Another difference in words which is very noticeable, running through the inscriptions, is that of depositus, used by the Christians to signify the laying away in the grave, in place of the heathen words situs, positus, sepultus, conditus.

Again, the contrast between the inscriptions is marked, and in a sadder way, by the difference of the expressions of mourning and grief.

But among the Christian inscriptions of the first centuries there is not one of this sort.

But it is thus that the Christian inscriptions must be sifted, to find expressions at variance with their usual tenor, their general composure and trust.

Such inscriptions as the following are common: FELICISSIMVS DVLCIS,GAVDENTIA IN PACE, SEVERA IN DEO VIVAS, or, with a little more fulness of expression, DVLCISSIMO FILIO ENDELECIO BENEMERENTI QVI VIXIT ANNOS II MENSE VNV DIES XX IN PACE To the sweetest son Endelechius, the well- deserving, who lived two years, one month, twenty days.

Nor is it only in these domestic and intimate inscriptions that the habitual temper and feeling of the Christians is shown, but even still more in those that were placed over the graves of such members of the household of faith as had made public profession of their belief, and shared in the sufferings of their Lord.

But there is another point of contrast between the inscriptions of the un- Christianized and the Christian Romans, which illustrates forcibly the difference in the regard which they paid to the dead.

But among the early Christian inscriptions of Rome nothing of this kind is known.

With this absence of boastfulness and of titles of rank on the early Christian graves two other characteristics of the inscriptions are closely connected, which bear even yet more intimate and expressive relation to the change wrought by Christianity in the very centre of the heathen world.

Yet, in a number of Christian inscriptions exceeding eleven thousand, and all belonging to the first six centuries of our era, scarcely six have been found containing any allusion whateverand even two or three of these are doubtfulto this fundamental division of ancient Roman society.

It is still further to be noted, as an expression of the Christian temper, as displayed in this kind of charity, that it never appears in the inscriptions as furnishing a claim for praise, or as being regarded as a peculiar merit.

These inscriptions lead us by a natural transition to such as contain some reference to the habits of life or to the domestic occupations and feelings of the early Christians.

Unfortunately for the gratification of the desire to learn of these things, this class of inscriptions is far from numerous,and the common conciseness is rarely, in the first centuries, amplified by details.

We have already referred to the inscriptions which bear the name of some officer of the early Church; but there is still another class, which exhibits in clear letters others of the designations and customs familiar to the first Christians.

Of the use of these names the inscriptions give not infrequent examples.

Thus we read such inscriptions as the following: RIGINE VENEMEREMTI FILIA SVA FECIT VENERIGINE MATRI VIDVAE QVE SE DIT VIDVA ANNOS LX ET ECLESA VIXIT ANNOS LXXX MESIS V DIES XXVI Her daughter Reneregina made this for her well-deserving mother Regina, a widow, who sat a widow sixty years, and never burdened the church, the wife of one husband, who lived eighty years, five months, twenty-six days.

" Some of the inscriptions preserve a record of the occupation or trade of the dead, sometimes in words, more often by the representation of the implements of labor.

The varying use of symbols at different periods has been one of the means which have assisted in determining approximate dates for the inscriptions upon which they are met with.

The monogram is hardly to be found before the time of Constantine, and, as it is very frequently met with in the inscriptions from the catacombs, it affords an easy means, in the absence of a more specific date, for determining a period earlier than which any special inscription bearing it cannot have originated.

It is a remarkable fact, and one which none of the recent Romanist authorities attempt to controvert, that the undoubted earlier inscriptions afford no evidence of any of the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church.

There is no reference to the doctrine of the Trinity to be found among them; nothing is to be derived from them in support of the worship of the Virgin; her name even is not met with on any monument of the first three centuries; and none of the inscriptions of this period give any sign of the prevalence of the worship of saints.

Among the earlier inscriptions prayers to God or to Christ are sometimes met with, generally in short exclamatory expressions concerning the dead.

But it would seem from other inscriptions as if the new practice of calling upon the saints were not adopted without protest.

As the fourth century advanced, the character of the inscriptions underwent great change.

The construction of the catacombs, the works of painting found within them, the inscriptions on the graves, all unite in bearing witness to the simplicity of the faith, the purity of the doctrine, the strength of the feeling, the change in the lives of the vast mass of the members of the early church of Christ.