It was a new preaching, this secret of the great love of God which passeth understanding, and one that excited wonderful and soul-stirring fears and hopes, and which filled the small dark corridors and low-browed chapels of the Roman catacombs which the faithful often used as meeting-homes for teaching and for prayer, with what seemed to the groups of worshippers verily a Divine light; and to these early Christian worshippers, the gloomy rough-hewn sleeping-places of the dead, through which the pilgrim traveller now wanders and wonders, seemed to them the very ante-chambers of heaven. We have dwelt with some insistence upon the dogmatic teaching which without doubt formed a part, and that by no means an inconsiderable part, of the procedure of the primitive gatherings of Christians; for it is often urged that the great bond which united the brethren of the very early Church was only the beautiful mutual love and charity urged in these gatherings. There is some truth in this assertion. It was a new life which was preached, and to a certain extent lived, by the Christian Brotherhood. It was a life quite different to anything which had existed before the Redeemer went in and out among men. We shall dwell on it presently; but it must never be forgotten that the mainspring of this new life was the doctrine of the Cross--of the _Atonement_ made by that Divine One who had founded the new religion. The belief in the supreme Divinity of Jesus, who had come from heaven to redeem men, was the foundation story of the wonderful love and boundless charity which lived in their midst,--a love which charmed the hearts of all sorts and conditions of men, and attracted more and ever more weary and heavy-laden men and women to join the company of Christians. ALMSGIVING The duty and delight of materially assisting the poor and sad-eyed brothers and sisters of the community became an absorbing passion in the lives of very many of the rich and well-to-do members of each congregation; and in populous centres the abundance of the alms publicly contributed or privately given is a sure indication that many well-to-do and even wealthy persons were at an early date numbered among the Christians. The splendid charities of the Church of the first days no doubt did much to bring about the rapid progress of the religion of Jesus. There was an intense reality in the love of the Christians of the first days for one another. “See,” says Tertullian (_Apol._ xxxix.), quoting from the pagan estimate of the new society, “how they love one another.” So Cæcilius (in _Minucius Felix_, ix.) tells us “they love one another almost before they are acquainted.” Justin Martyr, in his picture already quoted of a Christian assembly in the first half of the second century, speaks, as we have seen, in detail of the destination of the alms collected.[62]