Spray courier. (Spray, Or.) 1???-19??, 1915-08-12

as one of the monks or church off,
cials, put in charge of these places,
was likely to find his way. Indeed,
there are gruesome stories of curl
GUS Americans in modern times who
have tried to explore these catacombs
alone and have lost themselves and
starved to death. A trained track
err" however, with proper lights and
some method of marking his track,
would have no great difficulty in find
ing his way out again after trip to
the deeper recesses.
History Of the Catacombs.
The catacombs reached their high
est development in the middle Of the
| third century, when Roman sparse-
| cution of the Christians was carried
to extreme violence. Prosecuting Off
cials and mobs, refusing to recognize
the sanctity of the Christian places
Of burial, entered the Catacombs and
began to deface the chapels, tombs
and sacred decorations. Christians
then destroyed the entrances with
and their halls for the "agapemone,"
or Christian lovefeasts, filled up the
galleries and made other and secret
entrances from neighboring sand pits,
called "arenarias." Thus they COM
pleted the inconceivably intricate and
confusing character of the passages,
which has so strangely furnished a
basis of operations for military spies
in our day.
During the terrible persecution of
the Christians under Emperor Dio-
cletian, hundreds of martyrs were
buried in secret here, and the en-
largements necessary were carried ON
with the same secrecy. Even after per-
secution had ceased under the Emperor
Constantine, burials were commonly
made here because the place had been
rendered sacred by the bones of the
martyrs. At last these reasons
ceased to appeal to the people, and
the Catacombs were no longer used for
burials or religious services. For sew,
eral centuries in the early middle
ages they were the objects of pilgrim
ages by pious Christians from all
over Europe.
Then came the disastrous invasion
of Italy by Goths and other Teutonic
barbarians, and by Vandals, Lombards
and Saracens. Once more the cata-
combs served vital purpose to
Rome. The treasures of the city
were in many cases carried here to
save them from the barbarians. The
entrances were once more closed up,
and in many cases parts of the gal
leries were filled, in order that the
barbarians might not lay hands on
their sacred relics and treasures and,
deface their sacred decorations.
From the invasion of the Saracens
in the tenth century down to the fif-.
teenth century the Catacombs were
more or less forgotten by civilization,
but there is no doubt that they served
as refuge for many brigands, rebels
and other turbulent characters, who
preyed upon travellers or fought
against the authorities during the
stormy medieval history of Rome.
During the great Italian Renaissance
they were reopened, and since then
they have been more and more ex-
plored, with wonderfully interesting
results, but even today their full ex-
tent is not known, and the art treas
ures which they contained have not
all been studied. Perhaps at this
some German spy, with his
little electric pocket lamp, his mind
divided between espionage and arche-
ology, is gazing with interest upon
the earliest pictures of the holy aposi
ties which have not yet been seen by
the eyes of the modern ecclesiastic or.
archeologist.