ANOTHER of the Saints of the holiday season is doubting Thomas, whose festival appropriately comes on Dec. 21, just when the child mind is almost ready to doubt the efficacy of all those letters to Santa Claus, and has more than doubts whether conduct has been so perfect as to warrant hope for the Christmas stocking.
St. Thomas seems to have remained a doubter to the end, for in the cathedral of Prato is shown the girdle of the "Madonnadella Cintola"; her ascension into heaven took place when Thomas was not with his brother apostles, whose account of the miracle he refused to believe; whereon the indignant Madonna threw her girdle back to him from heaven as evidence,—or so the legend reads,—with the girdle to prove it.
His emblem as an apostle is a builder's rule or square; possibly associated with that other legend of the king of the Indies who ordered the saint to build him a magnificent palace. On the return of the king and his discovery that the money for this building had all been given to the poor, the saint was thrown into a dungeon. Before worse befel, the king died and four days later appeared to his heir with an account of the splendid palace of gold and precious stones built for him in heaven by the charities of the saint on earth.
W. P. R.
Kriss Kringle
JUST as the moon was fading
Amid her misty rings,
And every stocking was stuffed
With childhood's precious things,