lites of Jupiter. From his astronomical observations he came to accept the Copernican system of the universe. He declared that the earth was not a stationary center, but that it moved. He wanounced for such heretical views, which he was forced to retract, though with the legendary reassertion in an undertone, "Nevertheless it does move. We steadily make our way on to our point of culminating interest, the eternal city. "And so," as was said of Paul and his companions in the book of Acts, "and so we came to Rome." Here we are at the ancient seat of the Latin language, with which so many of us have wrestled only to be ignominiously defeated. We are amazed that it could have been spoken and written with such ease and facility by Julius Caesar and Cicero, by Livy and Tacitus, by Horace and Virgil. We remember the last-named's great classic, indeed, the Eneid. We cannot forget its opening sentence, which one professor thought would make a suitable motto for a class of college girls, namely, "Arma virumque cano," Arms and the man I sing. We now proceed along the well-known Appian Way, begun by Appius Claudius 312 B. C., but so thoroughly constructed that it still lasts. It was trodden by the Caesars as well as by the chief of the apostles. From it we enter the Catacombs, ramifying in every direction in labyrinthine, honeycomb fashion. In these subterranean galleries the early Christians were buried till about 410 A. D. In this maze of tombs it is estimated that there have been six to seven million interments. In excavated chambers here at times of fierce persecution the disciples secreted themselves or met for worship, seeking refuge, as the epistle to the Hebrews says, in "caves, and the holes of the earth." Here, beneath the ground, with light in hand we thread our way through passages usually three or four feet wide, and on either side are niches, shelves whereon the dead were laid. We could pursue the dismal journey for 350 miles at least, and for 900 miles, according to some authorities. The actual measuring of the nearly endless maze would be a task which no one would care to take upon himself, not even though like Theseus he were furnished by a lovely princess with a clue enabling him to make his way out of the winding and intricate passages. We are satisfied after traversing a few rods, and are glad to emerge into daylight again. If we must be amid the sepulchral, we prefer to see the ruins of the magnificent mausoleums that used to line the Appian Way for miles. We, however, tarry to look at only one of these, the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, which is among the best preserved. To this Cicero makes reference, and Paul must have seen it when he entered the city. It is a round tower seventy feet in diameter, and large enough to have served as a fortress in the thirteenth century. It commemorates a woman who died before the advent of Christ, and of whom Byron wrote: "Thus much alone we know - Metella died, The wealthiest Roman's wife: behold his love, or pride.' Hawthorne has very suggestively said: "All the care that Cecilia Metella's husband could bestow, to secure endless peace for her beloved relics, only sufficed to make that handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles long ages after her death." Along the same Appian Way, St. Peter is said to have fled at the rise of a severe persecution, until two miles out he is said to have met Christ going into Rome whence he was escaping. Astonished at the vision, he is represented as ask |