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ST. NICHOLAS, BISHOP OF LINCOPEN, IN SWEDEN, C.
HERMAN and MARGARET, the parents of our saint,
were citizens of Skeningen, in Sweden, and held a distinguished rank
in the country, which they rendered more illustrious by their virtue.
By their care, Nicholas was imbued from the cradle with a perfect
spirit of Christian piety, and taught to dread nothing so much as
whatever could tarnish the robe of innocence and grace with which he
had been clothed in the sacred laver of baptism. In these happy
dispositions, he studied at home the first elements of grammar, and
while yet very young was sent to Paris, in order to accomplish
himself in the sciences. Thence he removed to Orleans, where he both
completed his theological course, and took his degrees in civil and
canon law. Perfectly qualified by learning and virtue for the service
of the church, he returned home, and was soon after appointed
archdeacon of Lincopen. His whole life was a perfect sacrifice of
penance and devotion. On Fridays he took no other nourishment than
bread with a little salt and water, and sometimes passed that whole
day from Thursday evening till Saturday noon without food. In the
discharge of his office he suffered, with unshaken constancy and
patience, many grievous persecutions from the tyranny of great men
and incorrigible sinners, reformed the manners of a savage and
ignorant people, and established the rules of virtue and
ecclesiastical discipline. Herbert, the first bishop of Lincopen,
some pretend to have been contemporary with Charlemagne, but the more
accurate antiquarians place him about the year 1000, something
younger than St. Sigfrid. The history of the bishops of Lincopen, in
Swedish verse,1 informs us, that Gotzcalc, the sixteenth bishop of
Lincopen, dying, St. Nicholas was advanced to that see. This dignity
was a fresh spur to his zeal in promoting the divine honor, and to
his fervor in every religious exercise. Raised above all views to his
own private interest, in every thing he laid himself out for he
service of God and his neighbor, and for the maintenance of peace
among all men. His meekness and patience were proof to all trials:
and prayer and heavenly meditation were to him a source of spiritual
light, comfort, and strength. The study of the holy scriptures was
principally his private entertainment: out of the most useful
sentences of the canon law and fathers he compiled an excellent book,
which he called Huitebook. He wrote short comments on the Morals of
St. Gregory, certain works of St. Anselm, and the writings of St.
Bridget, whose canonization he warmly promoted, but died in the year
in which that affair was finished. He wrote the lives of St. Bridget,
St. Anscarius, and some other holy servants of God: and compiled a
book of flowers out of the psalms. How highly pope Urban VI. honored
his sanctity, appears from a letter written by that pope in 1381,
quoted by Benzelius. His successor, bishop Canut, speaks of his
sanctity with great veneration.2 St. Nicholas died in our Lord, in
1391, and was honored in Sweden among the titular saints of the
kingdom, with St. Sigfrid, St. Brinolph, St. Birget, St. Helen of
Scoduc, St. Catharine, and St. Ingridie of Scheningen, who died in
1282, who are invoked together in the prayer of the mass for the
feast of St. Nicholas, in the old Swedish Missal quoted by Benzelius.
See the long particular office and lessons in honor of this saint,
formerly used in the church of Lincopen, printed at Sudercopen in
1523, and republished by Benzelius, in his Monumenta Ecclesiæ
Suevogothicæ, p. 109. Also the Swedish Chronicle of the bishops
of Lincopen, ib. p. 125, and this editor’s notes, p. 254.
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