And after some years he undertook a voyage to the Holy Land, and he embarked on board a ship; and there came on a terrible storm, so that the ship was nigh to perish. The sailors fell at his feet, and besought him to save them; and he rebuked the storm, which ceased

immediately. It happened in the same voyage that one of the sailors fell overboard and was drowned; but by the prayers of St. Nicholas he was restored to life.

On returning from Palestine St. Nicholas repaired to the city of Myra, where he lived for some time unknown and in great humility. And the bishop of that city died. And it was revealed to the clergy that the first man who entered the church on the following morning was the man chosen by God to succeed as bishop. Nicholas, who was accustomed to rise up very early in the morning to pray, appeared before the doors of the church at sunrise; so they laid hold of him, and led him into the church, and consecrated him bishop. Having attained this dignity, he showed himself worthy of it by the practice of every saintly virtue, but more especially by a charity which knew no bounds. Some time afterwards the city and the province were desolated by a dreadful famine, and Nicholas was told that certain ships laden with wheat had arrived in the port of Myra. He went, therefore, and required of the captains of these vessels that they should give him out of each a hundred hogsheads of wheat for the relief of his people; but they answered, "We dare not do this thing, for the wheat was measured at Alexandria, and we must deliver it into the granary of the emperor." And St. Nicholas said, "Do as I have ordered you, for it shall come to pass, by the grace of God, that, when ye discharge your cargo, there shall be found no diminution." So the men believed him, and when they arrived in Constantinople they found exactly the same quantity that they had received at Alexandria. In the meantime St. Nicholas distributed the corn to the people according to their wants: and it was miraculously multiplied in his hands, so that they had not only enough to eat, but sufficient to sow their lands for the following year.

It was during this famine that St. Nicholas performed one of his most stupendous miracles. As he was travelling through his diocese to visit and comfort his people, he lodged in the house of a certain host who was a son of Satan. This man, in the scarcity of provisions, was accustomed to steal little children, whom he murdered and served up their limbs as meat to his guests. On the arrival of the bishop and his retinue, he had the audacity to serve up the dismembered limbs of these unhappy children before the man of God, who had no sooner cast

his eyes on them than he was aware of the fraud. He reproached the host with his abominable crime, and going to the tub where their remains were salted down, he made over them the sign of the cross, and they rose up whole and well. The people who witnessed this great wonder were struck with astonishment (as, indeed, they might well be), and the three children, who were the sons of a poor widow, were restored to their weeping mother.

Some time after these events, the Emperor Constantine sent certain tribunes of his army to put down a rebellion in Phrygia. They arrived at the city of Myra, and the bishop, in order to save his people from their exactions and their violence, invited them to his table, and entertained them honourably. As they were sitting down to the feast it was told to St. Nicholas that the prefect of the city had condemned three innocent men to death, and that they were about to be executed, and that all the city was in commotion because of this wickedness.

When St. Nicholas heard this, he rose hastily, and, followed by his guests, ran to the place of execution. And he found the three men with their eyes bound, kneeling there, and the executioner stood with his sword already bared; but when St. Nicholas arrived, he seized the sword and took it out of his hands, and caused the men to be unbound. No one dared to resist him, and even the prefect humbled himself before him, and entreated forgiveness, which the saint granted not without difficulty. The tribunes looking on meanwhile were filled with wonder and admiration. When they had received the blessing of the good bishop they continued their voyage to Phrygia.

