which are always open for their reception. "Nor do they forget to take tea, sugar, rum, and other comfortable things for their refreshment, which by paying a trifle for baking, and for the niceties awaiting their consumption, contents the farmers for the house-room and pleasure they afford their welcome visitants. Here the young ones find delicious junkets, with sour milk, cut in diamonds, which is eaten with sugar and cream. New-made cake, refreshing tea and exhilirating punch satisfy the stomach, cheer the spirits, and assist the walk home in the evening. These pleasure-takings are never made before May-day; but the first Sunday that succeeds it, and the leisure of every other afternoon is open to the frugal enjoyment; and among neighbourly families and kind friends the enjoyment is frequent."* INVENTIO CRUCIS; HOLY-ROOD DAY; HOLY-CROSS DAY,-May 3d.-This day takes its first name, Inventio Crucis, i. e. Discovery of the Cross, from its being the anniversary of the finding of the real cross by Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. According to the legend, told by Ambrosius, Theodoretus, and other veracious historians of the church, the good lady in 326 took it into her head to make a pilgrimage to Palestine, she being then very near eighty years of age.† Her first visit is to Golgotha, when she is seized with a fancy -Ambrosius calls it a divine inspiration-for seeing the *This lamely-written account, which might have come from the pen of a school-boy, occurs in Hone's Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 561; but indeed Hone and his contributors generally wrote in the most childish style that can be imagined. I have given it for the sake of the facts which are sufficiently interesting. + Πρὸ γὰρ ὀλίγο τῆς τελευτῆς τὴν ἀποδημίαν ταύτην ἐποίησατο ὀγδοηκοντᾶτις δὲ τὸ τέρμα τῷ βίω κατειληφεν. B. Theodoreti Ecclesias. Hist. lib. i. cap. xvii. p. 794. tom. iii. 8vo. Halæ, 1771. true cross, and is exceedingly wrath with the devil for having hid it; for it seems he had put it into the head of his heathen friends to build a temple to Venus on the ground where Christ was buried, and to erect a statue to Jupiter on the place of his resurrection. All this was sufficiently provoking to an empress who was not used to be thwarted in any of her fancies; "here," says the pious pilgrim, "is the battle-ground, but where is the victory? I seek the standard of salvation, but find it not; shall I sit in royalty, and the cross of the Lord in. dust? shall I dwell in gilded palaces, and the triumph of Christ is in ruins? I see what you have been doing, Satan, that the sword which smote you might be hidden.”* But how was the sable gentleman to be defeated? Eusebius says that she was helped out of this difficulty by a vision, a resource common to poets and ecclesiastical historians; but other authorities more modestly state that she had recourse to a council of old women-male as well as female—of Jerusalem, who agreed that if she could discover the sepulchre she would be sure to find also the instruments of punishment, it being always the custom among the Jews to make a great hole near the place where the body of any criminal was buried, and to throw into it whatever belonged to the execution, for they held such objects too detestable to be kept in sight. Thus advised, she ordered the fane to be pulled down, and was rewarded for her pious zeal by finding three crosses, the * “Accessit ad Golgotha, et ait; 'ecce locus pugnæ, ubi est victoria? quæro vexillum salutis, et non invenio. Ego.' inquit, 'in regnis, et crux Domini in pulvere? ego in aureis, et in ruinis Christi triumphus?.... Video quid egeris, diabole, ut gladius quo peremtus es, obstrueretur.'" Sancti Ambrosii Opera, tom. vii. p. 38, sect. 43 and 44.-De Obitu Theodosii Oratio. I am sorry to be forced to add that Erasmus declares this amusing oration is spurious. nails employed in the crucifixion, and the title, or label, which had once been affixed to the real cross. This But now came another difficulty; the title having been separated by decay or accident, how was she to distinguish the cross of Christ from those of the two thieves? would have puzzled most people, but it did not puzzle the inspired bishop, Macarius, who on being consulted recommended that all three should be taken to a lady of rank then lying ill, and their powers severally tested in her cure. Two were tried without effect, but the third restored the patient to perfect health, and was consequently pronounced to be the genuine. Great, hereupon, was the delight of the poor old empress. Part of the nails she manufactured into a helmet for her son, as a sure guard against hostile weapons, part she did into his horse's bridle, both for his soul's health and in fulfilment of the oracle of Zechariah.