St. Nicholas (magazine)

“ Nicholas” inherited the good-will and patronage of the earlier magazine. The orange-colored periodical bore her name, and those of Gail Hamilton and Trowbridge, and usually contained a ballad or prose sketch by her, or else she contributed some of the answers in the “Letter Box.” Her work was performed with conscientiousness and good taste; her sympathy with child-life made her a valuable assistant in making the magazine popular. She was interested in its success: “‘Our Young Folks’ greatly delights grown people everywhere. ”

“ You are my own book. I pay for you with money I have earned myself. My little sister wonders whenever she sees St. Nicholas what the Brownies are doing in it. Mamma is much interested in "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and we like it too, and all the rest of your stories, but especially "The Gilded Boy of Florence," because we know the man who wrote it and have heard him preach. He says all he wrote in that story is true. Good-bye.
Ever your faithful reader,
C. Lizzie B.
London, England. ”

“ And, in fact, the zeal of these pious mountaineers seems to be tempered with very little knowledge, for they look upon Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of their country and race, as an absolute deity, and are in the habit of praying to Christ to intercede for them with Saint Nicholas. ”

“ Mary Mapes Dodge, that there is nothing too good for children, and the boys and girls who read St. Nicholas are really getting the very best writing and the finest pictures that can be had. Its circulation is worldwide. In England, where it has had a large monthly sale for several years, six copies are said to be taken in the household of the Prince of Wales. The Queen of Italy reads it every month to her children. A book was recently issued in the Arabic language, and printed at Beirut, Syria, made up of poems and stories translated from St. ”

“ Nicholas in good time came into the ancient _Colonie_, which being, as it were, at the outskirts of Fort Orange, was inhabited by many people not well to do in the world. He descended the chimney of an old weatherworn house that bore evident marks of poverty, for he is not one of those saints that hanker after palaces and turn their backs on their friends. It is his pleasure to seek out and administer to the innocent gratifications of those who are obliged to labour all the year round, and can only spare time to be merry at Christmas and Newyear. He is indeed the poor man's saint. ”

“ Nicholas is not only the patron saint of youths, but is himself a youthful saint. His most distinctive deeds, at least the deeds about the memory of which have most been interwoven popular customs, are deeds performed by him as a young man. The distinctive feature about his election as bishop was that he was elected when a mere youth. ”

“ The good man just about to enter the narrow house never defrauded his neighbour, never shut his door on the stranger, never did an unkind action, nor ever refused a kind one either to friend or foe. His heart was all goodness, his faith all purity, his morals all blameless, yea, all praiseworthy. Such a man deserves the highest title that can be bestowed on man. Join me then, my friends, old and young—men, women, and children, in blessing his memory as _the good Saint Nicholas_ ”

“ One might think that to be a patron of the world’s children would keep one saint pretty busy, even if it did not exhaust his energies. Not so with Saint Nicholas. He occupies his spare moments as the protector of the weak against the strong, of the poor against the rich, of the servant and the slave against the master. Because he once calmed a storm he is the patron of travellers and sailors and of many seaport towns. ”

“ Numbers issued on the 25th; for sale by all dealers; price 25 cents. Subscription price, $3.00 a year. Subscriptions are taken by dealers and postmasters, or remittance may be made direct to the publishers, THE CENTURY CO. 33 East 17th Street, New-York.
A Michigan mother (and competent critic) writes to the Editor of "St. Nicholas": "I am convinced that no child who is without 'St. Nicholas' can successfully compete in the race of life with those who have had the benefit of its wonderful pages." ”

“ Nicholas the fact has been kept constantly prominent that St. Nicholas is more famed for deeds than for doctrine. His rôle was not in general that of the apostle extending the boundaries of Christendom nor that of the expounder of creed. His fame rests on his kindly acts. But it was inevitable that the authority of so beloved and so influential a personage should be invoked in support of orthodoxy. In the Golden Legend mere mention is made of the presence of St. Nicholas at that meeting of critical importance, the Council of Nice. ”

“ In a romantic situation, one quarter of an hour from the village of Sparta in Elis, stands a fine monastery dedicated to St. Nicholas. Every year on the 10th of May—the anniversary of the finding of the saint’s ikon—there come to the monastery thousands of worshipers from all parts of the Peloponnese, who bring various offerings to the saint and remain several days in the romantic monastery, worshiping the wonder-working ikon and celebrating the annual festival. ”

“ In parts of France he has inherited different qualities; his name is [Pg 140] given to a water spirit, a veritable ogre in its malevolence. In many other countries, including our own, he has inherited the pleasant rôle of children’s benefactor. If one wishes to gain a realization of how popular heroic conceptions are formed, one should compare the many-sided St. Nicholas known in our own day in the various countries of Christendom with the simple figure, as clearly as one may distinguish it, of the kindly youth that was born at Patras in Asia Minor in the early days of Christianity. ”

“ Amos Shuttle, and Mrs. Doubletrouble, and Mrs. Hubblebubble, and all their wicked abetters, had shut up their doors and windows, so that when their old friends called they could not get into their houses. Moreover, they had prepared neither mince pies, nor oily cooks, nor crullers, nor any of the good things consecrated to St. Nicholas by his pious and well-intentioned votaries, and they were mightily pleased at having been as dull and stupid as owls, while all the rest of the city were as merry as crickets, chirping and frisking in the warm chimney corner. ”

“ Everybody has heard of St. Nicholas, that honest Dutch saint, whom I look upon as having been one of the most liberal, good-natured little fat fellows in the world. But, strange as it may seem, though everybody has heard, nobody seems to know anything about him. The place of his birth, the history of his life, and the manner in which he came to be the dispenser of Newyear cakes, and the patron of good boys, are matters that have hitherto not been investigated, as they ought to have been long and long ago. ”

