And how many other fairy tales, some of them no less touching, have been woven about the name of this popular hero, the only man of his day whose memory is still green in the city of Brussels! And yet throughout his whole career no deeds which the world calls great are recorded of him. His life for the most part seems to have been an even and uneventful one. He soon gave up farm labour, and for many years he was sacristan to the little church at Laeken, now a populous suburb of Brussels, then a hamlet just outside the town. The last ten years of his life he spent in making two pilgrimages to Jerusalem and in travelling over Europe to visit famous shrines. All these journeys were made on foot, and doubtless they were not devoid of adventure, but his earliest biographer, who wrote nearly a hundred years after his death, has little to tell us on this head. In the fall of the year 1012 he returned to his native village, and in pitiable plight, worn out with want and fever and the wear and tear of the road. The canons of Anderlecht received him into their hospice, where he was tenderly cared for, for nine days, and then at last, on the 12th of September, he set out for Jerusalem the Golden. He loved God with his whole heart, of his penury he ministered to those who were poorer than himself, and he did what he could in his small way to sweeten and soften the hard lot of his neighbours. Even during his lifetime he was regarded as a saint: his anonymous biographer informs us that when Dean Wonedulph of Anderlecht and a company of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem encountered him unexpectedly at Rome 'they fell down on their faces and adored him,' and when he lay dying in the hospice of the canons of Anderlecht, Heaven itself, so runs the legend, miraculously proclaimed his sancity. A heavenly light filled the room in which he lay, a white dove hovered over his head, and a voice was heard saying: 'Veniat dilectus meus ad percipiendam æternæ jocunditatis coronam.' [Illustration: Subterranean Church of St. Guy at Anderlecht] Strangely enough 'the poor man of Anderlecht' at one time seriously thought of embarking in trade. Satan, in the guise of a rich Brussels merchant, would fain have persuaded the saint, then sexton of Laeken, to enter into partnership with him, cunningly representing that by so doing he would soon make a fortune, and thus be the better able to help the poor, and Guy fell into the trap; but it was not God's will that His servant should imperil his soul in so hazardous a calling, and hardly had he started on his first journey down Senne, when his craft grounded on a sandbank in mid stream, and, notwithstanding all their efforts, the boatmen were unable to float it; and, worse still, when the saint himself vainly seized the barge-pole it miraculously adhered to his fingers, nor could he unclasp them until he had made a solemn vow to utterly eschew commerce.