SANTA CLAUS. 
441 
a number of instances they have left the case still open to inves- 
tigation to the present hour, and among other cases of this kind 
stands that of Sanctus Klaas, or St. Nicholas. In the mean 
time, until the question should bo finally settled, his anniversary 
was to be kept in Holland, and the children, in the little hymn 
they used to sing in his honor, were permitted to address him as 
“ goedt heijligh man " — good holy man. It appears that it was 
not so much at Christmas, as on the eve of his own festival, that 
he was supposed to drive his wagon over the roofs, and down 
the chimneys, to fill little people’s stockings. For these facts, 
our authority is the Benson Memoir. A number of years since, 
it may be thirty or forty. Judge Benson, so well known to the 
old New Yorkers as the highest authority upon all Dutch chap- 
ters, had a quantity of regular “ cookies” made, and the little hymn 
said by the children in honor of St. Nicholas, printed in Dutch 
and sent a supply of each as a Christmas present to the children 
of his particular friends. But though we have heard of this 
hymn, we have never yet been able to meet with it. Probably it 
is still in existence, among old papers in some garret or store- 
room. 
Strange indeed has been the two-fold metamorphosis under- 
gone by the pious, ancient Bishop of Patara. We have every 
reason to believe that there once lived a saintly man of that name 
and charitable character, but, as in many other cases, the wonders 
told of him by the monkish legends are too incredible to be re- 
ceived upon the evidence which accompanies them. Then later, 
in a day of revolutions, we find every claim disputed, and the 
pious, Asiatic bishop appears before us no longer a bishop, no 
longer an Asiatic, no longer connected with the ancient world, 
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