est the cause of orthodoxy should suffer in the
council by the ignorance or awkwardness of the Shepherd of Cyprus when
opposed to the subtleties of the Alexandrian heretic. Accordingly,
taking advantage of his encounter, they determined to throw a decisive
impediment in his way. They cut off the heads of his two mules, and
then, as is the custom in oriental travelling, started on their journey
before sunrise. Spyridion also rose, but was met by his terrified deacon
announcing the unexpected disaster. On arriving at the spot the saint
bade the deacon attach the heads to the dead bodies. He did so, and at a
sign from the bishop the two mules with their restored heads shook
themselves as if from a deep sleep, and started to their feet. Spyridion
and the deacon mounted and soon overtook the travellers. As the day
broke the prelates and the deacon were alike astonished at seeing that
he, performing the annexation in the dark and in haste, had fixed the
heads on the wrong shoulders, so that the white mule had now a chestnut
head, and the chestnut mule had the head of its white companion. Thus
the miracle was doubly attested, the bishops doubly discomfited, and the
simplicity of Spyridion doubly exemplified.

Many more stories might be told of him, but, to use the words of an
ancient writer who has related some of them, "from the claws you can
make out the lion." Of all the Nicene fathers, it may yet be said that
in a certain curious sense he is the only one who has survived the decay
of time. After resting for many years in his native Cyprus his body was
transferred to Constantinople, where it remained till a short time
before the fall of the empire. It was thence conveyed to Corfu, where it
is still preserved. Hence by a strange resuscitation of fame he has
become the patron saint, one might almost say the divinity, of the
Ionian Islands. Twice a year in solemn procession he is carried round
the streets of Corfu. Hundreds of Corfutes bear his name, now abridged
into the familiar diminutive of "Spiro." The superstitious veneration
entertained for the old saint is a constant source of quarrel between
the English residents and the native Ionians. But the historian may be
pardoned for gazing with a momentary interest on the dead hands, now
black and withered, that subscribed the Creed of Nicaea.

Still more famous--and still more apocryphal, at least in his attendance
at Nicaea--is Nicolas, bishop of Myra. Not mentioned by a sin