Chapter Saint's Everlasting Rest of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

N.B.—His body is said to be at Valencia, in Spain; one of his arms at Compostella; a jaw-bone at Astorga; a shoulder at St. Peter’s, in Rome; and a tooth and rib at Venice. His day is May 9 in the Greek Church, and July 25 in the Latin. Of course, “the Christ-bearer” is an allegory based on the name “Christopher.” The gigantic bones called his relics may serve to give reality to the fable.

(His name before conversion was Offerus, but after he carried Christ across the ford, it was called Christ- Offerus, shortened into Christopher, which means “the Christ-bearer.”)

St. Clare (Augustin), the kind, indulgent master of uncle Tom. He was beloved by all his slaves.

Miss Evangeline St. Clare, daughter of Mr. St. Clare. Evangeline was the good angel of the family, and was adored by uncle Tom. Her death is touchingly told.

Miss Ophelia St. Clare, cousin of Augustin. She is a New England Puritan.—Mrs. Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).

St. Clement’s Eve, a drama by sir Henry Taylor (1862). The heroine is Iolande, who tries to cure the king by dipping her finger in the sacred contents of a vial, but fails, because she is in love with a married man, and the cure can be effected only by a pure virgin.

St. Distaff, an imaginary saint, to whom January 7 or Twelfth Day is consecrated.

Partly worke and partly play
You must on St. Distaff’s Day;
Give St. Distaff all the right,
Then give Christmas sport good night.

Wit Asporting in a Pleasant Grove of New Fancies (1657).

St. Elmo’s Fires, those electric lights seen playing about the masts of ships in stormy weather.

And sudden bursting on their raptured sight,
Appeared the splendour of St. Elmo’s light.

Ariosto: Orlando Furioso, ix. (1516).

In 1696 M. de Forbes saw more than thirty feux St. Elme on his ship.

Æneas tells Dido that these elec tric lights danced about the head of his son Iulus when they left the burning city of Troy.

Ecce levis summo de vertice visus Iuli
Fundere lumen apex, tactuque innoxia molis
Lambere flamma comas et circum tempora pasci.

Virgil: Æneid, ii. 682-4.

Lo! harmless flames upon Iulus’ head,

While we embraced the boy, from heaven were shed, Played in his hair and on his temples fed.

St. Etienne. There are sixty-nine places in France so called. A Paris newspaper stated that the “receiver of St. Etienne” had embezzled £4000, whereupon all the tax-gatherers of the sixty-nine places called St. Etienne brought separate actions against the paper, and the editor had to pay each one a hundred francs damages, besides fine and costs.—Standard, February 24, 1879.

St. Filumena or Filomena, a new saint of the Latin Church. Sabatelli has a picture of this nineteenth- century saint, representing her as hovering over a group of sick and maimed, who are healed by her intercession. In 1802 a grave was found in the cemetery of St. Priscilla, and near it three tiles, with these words, in red letters—