hose boys and girls who love their Bibles are fond of Bible pictures. Even tiny children delight to see a picture of Jesus Christ holding the little ones in His arms; and how sad children feel when they are shown a painting or engraving of the Saviour led away to die!
We have learnt much now of the Bible, and of how the Old and New Testaments were written, but who first thought of making pictures from the Bible?
We shall see.
A few miles from the city of Rome, deep, deep underground, are those wonderful networks of galleries and chambers called 'The Catacombs.'
'Catacomb' means 'scooped out.' Miles and miles of passages are there, some low and narrow, others wide and lofty; they cross and re-cross each other, like the streets of a town, and all are scooped out of the solid earth.
On either side of every gallery are almost endless rows of spaces hollowed out in the walls, one above another like the berths on board ship. For the most part they are open and empty, but a few are still closed. Above some of them words are faintly traced on stone slabs; a man or woman's name perhaps, oftener still the Latin words, 'In Pace'—that is, 'In Peace.'
For all this great underground city is in reality one huge cemetery: the quiet resting-place where the first Christians of heathen Rome buried their dead, where the martyred bodies so cruelly tortured by Nero were laid at last. In pace, in peace.
How wonderful to read the names of those who loved Christ and suffered for His sake so long, long ago! Their very names speak to us of the courage and joy which, in spite of torture, Christ had brought into their lives.