B · M · CVBICVLVM · AVRELIAE · MARTINAE · CASTISSIMAE · ADQVE. PVDICISSIMAE · FEMINAE · QVI · FECIT · IN · CONIVGIO · ANN · XXIII · D · XIIII--“To one well-deserving. The 424 sleeping-place of Aurelia Martina, a most chaste and modest woman, who passed in wedlock twenty-three years, fourteen days.” The primitive Christians had no doubt of the immediate happiness of those who died in the faith. They were incapable of the blasphemous thought that the atoning blood of Christ was insufficient to wash away their guilt and that therefore they were doomed to penal fires, Till the foul crimes done in their days of nature Were burned and purged away. All the expressions applied to the death of the righteous indicate the assurance of their spirits’ peace and happiness. Thus, in addition to the examples already given, we have, A. D. 339, BENE QVESQVENTI (_sic_) IN PACE--“Resting well in peace;” A. D. 339, IN PACE DECESSIT, A. D. 349, and A. D. 360, IBIT and EXIBIT IN PACE--“Departed in peace;” A. D. 348, REQVIEVIT--“Entered into rest;” A. D. 353, PAVSABIT--“Will repose;” A. D. 355, QVIESCIT--“He rests,” not REQVIESCAT--“May he rest,” as the Romanists write, but the joyful assurance of present repose in the peace of God; A. D. 359, IVIT AD DEVM--“He went to God;” A. D. 363, SEMPER QVIESCIS SECVRA--“Thou dost repose forever free from care;” A. D. 368, QVIENCIS (_sic_) IN PACE CONIVX INCOMPARABILIS--“Thou restest in peace, incomparable wife;” A. D. 369, VOCITVS (_sic_) IIT IN PACE--“Called away, he went in peace;” in A. D. 380, we find AETERNA REQVIES FELICITATIS--“Everlasting rest of happiness.” The Christians, as is asserted in the following, sorrowed not as those without hope: IVLIAE INNOCENTISSIMAE ET DVLCISSIMAE, MATER SVA SPERANS--“To the most sweet and innocent Julia, her mother hoping.” The loved ones were “not lost, but gone before:” PRAECESSIT NOS IN PACE--“He went before us in peace;” ΠΡΟΑΠΕΛΘΩΝ ΤΟΥ 425 ΚΑΘ ΗΜΑϹ ΒΙΟΥ--“Having gone before from our life.” Sometimes the body seems to be regarded as the clog and fetter of the soul, binding it to earth, as in the following: ABSOLVTVS DE CORPORE--“Set free from the body;” CORPOREOS RVMPENS NEXVS GAVDET IN ASTRIS--“Breaking the bonds of the body, he rejoices in the stars,” that is, in heaven. The entire inscriptions from which extracts are thus given may be found in De Rossi’s _Inscriptiones Christianæ_, under the respective dates. The following, of date A. D. 381, rises to loftier poetical flights, though ignoring the metrical divisions, which are indicated in the copy by parallels: