PREFACE. XIX
reparations were beg made for the marriage he died, leaving George about twenty years of age and very hand- some. In battle he was very valiant, and when he attacked Jus enemies they went down before him like chaff before ‘he wind. The marriage of George was delayed in con- \ xequence of the death of his adopted father, and shortly after George gathered together a large sum of money and ifts, and made preparations to set out for ‘Tyre, intending 10 ask the emperor Diocletian to make him a count and governor of Palestine. ‘reorge’s wealth must have been zonsiderable, for when Dadianus offered him one hundred pounds of gold to depart from the city, he replied that he had left behind him twenty thousand pounds of gold and forty thousand pounds of silver, besides cattle, horses, fields and vineyards, to follow Christ. Having loaded limself with gifts for the emperor and the go- yernors who had gathered together to him at ‘lyre for the purpose of laying down the boundaries of the empire, he \ set out with his servants in a ship and came to that city. When he arrived there he found a mighty multitude of | ee and soldiers madly sacrificing to the gods of the Roman empire. Disgust laid hold of George when he saw ‘their folly, and casting from him the idea of asking a favour at the hands of the governor Dadianus, he distributed among the poor all the money which he had brought to | give to the governors, and determined to become a Christ- ian, He then went back to his ship and told his servants of his resolution, and they entreated him to allow them to return to their native city. George paid them their wages,
