Meetings for prayer and praise were frequent throughout the Catacombs. Cut off from ordinary
occupations of worldly business, they were thrown entirely upon other and higher pursuits.
Deprived of the opportunity to make efforts for the support of the body, they were constrained to
make their chief business the care of the soul. They gained what they sought. Earth with its cares,
its allurements, and its thousand attractions lost its hold upon them. Heaven drew nearer; their
thoughts and their language were of the Kingdom. They loved to talk of the joy that awaited
those who continued faithful unto death, to converse upon those departed brethren who to them
were not lost but gone before; to anticipate the moment when their own time should come.
Above all they looked every day for that great final summons which should raise the dead,
transform the living, and bring His blood-bought, blood-washed people about Him in the meeting
place in the air; and for the judgment seat of Christ, where He will bestow the rewards for
faithful service. (I Thess. 4:13-18; Phil. 3:20,21; I Cor.3).

FRAGMENT.

Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress (Psa. 4:1).

The harp, ere it gives forth its sweet sounds, must have its cords stretched, near the breaking
point, perhaps. So we who would lead others into the path of faith, and give praise to God, must
know experimentally the difficulties of the way.