St. George

“ Wilt thou be Christian? Then he took her by the hair, and did do beat her cruelly. Then demanded she of St. George: What may I become because I am not christened? Then answered the blessed George: Doubt thee nothing, fair daughter, for thou shalt be baptized in thy blood. Then began she to worship our Lord Jesu Christ, and so she died and went to heaven. On the morn Dacian gave his sentence that St. George should be drawn through all the city, and after, his head should be smitten off. ”

“ The sky was marked with rose, the still reservoir gave back colour upon its breast, and the tower upon its margin might have been some guttural-christened castle on the Rhine. St. George drew a deep breath of good, new air and smiled for the sake of the things that the day was to bring him. He was in the golden age when the youthful expectation of enjoyment is just beginning to be savoured by the inevitable longing for more light, and he seemed to himself to be alluringly near the verge of both.
His first care the evening before had been to hunt out Chillingworth. ”

“ George,” whispered Mrs. Cheston, who never missed a point in friend or foe and whose fun at a festivity often lay in commenting on her neighbors, praise or blame being impartially mixed as her fancy was touched. “And by all means watch his hands, my dear. They are like the baton of an orchestra leader and tell the whole story. Only men whose blood and lineage have earned them freedom from toil, or men whose brains throb clear to their finger-tips, have such hands. Yes! St. George is very happy to-night, and I know why. ”

“ St. George saw that a meeting was in progress there, and the sight disturbed him. Then the click of a key caught his attention, and he turned to find the old man quietly and surprisingly swinging open the door of steel bars.
"This way, sir," he said hoarsely, fixing St. George with his buckle eyes, and shambled through the door after him locking it behind them.
If St. George had found awaiting him a gold throne encircled by kneeling elephants he could have been no more amazed. Not a word had been said about the purpose of his visit, and not a word to the warden ”

“ George’s Day among the Saxons and Roumanians of Transylvania; St. George’s Day a herdsman’s festival among the Walachians, Bulgarians, and South Slavs; precautions taken against witches and wolves whenever the cattle are driven out to pasture for the first time, as in Prussia and Sweden; these parallels illustrate some features of the Parilia; St. George as a personification of trees or vegetation in general; St. George as patron of childbirth and love; St. George seems to have displaced an old Aryan god of the spring, such as the Lithuanian Pergrubiusk. ”

“ In the year 280, in a town in Cappadocia, was born that great soldier and champion of the oppressed whom we call St. George. His parents were Christians, and by them, and especially by his mother, he was most carefully instructed and trained.
When the youth came to the age of seventeen years he took up the profession of arms, and since he was gifted with beauty of person, intelligence, and an exquisite courtesy, he rose rapidly to a considerable military rank. Especially he pleased his imperial master, Diocletian. ”

“ The Crusaders, including our Richard I., all invoked his protection. In 1348 Edward III. founded St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and used the saint’s name when besieging Calais and routing the French. The effect of St. George’s name was so marked that he was adopted as the patron saint of England in lieu of Edward the Confessor. In 1349 the Order of St. George was instituted. In 1545 the saint’s day was made a red-letter day, with a proper collect, epistle, and gospel, in the services of the Church. Many of the great painters have shown their skill in representing the legend. ”

“ I will here say, before closing, that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, "You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God." These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. ”

“ George kneels and kisses her hand. Fool advances and holds up his hands over them.]
Fool. Why here's a sight will do any honest man's heart good,
To see the Dragon-slayer thus subdued!
[St. George rises. Exit Sabra.]
St. George. Keep thy jests in thy pocket if thou
would'st keep thy head on thy shoulders.
I love a woman, and a woman loves me,
And when I want a fool I'll send for thee.
If there is any man but me
Who noxious beasts can tame,
Let him stand forth in this gracious company,
And boldly tell his name.
[St. George stands aside. Trumpet sounds for St. Patrick.] ”

“ The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church. The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the rank of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the famous St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter. ”

“ Every nation has its own patron saint whom the people love to honour, and who is looked upon not only as their protector in war and peace, but as a model of all that is best and highest and most worthy to be copied in their own lives.
Ever since the days of the Crusades, when our lion-hearted King Richard went to fight the infidels in the Holy Land, the special saint whom England has delighted to honour has been Saint George. ”

“ His first appearance, it is said, as a patron of our people, occurred at the instance of Richard Cœur de Lion during his campaign in Palestine; and this, as we shall see, really stands for a new England which might well have a new saint. But the Confessor is a character in English history; whereas St. George, apart from his place in martyrology as a Roman soldier, can hardly be said to be a character in any history. ”

“ Every year on 23 April, the day of St. George (titular saint of Hardingham church) , it was his harmless practice to collect his friends at a picnic under a beech on a hillock called St. George's Mount, and to claim from each of them an appropriate poem in Latin or English. A specimen of his verses on one of these occasions is in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1816, i. 542–3) . ”

“ Saint George and the Princess Cleodolinda led the dragon into the market-place, followed by the wondering crowd; and there Saint George drew his sword and cut off the head of the hideous monster. Then were the people sure that they were indeed delivered from their great enemy for ever, and they burst forth into wild rejoicings. They would have given all they possessed to Saint George in their joy and gratitude; but he told them that the only reward he desired was that they should believe in the true God, and be baptized Christians. ”

