Then Mary Christmas told them that when Saint Gregory died they cut off his right hand, which had wrought such wonders, and placed it in a silver box in the great church. The hand still wrought wonders, for when sick and suffering people and those who were troubled with care and sin came to Etchmiadzin and knelt and touched the box, they were healed. Then, she said, there was a certain good bishop who was much worried in his mind over an old sin in his boyhood--a sin which most persons would have forgotten. But he could not forget it. All his life he had wanted to atone for it in some more satisfactory way than just by holy living. When he saw the miracles wrought by the hand of the saint, he thought of the most satisfactory way in all the world. One night, when all was still within the high walls of the cathedral square in Etchmiadzin, he laid aside his bishop’s robes and put on the gray gown and hood of a pilgrim. He went to the dark church with its dim altar lights, and took the silver box, which he wrapped in purple velvet and bound with cords of gold. Kneeling by the altar in the stillness, he consecrated himself to purity of thought and act and, with the aid of holy Saint Gregory, to the service of God among those who most needed Him. He did not know just where he was going, Mary Christmas told them; but once he was outside the wall, some Power led him where It would. It took him far beyond cities and towns to high, wind-swept plains, where rough men wandered with their flocks and herds, and to secluded mountain villages whose people knew nothing of Etchmiadzin and its great church, and had never heard of the good saint. Among these people and in these villages the pilgrim lingered, and wherever he saw sorrow or sickness, he would take the silver box with its rich covering of purple and gold from beneath his shabby cloak and show it to those who needed help. Here the power of the saint was greater even than at Etchmiadzin, for those in suffering or anxiety needed but to look upon the box, and they were straightway healed. Most wonderful of all, the saint gave his miraculous help not only to people but to animals and flowers. For once when the tired pilgrim rested on the top of a high, silent hill and sang a psalm to God, he chanced to see a lamb that had fallen and was caught between two rocks. Carefully placing the silver box on the hillside, he hurried to help the poor creature. But as he drew near, he saw to his amazement the rocks that held the lamb separate, and the animal spring to its feet and frisk away. “And an old man told me once,” concluded Mary Christmas, looking at the rapt faces of the children, “what _he_ heard about the hand of holy Saint Gregory. He said that flowers and trees which wanted water in the hot summer would spring up afresh when the silver box was brought among them. So that wherever the pilgrim went, the valleys and hills blossomed and there was peace everywhere--just as on Ascension eve.”