December 6th. St. Nicholas.

Substantial information about St. Nicholas is that he was a bishop of Myra, in S. W. Turkey, in the 4th century. When the Moslems cane to Myra in tbe 11th century his relics were taken to Bari in Italy, where the fine church of San Nicola was built to house them. It was from this time that his popularity spread. Various incidents recorded in the 'Acts' of St. Nicholas explain his patronage of different groups: of children, through his miraculously restoring to life three boys murdered by a butcher; of sailors, through his saving of three of them off the Turkish coast; of young women through his providing three of them with a bag of gold each as a dowry to save them from prostitution (this being the origin of the pawnbroker's sign of three golden balls). He is also, via his patronage of children, Santa Claus, a custom originating in the Low Countries and taken to North America by Dutch settlers. St. Nicholas is the secondary patron of the city of Portsmouth.