As every trade or profession had its patron saint, so the beggars made choice of St Martin, who appears to have had a great regard for them. This person was originally a soldier of rank in the armies of the Emperors Constantius and Julian, but preferring a religious life, he applied to Saint Hilary, of Poitou, who appointed him his sub-deacon; and soon afterwards becoming a saint himself, he of course acquired the power of working miracles, many of which, with much other legendary matter, have been related by his credulous but elegant historian, Sulpitius Severus, and transferred, with due additions and improvements, into that grand repertory of pious frauds, the Golden Legend, and some other works of similar authority. It is related of him, that when a soldier, as he passed by one of the gates of Amiens in winter time, he met a poor naked man, on whom none would bestow alms. Martin drew out his sword, and cutting his mantle asunder in the middle, gave one half to the poor man, having nothing else to bestow on him, contenting himself with the remainder to keep him from the cold. On the ensuing night he saw the Saviour of the world in heaven, clothed with that part which he had given to the poor man, and exclaiming to the angels that surrounded him, "Martin, yet new in the faith, hath covered me with this vesture." Ever afterwards he became particularly attached to beggars and poor people. The cripples and lepers seem, however, to have made exclusive choice of St Giles for their patron, to whom the hospitals and other places for their relief were usually dedicated. So the parish church of Cripplegate was dedicated to him; and the ward itself, named after a very ancient gate to which the crippled beggars particularly resorted. There would be some difficulty to account for their preference of this Saint, as he does not appear to have been either lame or leprous. He was a noble Christian, born at Athens, a man of singular charity, giving largely to the poor, and on one occasion doing more than St Martin, by giving the _whole_ of his coat to a diseased and naked beggar, who is said to have been immediately healed on putting it on.