while on the other side is a woman in the attitude of prayer. It
seems no extravagance of interpretation to read in these pictures
the symbol of that memorial service which Jesus had established for
his followers,--a service which has rarely been celebrated under
circumstances more adapted to give to it its full effect, and to awaken
in the souls of those who joined in it all the deep and affecting
memories of its first institution, than when the bread and wine were
partaken of in memory of the Lord within the small and secret chapels
of the early catacombs. To the Christians who assembled there in the
days when to profess the name of Christ was to venture all things for
his sake, his presence was a reality in their hearts, and his voice
was heard as it was heard by his immediate followers who sat with him
at the table in the upper chamber. [1]

[Footnote 1: The Cavaliere de Rossi, in his very learned tract,
_De Christianis Monumentis [Greek: IChThUN] exhibentibus_,
expresses the belief that these pictures, besides their direct and
simple reference to the Lord's Supper, exhibit also the Catholic
doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The bread he
considers as the obvious material symbol, the fish the mystical
symbol of the transubstantiation. His interpretation is at least
doubtful. The bread was to be eaten in remembrance of the Lord, and
the fish was represented as the image which recalled his words, that
have been perverted by materialistic imaginations so far from their
original meaning,--"This is my body which is given for you." But the
date of the origin of false opinions is a matter of comparative
unimportance.]

There are several instances, among these subterranean pictures, of a
symbolic representation of the Saviour, drawn, not from Scripture,