A Strange Legend.
We are told that when St. Helena had discovered the true cross of Christ, she permitted various fragments to be taken from it, which were encased, some in gold and some in gems, and conveyed to Europe, leaving the main part of the wood in the charge of the Bishop of Jerusalem, who exhibited it annually at Easter, until Chosroes, King of Persia, plundered Jerusalem in the reign of Phocas, and took away the holy relic. Before this fatal event we are taught to believe, by Rigordus, an historian of the thirteenth century, that the mouths of Christians used to be supplied with thirty teeth, and in some instances, no doubt according to their faith, with thirty-two teeth; but that after the cross was stolen by the infidels no mortal has ever been allowed more than twenty-three!