“ The statue of St. George, like that of St. Philip, was originally made to fill one of the niches on the outside of Or San Michele. Below it was a bas-relief representing the slaying of the dragon. The work was the gift of the Guild of Sword Makers and Armorers, whose patron saint was the Knight of Cappadocia. In an exposed position on the church the precious marble was injured by the weather. [54] Accordingly it was removed to a museum, and a bronze copy was set up in its place.
The popularity of St. George is by no means confined to Italy. In England too his memory is held in great respect. ”

“ This time the executioner told St. George that his last chance had come. Either he must give up Christ, or he must face death. The words sent a kind of thrill through St. George—a thrill of horror at the thought of death, which turned into a thrill of joy at the thought of going into the presence of Christ, and hearing His wonderful Voice again, only this time seeing Him, too. And he rejoiced, also, to think he would really be a martyr. ”

“ A few days later the executioner arrived once more, and again led St. George across the sunny courtyard. St. George remembered the Voice of Christ saying, "I am with thee," and he was not afraid. This time they [116] rolled a great heavy stone over his body, so that his bones were crushed and bruised, and then they carried him back to the dungeon.
When the officer came for his answer he could hardly believe that St. George dared still to refuse. He told the Emperor what St. George had said. The Emperor was surprised and sorry, for he saw that St. George must be a very brave man. ”

“ To dismiss the first hypothesis does not dispose of the second; and to prove that St. George was a Christian product would not dispose of the circumstance that, while the missionaries taught one thing, the folk were thinking of something else, superficially very much like it, but in fact totally different. On the supposition, then, that the main stem of the mumming-play is the St. George and Dragon legend, it places us in connection with the earliest history of our race in this country. ”

“ George with wonder. The women—they were beautiful women, slow-moving, slow-eyed, of soft laughter and sudden melancholy, and clear, serene profiles and abundant hair. And they were all alive, fully and mysteriously alive, alive to their finger-tips. It was as if in comparison all other women acted and moved in a kind of half-consciousness. It was as if, St. George thought vaguely, one were to step through the frame of a pre-Raphaelite tapestry and suddenly find its strange women rejoicing in fulfillment instead of yearning, in noon instead of dusk. ”

“ The popularity of St George in England has never reached the height attained by St Andrew in Scotland, St David in Wales or St Patrick in Ireland. The council of Oxford in 1222 ordered that his feast should be kept as a national festival ”

“ There is but one God and Christ is his greatest prophet." At that very hour were heard horrible wailing sounds coming from the mouths of idols the world over, and the statues of the old gods either all fell over or crumbled to dust. One account says that St. George knelt down and prayed, and thunder and lightning from heaven fell upon the idols and destroyed them.
Angry at the breaking of their power, the priests of the gods cried to the Emperor that he must rid himself of so potent a magician and cut off his head. The priests also incited the people to lay hands on the martyr. ”

“ Between them, 619, unknown German, Wedding Feast at Cana. That you may have no doubt as to the reality of the miracle, a servant is pouring water into the jars in the foreground. He is much the best portion of the picture. Behind are Christ, St. John, and Our Lady. Next to them, the bride and bridegroom. (Compare the Gerard David in the Louvre.)
Above it, 624, a very quaint St. George and St. Catherine, early German School, with gold background. St. George is stiffly clad in armour, and painfully conscious of his spindle legs, with a transfixed dragon and broken lance at his feet. ”

“ Then I went to hear a Frenchman who preached before the King and Queen in that splendid chapel next St. George's Hall. Their Majesties going to mass, I withdrew to consider the stupendous painting of the Hall, which, both for the art and invention, deserve the inscription in honor of the painter, Signor Verrio. The history is Edward III. receiving the Black Prince, coming toward him in a Roman triumph. The whole roof is the history of St. George. The throne, the carvings, etc., are incomparable, and I think equal to any, and in many circumstances exceeding any, I have seen abroad. ”

“ The Roman Catholic cathedral of St George is a Gothic building by A. W. Pugin, in St George's Road. Near the " Elephant and Castle " is the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the original building of which, burnt down in 1898, became famous under the Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon. ”

“ George went in, and the impression of motherly warmth was changed to one of cool emptiness. Rows of shining pews stretched from the west door to the chancel with its shining choir-stalls, and beyond in the sanctuary stood the shining altar with two shining brass candlesticks upon it.
George went to his desk and knelt down. But there was something curiously unprayerful in the atmosphere—he would have felt more at ease praying in his study or at his bedside. The emptiness of the church was something more than an emptiness of people—it was an emptiness of prayer. ”

“ Its chief feature is the Parish Church of St. George, designed by John James, begun in 1713 and consecrated in 1724, one of Queen Anne's fifty churches. The style is Classical, the body plain, but having a Corinthian portico of good proportions, and a clock-tower 100 feet high. The interior contains a good Jesse [Pg 25] window put in in 1841. In 1895 the building was redecorated, repaired, and reseated, and the old organ by Snitzler, put up in 1761, was replaced by a Hope Jones electric instrument. This church has been long celebrated for fashionable marriages. ”

“ George looked it smote him whimsically that that impassive profile was like the profiles upon the ancient coins which, almost any day, might be cast up by a passing hoof on the island mold. Indeed, St. George thought, one might almost have spent the prince's profile at a fig-stall, and the vender would have jingled it among his silver and never have detected the cheat. But in the next moment the joyous mounting of his blood running riot in audacious whimsies was checked by the even voice of the prince himself. ”