some more active period of persecution about this same time. The story need not be repeated here, but one of its details is worth referring to, as it probably gives a true picture of what was happening not unfrequently in those days, viz., that some of the clergy lay hid in the Catacombs, and inquirers after the truth were conducted by trusty guides to their retreat. We must not suppose, however, that any large number of the faithful ever took refuge there for any length of time; indeed, such a thing would have been physically impossible. The Christians assembled there for purposes of worship when the public exercise of their religion was interfered with; and then this secrecy, thus cruelly forced upon them, was cast in their teeth, and they were called “a skulking, darkness-loving people.” At length, in the year 253, Valerian published a decree whereby he sought to close against them even this subterranean retreat; he forbade them “either to hold assemblies or to enter those places which they call their cemeteries.” The edict was, of course, disobeyed, and Pope Sixtus II., with some of his deacons, was surprised and martyred in the Catacomb of Pretextatus. This Catacomb was situated in a vineyard on the opposite side of the road from the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, and perhaps it had been selected as the place of meeting because it was less known to the public than that chief of Christian cemeteries. The secret, however, had been betrayed, and (as we learn from an inscription by Pope Damasus) the Holy Pontiff was apprehended whilst in the midst of a religious function. The faithful who were present vied with one another in offering themselves to martyrdom, in his company at least, if not in his stead, but only the deacons obtained the coveted privilege. The Bishop himself was led before the tribunal, condemned, and then brought back to the scene of his “crime,” where he received the crown of martyrdom either in his pontifical chair itself, or at least so near to it that it was sprinkled by his blood. The charge on which he was condemned was distinctly this, “that he had set at nought the commands of Valerian.” But in the following year these commands were revoked, and during the next fifty or sixty years the Catacombs come before us in successive periods of Church history as enjoying good or evil fortune according to the varying fortunes of the Church herself, of which they became a chief battle-field. If Valerian interdicted them, Gallienus, his son, restored them; and thus they were tolerated and forbidden, forbidden and tolerated again, according to the will of the Government, until at last, before the end of the century, they were confiscated altogether.