We have said that the inscription has perished, but we can see where it once was, and we can supply a specimen of such an inscription from other catacombs; _e.g._, it might have been simply SEPULCRUM FLAVIORUM, like the EUTYCHIORUM lately discovered in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, or it might have been longer and more explicit, like the inscription found in the cemetery of St. Nicomedes, found a few years ago on the other side of Rome. Not far from the entrance of this cemetery there lay a stone which declared to whom the monument belonged, viz., to one Valerius Mercurius and Julitta (who was probably his wife); then another gentleman is named, and one or two ladies, and finally their freedmen and freedwomen; but this important condition is added, AD RELIGIONEM PERTINENTES MEAM,—“if they belong to my religion.” It is true there is no Christian emblem on this stone to declare the faith of the writer, but the cemetery in which it is found is undeniably Christian; and among the thousands or tens of thousands of Pagan inscriptions that have come down to us, we do not find one that contains the remarkable expression I have quoted. Indeed, it is doubtful whether it would have had any meaning to Pagan ears; but a Christian or a Jew would have understood it well. And it reminds us of another very ancient inscription which may yet be seen in the Catacomb of St. Domitilla, where it served to appropriate a particular chamber as the family vault of its owner. The inscription runs in this wise:—“M. Aurelius Restutus made this subterranean chamber for himself and those of his family who believe in the Lord.” Our limited space will not allow us to produce further evidence of the liberty and publicity of the Christian cemeteries in their beginning; but further evidence ought not to be required, since there is really none whatever on the other side. It cannot be shown that the Roman Government ever interfered with the Catacombs before the middle of the third century, and not even then with reference to their original and more ordinary use as places of burial, but rather to a later but very important use to which they were then being put—as places of assembly and religious worship.