Associated with the Romish practice of praying for the dead is that of praying _to_ them. For this there is still less authority in the testimony of the Catacombs than for the former. There are, indeed, indications that this custom was not unknown, but they are very rare and exceptional. In all the dated inscriptions of the first six centuries, thirteen hundred and seventy four in number, there is only _one_ invocation of the departed. It is that of the year 380, already given, in which from the heart of an orphaned and ignorant[729] girl, in the hour of her bitter sorrow and bereavement, is wrung the cry, PRO HVNC VNVM ORA SVBOLEM--“O pray for this, thine only child.” The few undated inscriptions of a similar character are probably of as late, or it may be of a much later, date than this; and the invocation is almost invariably uttered by some relative of the deceased, as if prompted by natural affection rather than by religious feeling. Thus we have such examples as the following: PETE PRO FILIIS TVIS--“Pray for thy children; “PETE ET ROGA PRO FRATRES ET SOBOLES TVOS, (_sic_)--“Entreat and pray for your brothers and children;” ORA PRO 447 PARENTIBVS TVIS--“Pray for thy parents;” VIBAS IN PACE ET PETE PRO NOBIS--“May you live in peace and pray for us;” VIBAS IN DEO ET ROGA--“May you live in God and pray;” IN ORATIONIBVS TVIS ROGES PRO NOBIS QVIA SCIMVS TE IN ☧--“In your prayers, pray for us, for we know you (to be) in Christ.” ΔΙΟΝΥϹΙΟϹ ΝΗΠΙΟϹ ΑΚΑΚΟϹ ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΕ ΜΕΤΑ ΤΩΝ ΑΓΙΩΝ ΜΝΗϹΚΕϹΘΕ ΔΕ ΚΑΙ ΗΜΩΝ ΕΝ ΤΑΙϹ ΑΓΙΑΙϹ ΥΜΩΝ ΠΡΕΥΧΑϹ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ ΓΛΥΨΑΤΟϹ ΚΑΙ ΓΡΑΨΑΝΤΟϹ--“Dionysius a spotless infant, lies here with the saints. O remember us also in thy holy prayers; aye, and the sculptor and writer as well.” The last clause is in smaller characters as if an afterthought.[730] These few examples among eleven thousand inscriptions, of which the greater number are of post-Constantinian date, are a slight foundation for the vast Roman system of the invocation of saints. “If this doctrine,” says Bishop Kip, “so much in unison with many of the deepest feelings of our nature, had been held by the primitive church, we should have found it written broadly and clearly every-where through these epitaphs. Its proof would not be left to half a dozen inscriptions among thousands which plainly declare the reverse.” How different from these lowly crypts is a modern Romish sepulchral chapel, with its ceaseless appeals by the dead for the prayers of the 448 living, and by the living for the prayers of the dead; with its ever-recurring _Orate pro anima_, and _Maria sanctissima, ora pro nobis_. We search in vain through all the corridors of those ancient sanctuaries of the Christian faith for a single example of these now universal Romish formulæ.