ST. GEORGE AGAIN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3676, 26 April 1883, Page 3

ST. GEORGE AGAIN.

[To the Editor of the Daily Telegeaph.] Sir,—lt is an interesting thing to sec authorities tested. At the present time avo have Gibbon, Nicbuhr, and " Quintilianus " on the one side, and Albau Butler, Haydcu's Dictionary, and A. D. Mulvihill on the other. There is no accounting for tastes, and some people Avill believe in Gibbon and others in Alban Butler. As for mo, I like saints, and cannot have too many of them. Disgusted Avith the faithlessness of the age I think AAdth regret of "Good King Dagobcrt's palmy days, When saints Avere many and sins Avere fW." Look at St. Basil's usefulness ! There avus a poor love-lorn sAvain avlio sold his soul to the DeA-il to get the girl he loved, aud signed a bond as security. But at the nick of time in came St. Basil, proves the bond worthless, and saves the sinner. Then there was St. Nicholas, avlio pitched money-bags in at the chamber-Avindows of penniless maidens to save them from dishonorable spinstcrhood. And St. Gildas, avlio looked after the daft folk. And St, Patrick, Avho cleared Ireland of vermin. And St. Genevieve. Avho preserved Paris from famine Alban Butler will tell the curious and doubtful reader of things as strange as these and stranger. A fig then for the dicta of Gibbon and the ipse ''/(.•■its of Niebnhr. What are they compared to the treasures of eighteen centuries of enthusiastic faith, croAvned Avith A. D. Muh-ihill's beautiful idea that the Reformation loft untouched as a precious vestige of Catholicism the pious observance by bankers of St. George's day ? If he can believe that, he can believe anything. Noav, although I like saints, I must have real ones. They must be genuine Old Masters, and the aureoles round their heads must fit properly. The A _tiean has not done a large business in saints lately, because candidates have not come up to the oldfashioned walk-a-mile-with-your-head-cut-oif standard. AYe cannot have any saints whoso performances are not guaranteed. Noav, lioav do matters stand Avith St. George ? LeaAdng out his dragon as chimerical, it is alleged —1. That there Avas once, some time in the third century, a proper genuine St. George (an luidoubtedly holy vessel, Al at the Lloyd's of that date.) 2. That saint cotdd not have been George tho Arian. First, "a little bit" saintly, and, secondly, because he lived at a later date than the real St. George. The bone of the contention is in the assertion " that there Avas once, kc 1 ' This is Avhat we fake leave to doubt, since the more enquiries aro made about this saint the more :nythical he appears. He seeems, for instance, to have had tAvo heads. At any rate Ferrara claimed one of them, and the toAVii of Marcs-Moutier iv Ficardy another, while according to the Percy Reliques he aud his belonged to Coventry—the famous champion being the son of Lord Albert of Coventry, and a doughty leader against the infidels. King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Thomas the Rhymer have as good a claim to recognition as Diocletian's favorite and the Church's martyr. Ho must, it is feared, be put in the same list with St. Ursula's imaginary eleven thousand A-irgiu-inartyrs of Cologne.—l am, Sec, X. April 26, 1883.