IN PACE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2528, 27 August 1902, Page 73

IN PACE.

By a. Bankee

Deep down beneath the isuiface of that foimer mistress of the woild, that city which sitteth on seven hills, and which, to this day possesses many a-ncienfc time-worn remnants of her former greatness — Imperial Borne — exists a. vast city of the dead, containing maaiy miles of dismal streets bordered on each side with the cavernous last resting places of innumerable dead, who for ages had been committed to tke dust m this darksome, dreary charnel-house.

Descending the long flights of steps which lead down into this sepulchral place of skulls, the repcsllaait, cadaverous odour of the atmosphere soon becomes apparent, and causes the visitor to realise, with a shudder, that he is nearing the presence of the gruesome reiics of frail mortality. At length the gates of the city ar« reached, and, provided with a poor rushlight, which only makes the murky gioom more sombre and dismal, he clossly follows the guide through, -the jnazy a.nd irregular streets. For some distance the bones of inmun<erable human beings are stacked against the wails, rows of ghastly skuLbj, which in the dim light appear to the disordered fancy to have sunken eyeballs in those dark sockets, which wink and grin and stare with a blear and malevolent leer ; long arm and thighbones projecting out " from th« mass as if raised to strike down the intruder; tke vacant interstices filled in with ribs and feet and hand bones These sre mostly the remains of the several thousand victims of an outbreak of the plague s*e> - eral hundred years » go.

But now we have left these grim relics of th • dead, and begin to breathe an atmosphere of peace : the tombs of those valiant and heroic Christian martyrs who perished m so many thousands during the persecutions of Diocletian and other Roman Emperors. The inscriptions, which, though cut in the rock nearly 1800 ye^ra ago, are still as fresh as ever, give utterance to tti-e one sontiment of peace and rest, "Requiescit in pace" — He rests iv peace (the modern formula, "Rcquiescat," had not then been introduced); "Valeria dorm±t in pace" — Valeria sleeps in peace ; "Porcella, in peace." The inscriptions on the tombs of the Jewish Christians, of whom th(?re were so many maityred at that time for their faith, also breathe the- same frentiuient ot "Shalom" or Peace. Vanous monograms of the Divine Fouuder of the Christian icligion of course abound.

Here and there is the tomb of a pagan Roman on which quite a different spirit is exhibited, as "I, procope, lift up my hand against the gods, who snatched me away innocent." But at this quarter of the catacombs the tomb? are mostly those of Christians, young and old, who lived and died, many martyred in the Cohsc-uni, during that terrible ersv of persecution.

And there will those whiten-ed bones rest until the trump of the Archangel calls them again, to life. Then will they who gave up their earth-hfe for the love of Him who died that they might live eternally be received with, glad acclaim by the angelic choir, and be accorded the welcome "Well done" by Him whom they loved bo well.

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