In this great Brotherhood, without any attempt to level down the wealthier Christians, without any movement towards establishing a general community of goods, the warmest feelings of friendship and love were cultivated between all classes and degrees. The Christian teachers pointed out with great force that in the eyes of the divine Master no difference existed between the slave and the free-born, between the patrician and the little trader; with Him there was perfect equality. Sex and age, rank and fortune, poverty and riches, country and race, with Him were of no account. All men and women who struggled after the life He loved, were His dear servants. The result of all this was shown in the generous and self-denying love of the wealthier members of the flock towards their poor and needy brothers and sisters. This is conspicuously shown in the wonderful story of the vast cemeteries of the suburbs of Rome, where at a very early date the rich afforded the hospitality of the tomb to their poor friends. Most of the so-called “catacombs” began in the gardens of the rich and noble, where the little family God’s acre was speedily opened to the proletariat and the slave, who after death were tenderly and lovingly cared for, and laid to sleep with all reverence alongside the members of the patrician house to whom the cemetery belonged, and which in numberless instances was enlarged to receive these poor and humble guests. But, after all, great and different though these various attractive influences were,--and which no doubt in countless cases brought unnumbered men and women of all ranks and orders into the ranks of Christianity,--there was something more which united all these various nationalities, these different grades, with an indissoluble bond of union; something more which enabled them to live on year after year in the shadow of persecution--in daily danger of losing all that men most prize and hold dear; something more which gave them that serene courage at the last, which inspired the great army of bravely patient martyrs to witness a good confession for the Name’s sake. It was that burning, that living faith in the great sacrifice of their loving Master--the faith which in the end vanquished even pagan Rome--the faith which comes from no books or arguments, no preaching and no persuasion--from no learning however profound and sacred--from no human arsenal, however furnished with truth and righteousness. It was that strong and deathless faith which is the gift of God alone, and which in a double portion was the gift of the Holy Ghost to the sorely tried Church in the heroic age of Christianity. * * * * *