As the answer is not apparent on the surface, let us turn to the other legend. We shall have to confess however that the story of the three schoolboys miraculously restored to life after they had been cut up and salted down, helps us even less than does the story of the three purses. It is simply one of a whole group of stories wherein Saint Nicholas appears as the friend and benefactor of children. In this respect only does he resemble our Santa Klaus. In all the characteristics which modern painters and story tellers, in America, in Holland and in Germany, have bestowed upon the jolly saint of the Christmas season he differs entirely from the slender and even emaciated Nicholas, clad in the robes of a bishop, with a mitre on his head and a crozier in his hand, whom the early painters were fond of depicting. So the legends of Saint Nicholas afford but a slight clew to the origin of Santa Klaus,--alike, indeed, in name but so unlike in all other respects. Let us turn elsewhere. In Germany and to a certain extent in America the name Christ-Kinkle or Kriss-Kingle is looked upon as another name for Santa Klaus. But in fact history teaches us that is a far different Being, though the two have been welded into one in the popular imagination. [Illustration: Christ the giver. Painting by Murillo.] A very small knowledge of German reveals the fact that Christ-Kinkle is simply a “corruption” or mistaken pronunciation of the German word Christ-Kindlein which in English means Christ-child. Now the connection of the Christ-child with the gift-giving season is obvious enough. In the first place He is the hero of Christmas day itself. Born a human child He ever preserved a great love for young people. “Suffer little children to come unto me,” He said, “for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” The old masters were fond of painting Him as a child among children. In nearly all the famous pictures which Raphael, the greatest of Italian artists, painted of the Holy Family or of the Madonna and Child, the infant Jesus is accompanied by the infant Saint John as friend and playmate. CHAPTER IV THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTMAS Now I must own that at first sight it is difficult to explain how the Christ-child of the past--the Holy One whose birth is remembered and honored in that feast which we call Christmas, should gradually have been changed into the white-haired, white-bearded, merry-hearted and kindly old pagan whom we sometimes call Christ-Kinkle but more frequently Santa Klaus. Yet at the very moment when we come face to face with this difficult problem we have reached the explanation which seemed impossible when we strove to understand the much less startling transformation of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, into Santa Klaus, patron of the Christmas season.