“ To many of the books the prices he gave for them, or at which they were then valued, are affixed: a "Summa Prædicantium" is valued at eight marks, and a "Burley super Politices" at seven marks. We may suspect monk Nicholas of being rather a curi [204] ous collector in his way, for we find in his library some interesting volumes of popular literature. He probably found much pleasure in perusing his copy of the marvelous tale of "Beufys of Hampton," and the romantic "Mort d'Arthur," both sufficiently interesting to relieve the monotonous vigils of the monastery. ”

“ Now stories concerning Saint Nicholas abound in almost every country of Europe, for almost every country except Great Britain is interested in his name and fame. He may, indeed, be called the busiest of all the saints. In the first place legend makes him the patron saint of children all over the world, no matter of what sex or color or station in life. Ever childlike and humble, so we are told by a quaint old author, “he keepeth the name of a child, for he chose to keep the virtues of meekness and simpleness. ”

“ Soon afterwards Nicholas made up his mind to enter God's service as a priest. He longed above all things to leave the world and live as a hermit in the desert, but God came to him in a vision and told him he must stay in the crowded cities and do his work among the people. ”

“ The churches dedicated to Saint Nicholas in Catholic countries are especially dear to people who make their living out of the sea. Sailors and fishermen when ashore frequent them, and if they have just escaped from any of the perils of the deep they show gratitude to their patron by hanging up on the church walls what are known as votive pictures. ”

“ The light flashed so brightly in the face of the little ones and their mother, that they awoke, and seeing the cheerful blaze, arose in their miserable clothing, which they had worn to aid in keeping them warm, and hied as fast as they could to bask in its blessed warmth. So eager were they, that for a while they were unconscious of the presence of a stranger, although St. Nicholas had now assumed his proper person, that he might not be taken for some one of those diabolical wizards who, being always in mischief, are ashamed to show their faces among honest people. ”

“ There was once a nobleman who had no children and who longed for a son above everything else in the world. Night and day he prayed to Saint Nicholas that he would grant him his request, and at last a son was born. He was a beautiful child, and the father was so delighted and so grateful to the saint who had listened to his prayers that, every year on the child’s birthday, he made a great feast in honour of Saint Nicholas and a grand service was held in the church. ”

“ Nicholas’ day has lost much of the ceremony that was once associated with it. Even in countries like Belgium and Holland, where the day is a great folk festival, there is little to connect the day with the story of the beloved bishop-saint. “Sinterklaes” is better known than St. Nicholas. In early days the case was different. Particularly in the centuries immediately following the transfer of the St. Nicholas relics to Italy, the time when the vogue of the eastern saint reached its height in the countries of western Europe, in many ways his story was kept fresh in the popular memory. ”

“ CLAAS SCHLASCHENSCHLINGER.
Thrice blessed St. Nicholas! may thy memory and thine honours endure for ever and a day! It is true that certain arch calumniators, such as Romish priests, and the like, have claimed thee as a Catholic saint, affirming, with unparalleled insolence, that ever since the pestilent heresy of the illustrious John Calvin, there hath not been so much as a single saint in the Reformed Dutch Church. But beshrew these keepers of fasts, and other abominations, the truth is not, never was, nor ever will be in their mouths, or their hearts! ”

“ In 1447 Nicholas V became pope, and during his eight years of pontificate initiated a movement of sympathy with modern art and letters that was never to be extinguished. To him more than to any other may be attributed the foundation of the Vatican Library. To him also is attributed the famous expression that "no art can be too lofty for the service of the Church." ”

“ Barbarus in reply renounces heathen faith and praises God, the maker of heaven and earth and sea, Who has forgiven his sin.
The printed text of the little play is simple enough, but the easy swing of the series of Latin songs and the French refrains offering opportunity for choral participation, the beating of the [Pg 98] image, and the impromptu comedy “business” which choir boys might be counted on to supply, would provide as much entertainment at a church festival to-day as they doubtless did in the St. Nicholas’ eve celebration of the twelfth century. ”

“ Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend,
To praise you ever is my end.
If you will presents to me give
I’ll serve you till I cease to live.
It was about the middle of the nineteenth century that the funny men of America took the Saint under [218] their special patronage. In Holland he had been austere and dignified, as became a bishop and a saint. In America he developed into the fat, jolly, pot-bellied old roysterer whom we all know and love and who reminds us at so many points of the fun loving Silenus of Pagan times. ”

“ There is one modern Greek story of St. Nicholas as patron saint of seamen which deserves to be told because it shows the occasional survival, in the popular worship of saints, of pagan elements which the Christian Church could not countenance. The story, as told by an old Greek man, is to this effect: “At the time of the Revolution a number of Greek ships assembled off Kamári. There was great excitement and trepidation. So they thought things over and decided to send a man to St. Nicholas to ask him that their ships might prosper in the war. ”

“ This story, although, so far as known, it does not form the subject of any of the St. Nicholas plays presented by medieval schoolboys, certainly possesses dramatic quality. The first intervention by the protecting saint provides suspense like that before the arrival of a reprieve on the stroke of twelve in a modern melodrama. The scene is strikingly presented in one of the Santa Croce frescoes. One of the young men is represented kneeling blindfolded awaiting the death stroke. ”

“ If there were no other, the miracle of the pickled children would be sufficient to establish Nicholas’s fame as the patron of youth, and we find his festival day was selected by scholars, and the children of the church, for a remarkable exhibition about to be described.
Anciently on the 6th of December, it being St. Nicholas’s day, the choir boys in cathedral churches, chose one of their number to maintain the state and authority of a bishop, for which purpose the boy was habited in rich episcopal robes, wore a mitre on his head, and bore a crosier in his hand ”