“Butchered to make a Roman holiday!”

As I thought of these scenes, and looked up above the gray old walls to the sweet moon and serene stars, most delightful thoughts of heaven, where the martyrs are crowned with glory and the blessed rejoice possessed my mind and I observed to a friend. There is one city where there are no ruins, and the temple therein shall never decay; how glorious the privilege of home and inheritance there, where all is purity and peace! That City is indeed Eternal.
It is not difficult to imagine with what pride and satisfaction the Coliseum was regarded when it stood in its unimpaired and sublime magnificence, and how astonished pilgrims on beholding it, should explain-

“While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls – the world.”

We returned to our lodging, musing on human greatness and decays, and with pictures made on the memory that can only fade with life.
Old Rome is not only partially buried of the gradual accumulations on the surface for nearly two thousand years, but beneath these walls there are extensive recesses, stretching away for miles, excavated in the tufa, or soft rock, and evolved with the tombs and remains of the dead. I had visited the tombs of the Scipios and the Catacombs of St. Sebastian, which contain numerous underground passages and chambers; but I was anxious to make further excursions into these wonderful subterranean cemeteries.