$100,000 Relic

In 326 A.D., St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, set out to find the tomb of Jesus Christ and the Cross on which He was crucified. According to Roman Catholic tradition, in Jerusalem pious Helena found the Holy Sepulchre and three crosses, one of which cured an ailing woman. To Constantinople, Helena sent what she believed was the True Cross (of pine), three Holy Nails/- and the Holy Tunic which Christ wore to Calvary. Soon fragments of the Cross in great numbers were circulated among the devout.

Although modern freethinkers have gibed that the extant pieces, put together, would be as big as a battleship, in 1870 a French savant named Rohault de Fleury catalogued the known relics of the Cross, found that their total bulk was less than 4,000,000 cu. mm. By his calculations, the Cross measured 178,000,000 cu. mm.

Although Roman Catholic monasteries in Hollister, Calif. and Paterson, N. J. possess what they believe are relics of the True Cross, the most remarkable one in the U. S. is in private hands. A two-inch fragment in a silver reliquary, it long belonged to the House of Habsburg, was given by Joseph II to an Austrian family named Wurschinger. In 1927, Alfred Wurschinger, an importer, brought the relic to the U. S., was offered $65,000 for it when news of it got into the press. Unwilling to sell, Owner Wurschinger insured the fragment for $100,000, put it in a safe deposit vault. Last week, unable to shoulder the expense and worry any longer, Mr. Wurschinger announced he would give the holy relic to any church, religious order or museum which would undertake to expose it to reverent eyes during future centuries. At week's end, Mr. Wurschinger's agent had received 150 inquiries.

/- Since then some 30 nails, scattered throughout Christendom, have been venerated as the holy ones.

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