It was generally the custom to follow the precepts of the so-called “Apostolical Constitutions,” a primitive work that was supposed to date from the second century. These Constitutions ordered the psalms to be recited to the congregation in the morning, at the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours of the day, at vespers, and at cockcrow, that is to say, at dawn. But the faithful, who were long prevented by persecution from openly assembling in sacred buildings, at first offered up their prayers in private, or perhaps surrounded only by their families and a few intimate friends. Tertullian tells us that each strove to show the greatest zeal in singing the praises of God. In the fourth century, the Christians both of the East and of the West were so zealously attached to their psalmody, that none would have willingly missed saying it at its appointed hour, no matter where he might happen to be. “Instead of the love songs formerly heard at all hours, and in all places,” says St. Jerome in a letter to his friend Marcellinus, “the labourer at the plough hums an _Alleluia_, the reaper, bathed in perspiration, repeats his psalmody as he rests from his toil, and the worker in the vineyard carols David’s grateful verse as he plies his curved sickle.” [Illustration: Fig. 174.--Silver-gilt Cruet, showing its different sides; on one side is depicted the head of Christ, with a nimbus, and on the other that of St. Peter. (First or Second Century.)--Museum of the Vatican.] [Illustration: Fig. 175.--The Last Supper, symbolically represented as the first eucharistic sacrifice. Jesus, surrounded by his disciples, and with John, his favourite disciple, leaning on his bosom, is administering his body and blood under the form of bread and wine, to another disciple kneeling in front of the table.--From a Miniature of the Eleventh Century in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.]