Culture

Perseverance is the steady virtue of continuing to do what is good even when it is hard, boring, frightening, or long. It is closely tied to fortitude, but where fortitude is the courage to begin a hard thing, perseverance is the endurance to keep going to the end. The martyrs persevered to the point of death, but most of us are asked to persevere in smaller ways: finishing the assignment, staying faithful in prayer, keeping a promise, being kind to a difficult person day after day. The opposite vice is inconstancy or 'sloth's cousin' — giving up, quitting when feelings fade, or only doing good when it is easy or noticed. Scripture is full of encouragement to persevere. St. Paul, who himself was eventually martyred in Rome, wrote near the end of his life: 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith' (2 Timothy 4:7). Jesus promised, 'He who endures to the end will be saved' (Matthew 24:13). Perseverance is what turns a good start into a finished work — and a momentary feeling of faith into a lifelong friendship with God.

For most of the colonial era, Britain practiced 'salutary neglect' — it left the colonies largely alone. That changed after the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the North American part of a global war between Britain and France. Britain won, gaining Canada and all land east of the Mississippi, but the war doubled its national debt. King George III's government decided the colonies should help pay. The Proclamation of 1763 first forbade settlement west of the Appalachians, angering land-hungry colonists. Then came the taxes. The Stamp Act (1765) taxed nearly every printed item — newspapers, contracts, even playing cards. Colonists who had no members in Parliament cried 'no taxation without representation,' and the Stamp Act Congress and Sons of Liberty organized protests and boycotts until it was repealed. The Townshend Acts (1767) taxed imports like glass, paint, and tea, bringing more boycotts and British troops to Boston. On March 5, 1770, tense soldiers fired into a hostile crowd, killing five men — the Boston Massacre, which Paul Revere turned into powerful propaganda. After Parliament kept a tax on tea, colonists struck back: on December 16, 1773, the Boston Tea Party dumped 342 chests of British tea into the harbor. An enraged Parliament answered with the Coercive Acts of 1774 — which colonists called the Intolerable Acts — closing Boston's port and stripping Massachusetts of self-government. Instead of crushing resistance, these acts united the colonies.

Key facts: - French and Indian War: 1754-1763; left Britain deeply in debt. - Proclamation of 1763 barred settlement west of the Appalachians. - Stamp Act: 1765; Townshend Acts: 1767. - Boston Massacre: March 5, 1770 (five killed). - Boston Tea Party: December 16, 1773. - Intolerable Acts (Coercive Acts): 1774; closed Boston's port.

Before Constantine, Christians could not build great public churches, so much of the earliest Christian art survives underground — in the catacombs, miles of narrow tunnels outside Rome where Christians buried their dead and sometimes gathered to pray. On the walls and ceilings they painted simple frescoes that carried deep meaning. The most beloved was the Good Shepherd: a young man carrying a lamb on his shoulders, an image of Christ from John 10 ('I am the good shepherd'). Interestingly, it borrowed a familiar pagan pose (Hermes the ram-bearer) and filled it with new meaning. Christians also used coded symbols that fellow believers would recognize but outsiders might overlook: the fish (in Greek, ICHTHYS, whose letters spell 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior'); the anchor (hope); the dove (the Holy Spirit and peace); and the Chi-Rho, formed from the first two Greek letters of 'Christ' — the very sign Constantine put on his soldiers' shields. Other paintings showed Jonah, Daniel in the lions' den, and the raising of Lazarus — all stories of God rescuing his people from death, fitting for a tomb. After 313, Christians could finally build openly, and they adapted the Roman basilica (a public hall) into the first churches. Early Christian art is humble and symbolic, not showy — but it is the seed of all the Christian art to come.

Write one sentence describing how the Church changed between the catacombs and Constantine: from hidden symbols painted underground to open worship in great new basilicas. Add today's date memory line: '313 — Edict of Milan.'