All this loving care for the remains of the deceased went home to numberless hearts among the survivors of the loved, and evidently ranked high among the reasons which attracted many into the ranks of the Christian Brotherhood. In our little picture of very early Christian life, Rome and its powerful Church has been generally selected as the scene of the life in question. In this primitive custom of reverent care for the dead,--a care which embraced the very poor as well as the rich and well-to-do, we discern the reasons which led to the first beginnings of the vast city of the Christian dead,--the wonderful city known as the Roman catacombs. This will be carefully described at some length in this work: the building and excavating of the endless corridors, the private chambers, the chapels and meeting-rooms, began even before the close of the first century of the Christian era, and went on for some two centuries and a half--the long-drawn-out age of persecution. They constitute a mighty and ever-present proof of the accuracy of much that has been advanced in the foregoing pages on the subject of the life led--of the hopes and ideals cherished among the disciples of Jesus in that first stage of anxious trial and sore danger. The pictures painted below in the chapters treating of the catacombs of Rome are admirable contemporary illustrations of what the writings of Aristides, Tertullian, and Lactantius tell us of the solemn duty to the dead which was insisted upon with such touching eloquence to the primitive congregations of the faithful. V THE SLAVE IN EARLY CHRISTIAN LIFE There was ever present in these early assemblies of Christians one class of persons who had no rank, no place in Roman society,--a class in which Cicero had declared that nothing great or noble could exist. Slavery has been well characterized as the “most frightful feature of the corruption of ancient Rome, and it extended through every class of the community.” Economically, “the poor citizen found almost all the spheres in which an honourable livelihood might be obtained, wholly or at least in a very great part preoccupied by slaves.” Morally, “the slave population was a hotbed of vice, and it contaminated all with which it came in contact.”[70] Now what position did the slave occupy in early Christian society? It is quite clear that the primitive Christians had no idea of abolishing slavery. It was part of the ancient society, and they accepted it even amongst themselves--apparently made no effort to abolish it; but the view they took of it in reality dealt a death-blow to the unhappy and miserable institution. It is true that whilst Christianity gradually modified its most painful and objectionable features by example and by precept, it was only after long, long years that it succeeded by a bloodless revolution to wipe away the awful curse--“The mills of God grind slowly.”