ll the world with joy and truth and light.

Well, now I will tell you what the old books say about St. George; but
we have not many details about his life, as we have about St. Francis's.

St. George lived a bit more than three hundred years after Christ. He
was the son of a Roman soldier, a Christian, stationed in Palestine,
which was a Roman colony. St. George was one of those brave,
straightforward boys who are afraid of nothing--neither of themselves
and their weakness, nor of other people and their unkindness. He
practised "not giving in to himself," like a good Cub; and he thought a
great deal of his _honour_, like a good Scout. And he knew that
everything brave or good that he ever did was by the grace of his
Captain, Christ, and not because he was any better himself than anybody
else. He could ride well, shoot an arrow straight, and use a spear or a
broadsword as well as any Roman boy. But it was not so much this as his
way of obeying quickly, and keeping his word, and never giving in to
himself, which made him rise from promotion to promotion when he joined
the Roman army.

He was still very young when he was made what we should now call a
Colonel, and given a great deal of responsibility. In fact, the Emperor
thought no end of him, and people whispered that some day he would be
head of the army and one of the most important men in the Roman Empire.
This was rather wonderful, because the Emperor, Diocletian, was a
heathen and hated Christians, and, as I told you, St. George was a very
good Christian.

In those days the Christian Church was no longer hiding in the
Catacombs, but had come out into the open, and nearly half Diocletian's
Empire was Christian. But something--probably pride--made Diocletian
hate the Christians, and he decided to do all he could to destroy the
Church of Christ, and force the people back into the old religion, and
worship a god that was really not very different from Caesar, the
Emperor, himself.

So he first tried burning down the churches, and then imprisoning the
priests and bishops. But one day he suddenly got mad, and gave an order
that if the people would not worship the Roman gods and offer incense to
them, and swear that they no longer believed in Christ, his soldiers
would kill them like beasts and leave them in the streets, as a ghastly
warning to any other fools who refused to obey.

So the soldiers went forth, sword in hand, and every man, woman, and
child who refuse