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St. Nicholas: The Generous Teenager

Nicholas remembered from his study of the Bible that Jesus told his followers to give without boasting. For Nicholas this meant giving in secret and, for a teenager, sneaking around at night on a mysterious mission was great fun!

Nicholas heard that his neighbor, a nobleman, had lost all his money through bad luck and bad judgment. This meant the man’s three daughters had no dowries, which were sums of money to bring to their marriages. Without a dowry, there could be no marriage. Without marriages, these young women were doomed to lives of slavery. When he learned of the girls’ fate, Nicholas decided to help them with secret gifts of gold coins.

Nicholas filled a leather bag with gold coins and then, putting on a long cloak, he walked to the neighbor’s house, carefully keeping to the shadows. Nicholas knew the bag of gold meant freedom for the oldest daughter. He looked the house over and chose a window. Stealthily he dropped the bag into the house through the window. Smiling, he hurried away, again keeping to the shadows.

Within a short time the nobleman’s oldest daughter was married. Nicholas did not want to leave the girl’s two sisters in despair so on the next moonless night he again put on the long cloak and threw another bag of gold into the nobleman’s window. And the second daughter was wed.

That left the last daughter. Nicholas sneaked out as before, cloak swinging. He did not know the grateful father was waiting for him. When he threw the bag of gold through the window the father was there to catch it and find out just who this generous person was. Nicholas was caught in the act. The father recognized Nicholas at once and thanked him for what he had done for his daughters. Nicholas made him promise that he would never tell anyone who had given him the money. Then pulling his cloak around him, the young Nicholas disappeared into the shadows of the night.

Long after his death Nicholas became a saint in the Christian church and this story about his generosity as a teenager earned him the title of patron of engaged women. Because fathers would sometimes have to pawn their belongings in order to get money for a daughter’s dowry, this story also earned Nicholas the title of patron of pawnbrokers and the three bags of gold became the three gold balls that hang in pawnshop windows.