Devil’s Slide—See [Evil, Beginnings of].
DEVIL, THE, CHOSEN
The course of some men makes it seem as if they had chosen the devil with more purpose than did this lawyer:
St. Evona, or Ives, of Brittany, a famous lawyer in 1300, was lamenting that his profession had not a patron saint to look up to. The physicians had St. Luke; the champions had St. George; the artists each had one; but the lawyers had none. Thinking that the Pope ought to bestow a saint, he went to Rome, and requested his Holiness to give the lawyers of Brittany a patron. The Pope, rather puzzled, proposed to St. Evona that he should go round the church of St. John de Lateran blindfold, and after he had said so many Ave Marias, the first saint he laid hold of should be his patron; and this solution of the difficulty the good old lawyer willingly undertook. When he had finished his Ave Marias, he stopt short, and laid his hands on the first image he came to, and cried out with joy, “This is our saint—this be our patron.” But when the bandage was taken from his eyes, what was his astonishment to find that, tho he had stopt at St. Michael’s altar, he had all the while laid hold, not of St. Michael, but of the figure under St. Michael’s feet—the devil! (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
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Devolution—See [Down Grade, The].
Devotion to a Leader—See [Kindness Stimulating Devotion].
Devotion to Christ—See [Christ’s Face].
Devotion to Duty—See [Faithfulness]; [Life, A Devoted].
Devotion to Science—See [Science, Devotion to].