Now it happened, during their absence from Constantinople, that their enemies had turned the mind of the emperor against them, and filled him with suspicion. On their return they were accused of treason, and thrown into a dungeon, whence they were to be led to death on the following day. In their extremity they remembered St. Nicholas, and cried to him to save them: they did not cry in vain, for God heard them out of heaven, and St. Nicholas, in the distant land where he dwelt, also heard their supplication. And that same night he appeared to Constantine in a dream, and commanded him on his peril to release these men, threatening him with the anger of Heaven if he disobeyed. Constantine immediately pardoned the men, and the next morning he

sent them to Myra to thank St. Nicholas, and to present to him a copy of the Gospels, written in letters of gold, and bound in a cover enriched with pearls and precious stones. The fame of this great miracle spread far and wide; and since that time all those who are in any way afflicted or distressed, and who stand in great peril of their lives, invoke this glorious saint, and find succour at his hands. And thus it happened to certain mariners in the Egean Sea, who, in the midst of a frightful tempest, in which they were like to founder, called upon Christ to deliver them through the intercession of the blessed St. Nicholas, who thereupon appeared to them and said, "Lo, here I am, my sons! put your trust in God, whose servant I am, and ye shall be saved." And immediately the sea became calm, and he conducted the vessel into a safe harbour. Wherefore those who peril their lives on the great deep do also invoke St. Nicholas; and all harbours of refuge, and many chapels and altars on the sea-coast, are dedicated to him.

Many other great and good actions did St. Nicholas perform; but at length he died, yielding up his soul to God with great joy and thankfulness, on the sixth day of December in the year of our Lord 326, and he was buried in a magnificent church which was in the city of Myra.

It is related that St. Nicholas was summoned to the council of Nice in the year 325, and that, in his zeal, he smote Arius on the face; but there are many who do not believe this, seeing that the name of Nicholas of Myra does not appear among the bishops cited on that

occasion.

The miracles which St. Nicholas performed after his death were not less wonderful than those which he had performed during his lifetime, and for hundreds of years pilgrims from all parts of the East resorted to his tomb. In the year 807, Achmet, who commanded the fleet of Haroun Alraschid, attacked the sanctuary, intending to demolish it; but he was deceived by the vigilance of the monks, and, putting to sea again, he was destroyed with his whole fleet as a punishment for this great sacrilege. After this event the body of St. Nicholas rested in his tomb for the space of 280 years; various attempts were made to carry it off, many cities and churches aspiring to the possession of so great a treasure.

At length, in 1084, certain merchants of Bari, a city

on the coast of Italy opposite to Ragusa, resolved to accomplish this great enterprise. In their trading voyages to the coast of Syria, they had heard of the miracles of St. Nicholas, and, in their pious enthusiasm, resolved to enrich their country with the possession of these wonderworking relics. They landed at Myra, where they found the country desolated by the Saracens, the church in ruins, and the tomb guarded only by three monks. They had no difficulty in taking away the holy remains, which were received in the city of Bari with every demonstration of joy; and a magnificent church was built over them, which was dedicated by Pope Urban II. From this period the veneration for St. Nicholas extended over the West of Europe. It is proper to add, that the Venetians affirm that they have the true body of St. Nicholas, carried off from Myra by Venetian merchants in the year 1100. The pretensions, however, of the city of Bari are those generally acknowledged, and thence the saint has obtained the name, by which he is best known, of St. Nicholas de Bari.1

Devotional figures of St. Nicholas exhibit him as standing in the habit of a bishop. In the Greek pictures he is dressed as a Greek bishop, without the mitre, bearing the cross instead of the crosier, and on his cope embroidered the three Persons of the Trinity 2: but in Western Art his episcopal habit is that of the Western Church; he wears the mitre, the cope, in general gorgeously ornamented, the jewelled gloves, and the crosier. He has sometimes a short grey beard; sometimes he is beardless, in allusion to his youth when elected bishop. His proper attribute, the three balls, may be variously interpreted; but in general they are understood to signify the three purses of gold, which he threw into the poor man's window. Some say they represent three loaves of bread, and allude to his feeding the poor during the famine; and others, again, interpret them into a general allusion to the Trinity. The first is, however, the most popular interpretation. These balls are sometimes placed upon his book, as in the illustration; sometimes at his

1 As Patron of seamen, St. Nicholas is especially popular in seaport towns. About 376 churches in England are dedicated in his honour.

2 Figures and heads of St. Nicholas are especially frequent in the Greek devotional pictures, as he is the greatest, or, at least, the most popular, saint of the Greek Church.