Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-31
"Friends, Romans,

| Countrymen"
One of the monuments not disappointing
| is the Colosseum. 1t surpasses in rugged
grandeur all that had imagined 1t is a
sublime wreck. Arches rise upon arches
and where the ground has been opened in
the centre, we see that the subterfanean
constructions were on a great scale. After
having served as a stone quarry for genera
tions, there is enough of it to tell the whole
tremendous tale. The prevalent material,
seen from the inside, is of pancake brick, a
| small, fiat, hard, burnt article, laid in
cement that cemented; not sand with wash
| of lime-water, such as contractors nowadays
use in structures made to rent for rev
years and then fall down or burn up. The
/ towering stone arches of the exterior are
well cared for at last. Look close and you
will see multitude of hands of iron, check
ing the decline and fall of that part of the
Roman Empire. OF course there are marble
tablets in which the old Romans are re-
| buked for their wickedness and the bene-
| ficence of latter days is celebrated. Nearly
one-half of the original height of the
gigantic theatre stands, and, seen from the
opposite side of the ruin, the open arches
are like vacant windows, and through
them the glowing gold and blue of the
Italian sky shines with unextinguishable
resplendence.
fancy there is incredulity that is not
warranted, as to the extent and authenti-
city of the Catacombs There has been q
cultivation of skepticism as to them; but
there they are. The earlv Christians and
others did bury their dead in passages cut
in stone, and the whole extent of these
strange burial places found about Rome
would cover a square mile, and all the pas
sages would measure hundreds of miles. 1t
will be remembered that the burial of the
dead within the limits of old Rome was, for
sanitary reasons, prohibited, and the crema-
tion did not commend itself to the early
Christians and the Hebrews and others. 1t
is a mistake to suppose that the interments
in the Catacombs were all saints Many
sinners were placed in them, and perhaps
some of the bones of sinners have been
sanctifed and celebrated as those OF saints.
The catacombs that I visited were, of
course, outside the city, and the entrance
was through church. The priest who
guided US was a keen-eyed and bright-faced
man. We had candles and plenty of
matches. The excavations are narrow, just
room to walk freely, and either side
tombs in tiers, sometimes two, and often
four, stone shelves followed out for placing
the dead. The rock cuts easily, like chalk,
but hardens upon exposure to the air; but
there must have been infinite labor per-
formed in preparing this city of the dead.
Thousands and tens of thousands of these
tombs have been robbed, but in many the
bones are still visible, and many have never
been opened; the original marble and terra
Gotta slabs inclosng and sealing up the re-
mains have not been touched.
There Is a Blind Skepticism.
Here was an open tomb-an elongated
mass of white plaster. A child, the priest,
81 e
the body was coated with white plaster.
''Here," said the priest, ''are a man and
wife. We LOOK through an iron netting,
and there are two skeletons, side by side, the
skulls and bones of the legs showing white
in the gloom. Presently we come to
chapel, a dungeon-like department, grim
and mysterious in the feeble light of our
candles. In some places the passages lined
with tombs are 40 feet under the ground.
Here the Christians were concealed, largely
from the tyranny of their prosecutors and
took sacred care of their dead, and marked
clearly their places of sepulture. 1t is fair
to say here that, taking this into considera-
ton, there is good basis for belief in the
genuineness of many relics that have been
scofed at as fabulous by those too ignorant
to know the strength Of the testimony.
One more suggestion in the same direc-
tion. The Romans conquered the Holy
Land, and were In possession and full au-
thority in the time of Christ. They spoiled
the country, as they did all countries.
There are IL Egyptian obelisks in Rome;
some of them are of weil-known history,
others are not in clear light. They date
back thousands of years before Christ. We
know right where some of those stones
stood 1000 years before Christ. Not only
did the Romans spoil, but other nations.
The Turks and Saracens did the same thing,
and when the Venetians took Constanti-
nople they removed decorative pillars of
porphyry and other treasures. And why
are not the pillars we are told were from
Solomon's Temple-one against which
Christ leaned, steps he walked upon-as
authentic as the obelisks that stood, we
know, before temples Older than Solomon's?
There is. if we look at it steadily, a skepti-
cism as blind as superstition.
MURAT HALSTEAD.