er, a great key, and on the top a cock,
to represent the cock which crowed at the time of Peter's betrayal of
his Lord.

[Illustration: EMBLEMS ON THE CROSS.]

Rollo and Rosie both looked at these things very eagerly, as the
carriage drove by. Rosie seemed somewhat shocked at the sight.

"How curious that is!" said Rollo.

"I suppose it is all idolatry," said Rosie, speaking very seriously.

"No," said Mr. George, "it is not necessarily idolatry. These kind of
contrivances originated in the middle ages, when the poor people who
lived in all these countries were very ignorant, as indeed they are
now; and inasmuch as they could not read, and there were no schools in
which to teach them, they had to be instructed by such contrivances as
these."

"They are very poor contrivances, I think," said Rollo.

"They would be very poor as a substitute for Sunday schools, and other
such advantages as the children enjoy in America," said Mr. George; "but
not very poor, after all, for the people for whom they were intended. Go
back in imagination five hundred years, and conceive of a little child,
born in one of these peasants' huts. His father and mother probably have
never even seen a book, and are not capable of understanding any thing
that is not perfectly simple and plain. The child, walking along the
road side, sees this cross. He stops to look up at it, and wonders what
all those little objects fastened upon it mean. After a while, when he
grows a little older, he asks his mother, when she is coming by with him
some day, what they mean. Now, she would not have been able, of herself,
and without any aid, to give the child any regular instruction whatever,
but she can explain to him about the cross, and the various emblems that
are upon it."

"Yes," said Rosie; "I should think she could do that."

"The child," continued Mr. George, "in looking upon the cross, and
seeing all those curious objects upon it, would ask his mother what they
mean. Then his mother would tell him about the crucifixion of Christ.
'They nailed him to the cross,' she would say, 'by long nails passing
through his hands and feet. Don't you see the nails?' And the child
would say, 'Yes,' and look at the nails very intently. 'The soldiers
climbed up by a ladder,' she would say. 'Don't you see the ladder? And
by and by, when in his fever he called for some drink, they reached
something up to him by a sponge fastened to the end of a long pole. Do
you see