St. Thomas, called _Didymus_ (the twin), takes, as apostle, the seventh place. He was a Galilean and a fisherman, and we find him distinguished among the apostles on two occasions recorded in the Gospel. When Jesus was going up to Bethany, being then in danger from the Jews, Thomas said, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ (John, xi. 16, xx. 25.) After the resurrection, he showed himself unwilling to believe in the reappearance of the crucified Saviour without ocular demonstration: this incident is styled the Incredulity of Thomas. From these two incidents we may form some idea of his character: courageous and affectionate, but not inclined to take things for granted; or, as a French writer expresses it, ‘brusque et résolu, mais d’un esprit exigeant.’ After the ascension, St. Thomas travelled into the East, preaching the Gospel in far distant countries towards the rising sun. It is a tradition received in the Church, that he penetrated as far as India; that there meeting with the three Wise Men of the East, he baptized them; that he founded a church in India, and suffered martyrdom there. It is related, that the Portuguese found at Meliapore an ancient inscription, purporting that St. Thomas had been pierced with a lance at the foot of a cross which he had erected in that city, and that in 1523 his body was found there and transported to Goa. In Correggio’s fresco of St. Thomas as protector of Parma he is surrounded by angels bearing exotic fruits, as expressing his ministry in India. There are a number of extravagant and poetical legends relating to St. Thomas. I shall here limit myself to those which were adopted in ecclesiastical decoration, and treated by the artists of the middle ages. When St. Thomas figures as apostle, alone or with others, in all the devotional representations which are not prior to the thirteenth century he carries as his attribute the builder’s rule, of this form— [Illustration] Now, as he was a fisherman, and neither a carpenter nor a mason, the origin of this attribute must be sought in one of the most popular legends of which he is the subject. [Illustration: 81 St. Thomas the Apostle]