Later visits made us familiar with the wonderful massively built church inlaid with Oriental stones, fretted with Oriental carving. We each found our favorite pictures in the three different series of mosaics blazing on the walls--“An open book of history, theology, and ethics for all men to read.” For me the quaint Old Testament scenes are the most interesting. Dearest of all, the story of Noah, the first character in sacred history with whom I became acquainted. The naïve simplicity with which the story is told recalls the Noah’s ark dramas of the nursery, with the dear familiar figures of Noah, Ham, Shem, Japhet, their wives, their animals, their round green trees made of a shaving and looking like Italian stone pines. The very smell of those freshly painted animals, the taste of a certain yellow camel came back to me in the cathedral of Monreale in one lightning flash of memory. Here they are, the dear companions of childhood, the consolers of long rainy days, when the children in the nursery knew exactly how the people in the ark felt on the fortieth day of the deluge. The building of the ark is a most spirited mosaic picture; so is the taking on board of the animals. Noah walks with a horse on one side and a lion, smaller than himself, on the other. The scene when the dove is first let loose is very fascinating; you feel the crowding and fatigue of the too large family party in the ark. In the scene where the dove returns with the olive branch, the sea is depicted in delightful hummocky waves. Two swimmers, apparently sinners, are struggling in the water; on the shoulder of one perches a crow, evidently about to peck out the sinner’s eyes. The scene of the landing on Mt. Ararat is supremely spirited; the gesture of relief with which Noah lets the lion go is masterly. Patsy’s favorite scene is Rebecca giving the camels of Abraham water from the well. One of the most haunting pictures is the expulsion from the Garden of Eden of our first parents, dressed in sheepskin. The cherubim here is lovely, and the vigorous angel driving the unhappy pair forth with a flaming sword, terrifying. The death of the Virgin is one of the most primitive and touching of the whole series. The body of the Virgin lies on a couch surrounded by the Apostles; Peter leans over her listening to her heart--this simple human touch makes the whole scene vivid and alive, in spite of its extreme primitiveness. Beside the bed stands Christ, with Mary’s new fledged soul dressed in swaddling bands like a new born infant in his hands. As she received Him into this world, so He receives her into the next. As this picture is part of the story of the Virgin, she is made the most prominent figure. The figure of the Son is much smaller than that of his dead mother on the couch.