There is a story told of Jesus on the way to Calvary, which is not found in any of the gospels, and may not be true. It is said that a good woman, named Veronica, was standing by the street when Jesus went by. Seeing his face covered with sweat, and dust, and blood, she went to him and wiped his face with a napkin. When she looked at her napkin, she found that on it had been printed the portrait of Jesus; and she kept it ever afterward as her greatest treasure. They led Jesus out of the gate in the city wall, and up the side of the hill Calvary, wherever that hill was. There they laid the cross upon the ground and stretched Jesus out upon it. They drove nails through his hands and feet to fasten his body to the cross. Then they lifted it up with Jesus upon it, and dropped the lower end of it into a hole so that it would stand upright. With Jesus they had brought two other men, who had been robbers, and sentenced to die by the cross. These two men they crucified with Jesus, one on his right hand and the other on his left, and Jesus between them, as if he had been the most wicked man of the three. Jesus knew that the Roman soldiers who fastened him to the cross were not his enemies, as the Jews were, but were only obeying the orders that had been given them by their officers. He prayed to God for them. "Father," said Jesus, "forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!" It was nine o'clock on Friday morning when Jesus was placed upon the cross; and he hung there living for six awful hours, until three o'clock in the afternoon. [Illustration: When Jesus saw his mother, and beside her the disciple whom he loved, he spoke from the cross to her: "Woman, there is your son." Then he said to John: "Son, there is your mother."] Jesus on the Cross CHAPTER 96 IT WAS the custom of the Romans when they put to death any man upon the cross, to place on the cross above his head a writing, telling what the man's crime was. Pilate commanded that the writing above the head of Jesus should be THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. It was written in the language of three different peoples; in Hebrew, the tongue spoken by the Jews; in Latin, the language of the Romans; and in Greek, the language spoken by all in that part of the world who were not Jews. These words told a great truth, that Jesus was a king, and they told it to all the earth, although very few people believed it then. Now, all over the world are millions upon millions of people who serve Jesus as Lord and King. When the priests and rulers of the Jews read this writing upon the cross they were greatly displeased, for they did not like to have Jesus called a king. The priests went to Pilate in his palace and said to him: "Will you not change the writing upon the cross of that man? Let it not be, 'The King of the Jews.' Please change it to, 'He said, "I am King of the Jews."'"