St. Nicholas is also the patron saint of the Russians, some of the Czars
of that mighty Empire having been named after him. While St. Catherine
is the patron saint of the girls, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of
the boys, and strange to relate is also the patron saint of parish
clerks, who were formerly called "scholars."
When pictured in Christian art this saint is dressed in the robe of a
bishop, with three purses, or three golden balls, or three children. The
three purses represent those given by him to three sisters to enable
them to marry; but we did not know the meaning of the three golden
balls, unless it was that they represented the money the purses
contained. My brother suggested they might have some connection with the
three golden balls hanging outside the pawnbrokers' shops. Afterwards we
found St. Nicholas was the patron saint of that body. But the three
children were all boys, who once lived in the East, and being sent to a
school at Athens, were told to call on St. Nicholas on their way for his
benediction. They stopped for the night at a place called Myra, where
the innkeeper murdered them for their money and baggage, and placed
their mangled bodies in a pickling-tub, intending to sell them as pork.
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