peace which the Church had enjoyed since the reign of Caracalla. At the first beginning of the Church in Rome, the Christians had, of course, met together only in private houses, “under cover of that great liberty which invested with a sort of sacred independence the Roman household;” but as their numbers increased, this could not have sufficed. Very early in the third century, therefore, and probably even much earlier, there were places of public Christian worship within the city; and it seems certain that the faithful were allowed also to assemble (at least under ordinary circumstances) in the public _areæ_ of their cemeteries up to the middle of the same century. The language of Tertullian, complaining that the heathen “had become acquainted with their days of meeting, and that hence they were continually besieged, betrayed, and caught unawares in their most secret congregations,” suggests rather the idea of meetings in subterranean hiding-places than of public assemblies. But he also tells us that some congregations used to purchase immunity to themselves by payment of tribute to the Government, and that for this purpose they were enrolled on the police registers, where, as he takes care to remind them, they found themselves in anything but respectable company. These, of course, must have had public places of meeting; but under what title they can have met, unless it was that of burial-clubs, such as were described in our last chapter, it is not easy to conjecture. They could not be enrolled merely as professors of the Christian faith; for ever since the first persecution by Nero, the Roman Government had persistently refused to give any legal recognition to “the new superstition.” For a while, indeed, the Jews and Christians had been regarded as professing the same religion, and this was a great gain to the Christians, for there had been a decree of Cæsar that the Jews throughout the whole Roman Empire should be allowed to keep their ancient customs without let or hindrance. The Jews themselves soon vigorously denounced their supposed co-religionists, and when Christianity had once established its independence of Judaism, it fell under the ban of an illicit religion. Thenceforward, though the Christians were not always being persecuted, they were always liable to persecution, so that even when it was forbidden to accuse them, yet, if they were brought before justice and acknowledged themselves Christians, it was forbidden to absolve them. This was the state of things under the reign of Aurelian and Commodus, in the latter half of the second century, when we read of a certain senator, named Apollonius, that he was accused of Christianity, and pleading guilty to the charge, was beheaded, while yet the man who had informed against him was condemned to death also, but by the more cruel and ignominious method of breaking on the wheel. The beautiful story of St. Cecilia, too, belongs (it is now ascertained) to