They
had long flowing hair, and forked beards cut into two points, excepting
Saint John, who was beardless, and Saint Paul, who, tradition says, was
bald; and they were all dressed alike in cloaks hanging in formal
curves. Saint James the Great was alone distinguished by a tunic
sprinkled with shells, like that of the pilgrims who were wont to visit
him at Compostella in one of the huge sanctuaries erected in his honour
in Mediaeval times.

He was the patron Saint of Spain; but did he really ever preach in those
lands, as Saint Jerome and Saint Isidor assert, and the Toledo Breviary?
Some doubt it. At any rate his story, as related by Durand of Mende, in
the thirteenth century, was as follows: Being sent into Spain to convert
the idolaters, he failed, and returned to Jerusalem, where he was
beheaded by Herod. His body was subsequently carried to Spain, and his
remains performed such miracles as he had never wrought in his lifetime.

"Indeed," reflected Durtal, "we have singularly little information with
regard to the Apostles. They appear, for the most part, only
incidentally in the Gospels; and excepting a few--Saint Peter, Saint
John, and Saint Paul--whose figures are more or less definite, they
float past like shades, lost, veiled as it were, in the halo of glory
shed about Him by Jesus Christ. And after His death they vanish into
thin air, and their very existence is only sketched in a few vague
legends.

"Take Saint Thomas, the Treasure of God, as Saint Bridget calls him:
where was he born? We are not told. What were the circumstances and
reasons of his call? None knows. In what lands did he preach the new
faith? Here disputes begin. Some report him among the Medes, the
Parthians, the Persians, in Ethiopia, in Hindustan. He is commonly
represented with a cubit-measure and a square, for it is said that he
built a church at Meliapore; for which reason he was taken in the Middle
Ages as the patron Saint of architects and masons.

"According to the Roman Breviary he was killed at Calamine by a
spear-thrust; according to the Golden Legend he was killed with the
sword in an uncertainly described place; the Portuguese assert that they
have his relics at Goa, the chief of their Indian possessions.

"In the thirteenth century this saint was regarded as the type of
perverse disbelief. Not satisfied with having failed to believe in
Christ until he had seen and put his finger into His wounds, he was
equally incredulous,