Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/724

 712 SAINT GEORGE LAKE GEORGE tailed on the offender the most cruel punish- ment. Reverence for the sufferer soon ex- tended through Phoenicia, Palestine, and the whole East. A Greek inscription dated 346, on a very ancient church at Ezra, in Syria, mentions George as a holy martyr. Constan- tine the Great huilt a church over the tomb of the saint between Lydda and Ramleh ; and the latter place, which claimed also to be his birthplace, was then called Georgia. In Con- stantinople a temple of Juno was converted by the same emperor into a church of St. George, to which his remains were translated. About the same time the name of "St. George's arm " was bestowed upon the Hellespont. In Rome, Palermo, and Naples churches also bore his name from a very early date. Queen Clotilde in 509 founded in his honor a convent at Chelles, and Clovis II. a convent at Baralle in Normandy. St. George was honored in England during the Anglo-Saxon period. Un- der Canute a monastery of St. George was founded at Thetford ; St. George's, Southwark, was built a little later ; and in the reign of the Conqueror there was a collegiate church of St. George in Oxford. England, Aragon, Portugal, and Genoa chose him as their patron. In 1222 a council held at Oxford ordained that St. George's day should be a national holiday. In 1470 Frederick of Austria insti- tuted an order of knighthood called after him. About 1350 Edward III. made him the patron of the order of the garter. St. George is also the patron saint of Russia. St. George slaying the dragon was the cognizance of the grand dukes until the marriage of Ivan III. with the Greek princess Sophia, when the two-headed eagle, the Byzantine emblem, was adopted. It is still the emblem of Moscow. The Rus- sian order of St. George was founded by Catharine II. in 1769. Besides the universal veneration in which he is held by Christians in the East, especially in Georgia, the Moham- medans revere him under the appellations of Ghergis and El-Khouder. The historian John Cantacuzenus enumerates several shrines erect- ed by them in his honor; and Dean Stanley found a chapel on the seashore near Sarafend (ancient Sarepta) dedicated to El-Khouder. The George whose relics are shown in St. Germain- des-Pre*s, Paris, is a Syrian deacon martyred in Spain in 852 ; but his name is not in the Roman martyrology. The honor paid to St. George the martyr was sanctioned by Pope Gelasius I. in 494, in a council at Rome ; but the " acts " were rejected as unworthy of credit. The crusaders found him honored by the Greeks with the surname of TropceopTioros or Victori- ous. He is generally represented, according to a comparatively modern legend, as slaying a dragon sent by a magician Athanasius to devour a princess Alexandria. This came from his being confounded with George of Cappadocia. II. Called the Fuller, the Arian, and George of Cappadocia, born in Epipha- neia, Cilicia, about 300, died in Alexandria toward the close of 361. From the fuller's shop kept by his father, he is said by Ammia- nus to have raised himself to opulence by un- worthy means. He collected a valuable libra- ry, became the leader of the Arians in Asia Minor, and through the influence of Constan- tius was chosen in 356 bishop of Alexandria, while Athanasius was still living. He and his military supporters persecuted their religious opponents, pillaged the pagan temples, ruined commerce by monopolizing all trade, and pro- posed the impost of a heavy tax on house- holds. Driven from the city by the revolted inhabitants, he was restored by military force ; but on the accession of Julian he and his two principal followers were imprisoned by the pa- gans, and after 24 days w T ere taken out and butchered. Gibbon and other writers con- found George of Cappadocia with St. George the martyr; but Heylin and Milner, with whom Milman agrees, have shown them to be distinct personages. GEORGE, Enoch, a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church in the United States, born in Lancaster co., Va., in 1767 or 1768, died at Staunton, Va., Aug. 23, 1828. After preach- ing one year at the head waters of the Catawba and Broad rivers, in North Carolina, he was received into the conference on trial in 1790, and sent to Pamlico circuit. For four years he travelled over extensive circuits in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, when he was obliged to retire from active ministerial labor on account of physical debility. In 1799 he resumed the itinerant work in Rockingham circuit, Vir- ginia. In 1800 he had charge of an immense district extending from Chesapeake bay to the Alleghanies, but again his health failed, and for two years he taught a school in Win- chester, Va. In 1803 he resumed his ministe- rial labors, acting as pastor of churches in Frederick, Alexandria, Montgomery, and Bal- timore, and as presiding elder of the Baltimore, Alexandria, and Georgetown districts till 1816, when he was elected to the episcopacy. He continued to labor effectively in this office to the date of his death. He was remarkable for a peculiar and powerful style of preaching, and for great humility. GEORGE, Lake, a picturesque sheet of water in Warren and Washington cos., New York, 36 m. long from N. E. to S. W., from m. to 4 m. wide, and in some places 400 ft. deep, discharging into Lake Champlain on the north. It is remarkable for the transparency of its water, its multitude of little islands, popularly supposed to correspond in number with the days of the year, and the beautiful scenery of its banks. Black mountain, on the E. shore, has an elevation of 2,200 ft. above the sur- face of the lake ; and 12m. distant from it is a very steep rock rising 200 ft. from the water, down which it is said Major Rogers, when pursued by Indians during the French war, slid and landed safely on the ice. Not