MY CHARM

Everywhere in the catacombs is the anchor, emblem of that hope which separated Christianity from paganism. Another symbol is the fish, which plays a prominent part in Christian symbolry. It is curious and instructive to account for this ideograph. It is used as a cryptogram of Christ. The word is a sort of acrostic of the name and office of our Lord. IXOYE would be a secret cypher that would stand for our Lord's name, when men dared not write or speak it; and the word or the picture of a fish meant to the savior; and he wore as a charm a fish cut in ivory, or mother of pearl, on his neck living, and bore to his grave to be exhumed centuries after his death an effigy of a fish to signify his faith. These and the vine, the sheep, the dove, the ark, the palm and other enblems in the Catacombs express only hope, faith, cheerful confidence.