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.  The very name of coemeterium, adopted by the Christians for their burial-places, a name unknown to the ancient Romans, bore a reference to the great doctrine of the Resurrection.  Their burial-ground was a cemetery, that is, a sleeping-place; they regarded the dead as put there to await the awakening; the body was depositus, that is, intrusted to the grave, while the heathen was situs or sepultus, interred or buried,—­the words implying a final and definitive position.  And as the Christian dormit or quiescit, sleeps or rests in death, so the heathen is described as abreptus, or defunctus, snatched away or departed from life.

Again, the contrast between the inscriptions is marked, and in a sadder way, by the difference of the expressions of mourning and grief.  No one who has read many of the ancient gravestones but remembers the bitter words that are often found on them,—­words of indignation against the gods, of weariness of life, of despair and unconsoled melancholy.  Here is one out of many:—­

  PROCOPE MANVS LEBO CONTRA
  DEVM QVI ME INNOCENTEM SVS
  TVLIT QVAE VIXI ANNOS XX. 
  POS.  PROCLVS.

  I, Procope, who lived twenty years, lift up
  my hands against God, who took me away innocent. 
  Proclus set up this.

But among the Christian inscriptions of the first centuries there is not one of this sort.  Most of them contain no reference to grief; they are the very short and simple words of love, remembrance, and faith,—­as in the following from the Lateran:—­

  ADEODATE DIGNAE ET MERITAE VIRGINI
  ETQVIESCE HIC IN PACE IVBENTE XPO EJUS

  To Adeodata, a worthy and deserving Virgin,
  and rests here in peace, her Christ commanding.

On a few the word dolens is found, simply telling of grief.  On one to the memory of a sweetest daughter the word irreparable is used, Filiae dulcissimae inreparabili.  Another is, “To Dalmatius, sweetest son, whom his unhappy father was not permitted to enjoy for even seven years.”  Another inscription, in which something of the feeling that was unchecked among the heathens finds expression in Christian words, is this:  “Sweet soul.  To the incomparable child, who lived seventeen years, and undeserving [of death] gave up life in the peace of the Lord.”  Neither the name of the child nor of the parents is on the stone, and the word immeritus, which is used here, and which is common in heathen use, is found, we believe, on only one other Christian grave.  One inscription, which has been interpreted as being an expression of unresigned sorrow, is open to a very different signification.  It is this:—­