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Title: The Mother of St. Nicholas
A Story of Duty and Peril

Author: Grant Balfour

Release Date: September 2, 2010 [EBook #33607]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER OF ST. NICHOLAS ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Illustration: Cover art]

[Frontispiece: "Bearing her awful cross in the footprints of the
Nazarene."]

THE MOTHER OF ST. NICHOLAS.

(SANTA CLAUS)

A Story of Duty and Peril.

BY

GRANT BALFOUR,

Author of "The Fairy School of Castle Frank."

TORONTO:

THE POOLE PRINTING COMPANY, LIMITED,

PUBLISHERS.

Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine by A. BALFOUR GRANT, in the
office of the Minister of Agriculture.

CONTENTS

Chapter

I. Watching for the Prey
II. A Ministering Angel
III. Still on the Watch
IV. The Amphitheatre
V. The Influence Working
VI. The Indignation of Tharsos
VII. The Perplexity of Carnion
VIII. Waiting for the Victim
IX. In the Arena
X. The Lion
XI. The Man with the Dagger
XII. Discipline
XIII. Night
XIV. Day
XV. Saint Nicholas

THE MOTHER OF ST. NICHOLAS

(SANTA CLAUS).

CHAPTER I.

WATCHING FOR THE PREY.

Go back into the third century after Christ, travel east into the
famous Mediterranean Sea, survey the beautiful south-west coast of Asia
Minor, and let your eyes rest on the city of Patara. Look at it well.
Full of life then, dead and desolate now, the city has wonderful
associations in sacred and legendary lore--it saw the great reformer of
the Gentiles, and gave birth to the white-haired man of Christmas joy.

Persecution had beforetime visited Patara, in common with other parts
of the Roman Empire; and there were ominous signs, like the first
mutterings of an earthquake, that a similar calamity might come again.
The prejudice and malice of the common people were dangerously stirred
up to fight the quiet, persistent inroads of aggressive Christiani