* Another portion she destined for the palace, and the rest she enclosed in a silver case made especially for the purpose, and presented to the bishop as a memorial for posterity. In conclusionwithout which all the rest would have gone for nothing with the pious-she built a splendid church upon the ruins of the heathen temple.† HOLY ROOD DAY, the name sometimes given to the third of May, takes its rise from the same circumstance, the rood, as Fuller informs us, being an image of Christ on the cross, made generally of wood, and erected in a * Zechariah, chap. xiv. . 20. +1heodoreti Ecclesiastica Historia, lib. i. cap. xvii. I presume it is from the same source that the Rev. Alban Butler has drawn the account given by him in his Lives of the Fathers, (vol. vi. p. 45,) but he has omitted all mention of the talismanic helmet-why, I can not imagine, that little incident being so exceedingly characteristic of the good empress. loft for that purpose, just over the passage out of the church into the chancel."* The next day of importance in this month is the 8ththe APPARITION OF ST. MICHAEL-held sacred by the Catholics on account of the three apparitions, or appearances, of St. Michael. The first was on Mount Garganus, now called Mount St. Angelo, a lofty hill and promontory of Apulia, which advances into the Adriatic Sea. A herdsman, having lost his ox, and after a long search finding it in the mouth of a cavern, flung a dart at the animal, when the weapon rebounded upon him and wounded him. Terrified at this miracle, he consulted his bishop, who ordered a three days' fast, and the latter, being afterwards visited by St. Michael in person, was informed by him that he had wounded the herdsman by way of letting them know that he was the patron-saint of the city. A second apparition was when the Neapolitans, who were then Pagans, waged war against the Christian people of Sipentum, a city of Apulia. In this case also the then bishop ordained a three days' fast, the usual episcopal panacea for all evils, and commanded moreover that the people should pray to Saint Michael for assistance. They of course obeyed these injunctions, and in the night-time the bishop was rewarded for his advice by a familiar visit from St. Michael, with a promise that his flock should have the victory. Most faithfully, too, did the saint keep his word, for the next day, when the opposing armies met, Mount Garganus was shaken with repeated thunders, the air was darkened, and the heathens, terrified out of their wits by these prodigies, fled as fast as they could to Naples. * History of Waltham Abbey, p. 16.-See his works, folio. Lond. 1655. Ad finem. A third appearance was at Rome in the time of Gregory the Great. The pontiff was praying against a pestilence, when he saw an angel upon the mount of Adrian, with a bloody sword in his hand, which he then sheathed, whence the supplicant inferred that his prayers had been granted, and in consequence he built a chapel on the spot in honour of all the angels.* There would, however, seem to be some little difficulty in understanding why the day should be particularly dedicated to St. Michael, a difficulty which Durandus endeavours to get over by many ingenious arguments, his principal one being that St. Michael was the guardian of Paradise,† and therefore more especially entitled to such an honour. It ROGATION SUNDAY. The fifth Sunday after Easter. took its name from preceding the Rogation Days, that is the three days before Holy Thursday, Rogation being a term generally used to denote processional supplications; the reason of the word being more specifically applied to the days in question was this :--About the year 550, the city of Vienne, (in Dauphinè,) was much troubled with earthquakes and the irruption of wild beasts, whereupon Mamertus, the bishop of the diocese, obtained permission from the senate to ordain processional supplications on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, before the Ascension.‡ Hospinian De Festis Christ. fol. 85. Durandi Rat. Divin. Offic. lib. vii. cap. 12. + "Dum civitas Viennensium crebro terræ motu subrueretur et bestiarium desolaretur incursu, sanctus Mamertus, ejus civitatis episcopus, eas dicitur pro malis quæ præmissimus ordinasse." Wallifred, Stral. c. 28. d. De Rebus Ecclesiast. I give the passage, as quoted by Bourne, having only taken the liberty of reading dicitur for legitur, a manifest misprint, which as a matter of course, Sir Henry Ellis, who quotes from him, has retained, with the addition-also of courseof another typographical blunder-De REP. Ecclesiast. See also Shep |