with rubbish, that are sure to be met with in
any direction within the compass of an ordinary
walk. Often these secret passages were made
to debouch in the private houses of some notable
Christian, or into one of the buildings set apart
for Christian worship. As in most instances
these places have remained consecrated under
some form till the present day, it is no uncommon
thing to find in the crypts of churches or
in the cellars of convents, doorways now walled
up, but which once formed entrances to the
subterranean labyrinths.

It is to one of these walled-up doorways that
Antonio's story principally refers.

On the south-eastern skirts of the modern
Roman city, nearly at the top of the Esquiline
Hill, stands the church of St. Prassede. Few
Christian edifices in Rome possess such interesting
associations as this small and unpretending
building. The saint to whom it is dedicated
was one of the two daughters of a senator of the
name of Pudens, mentioned by St. Paul as sending
his greetings to Timothy. There is no reason
to doubt that the present church is the very
house once inhabited by the Christian family, as
in the year 330, or thereabouts, the mother of
Constantino caused the walls of the building,
which, though still standing, was hastening to
decay, to be encased in the more massive structure
of the new church; consequently it is no
stretch of probability to assume the truth of the
tradition, that within these walls Paul, Timothy,
and (if he were ever at Rome) Peter also, were
frequent guests. We will found no theory on the
relics shown in the sacristy such as the
handkerchief of one of the young ladies on which St.
Peter drew the portrait of Our Lord, nor of the
two molar teeth which, according to the sacristan,
one of the apostles left behind him there.
What we have more particularly to do with
is the old walled-up doorway, with the huge
cross on it, in the dark crypt under the high altar.
This crypt was evidently at one time a cellar to
the ancient house, into which debouched one of
the secret entrances to the Catacombs, affording
easy means of escape either from the city above
during times of persecution or from the
excavations below, as occasion might require. On
the walls may still be seen monuments and
inscriptions to persons who must have been buried
there during the first three centuries of our era.
At one extremity of the crypt will be seen the
door in question, now strongly built up, and with
a huge cross impressed in the superficial stucco.

For a long period the subterranean excavations
behind the crypt had enjoyed the worst of
reputations on account of the unearthly noises
that were occasionally heard there. The racings,
the scamperings, the moaning, and the yellings
could (according to the highest and most
venerable of the Roman authorities) proceed from no
other source than the Evil One and his coadjutors.
These noises were not a mere matter of legend.
Scarcely a man, woman, or child in the vicinity
but had heard them with their own veritable
ears; and, according to Antonio, a special
service of exorcism had been adopted in the ritual
of the church above to meet the occasions as
they might arise. Notwithstanding the cloud of
witnesses that could testify to these supernatural
sounds, the city contained some sceptics, and
amongst them none more determined than the
excellent Father S., the professor of the Roman
College.

Father S. is a man with a European celebrity;
it is not generally known that the observatory of
the Roman College is one of the best in Europe,
and the excellence of its apparatus is mainly
owing to the mechanical genius of the worthy
padre. One dark wet Wednesday in November,
just at the conclusion of the last morning mass,
strange sounds were heard behind the walls of
the crypt, and more especially at the back of the