“Yes,” said the old gentleman, “and he was considered the patron of students, from the following story:—St. Nicholas was Bishop of Myra, and an Asiatic gentleman, sending his two sons to be educated at Athens, desired them to call upon St. Nicholas at Myra to receive his benediction. They intended to do so, but unfortunately the landlord of the Inn where they put up, perceiving that they had plenty of money, murdered them in their sleep, and cutting their bodies into pieces, salted them, and put them into a pickling tub, used for pickling pork. St. Nicholas had a vision of this in a dream; and going the following morning to the Innkeeper, he desired him to show him the tub where he kept his pickled pork. The Innkeeper at first endeavoured to excuse himself, but, at length, he was compelled to obey; when St. Nicholas, uttering a prayer, the mangled pieces of the poor young men jumped out of the tub, and re-uniting themselves, fell at the feet of the holy bishop, thanking him for having restored them to life. It is on this account that, in ancient pictures, Saint Nicholas is generally represented with two naked children in a tub.”
“I think I have heard, when on the Continent,” said Mrs. Merton, “that St. Nicholas was also the patron of young girls; and that in convents, when the novices had behaved well, it was pretended that he had stuffed their stockings with sugar plums during the night.”
“Yes,” returned the old gentleman, “and nearly the same fiction was resorted to by parents; who, when they wished to make presents to their children, used to tell them that, if they left their windows open at night, and had been quite good, St. Nicholas would come through the open window and leave them something pretty or nice.”
“How very strange!” cried Agnes; “I should have thought the parents would like to give the presents themselves, and see how happy they made their little children. Besides, was it not very wicked to tell falsehoods?”
“I consider it so,” said Mrs. Merton; “as I think we should never do what is bad even when we think it will produce good. We are all naturally so prone to do evil, that it is necessary to keep the boundary line between what is right and what is wrong as distinct as possible. This principle was not, however, so clearly understood formerly, as it is now; and thus children of the present day have great advantages over those of the preceding generation.”