Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Virgin Mary, as is probable by his first wife. Hence the blessed Virgin is called Mary, the mother of James and Joses: Matt. xxviii, 56. And by Mark, chap. xv, 40, the mother of James the Less, and of Joses, and of Salome; and the same person is called the mother of Jesus, John xix, 25. The first of these martyrs was stoned to death, and the second, having been thrown from a high place, was killed by a fuller's staff.

The people in the southern part of Sweden, on this day, have an antient custom of assembling in the country places, when, for the celebration of the day, two troops of young men, well mounted, are formed as if for a regular engagement. The captain of one of these companies, chosen by lot, is intended to personify Winter, and is, consequently, dressed according to that season in the north. His clothing not only consists of a number of skins, but he takes upon himself to throw snowballs and pieces of ice about him, to prolong the cold. Thus riding up and down in triumph, his valour and hardihood are supposed to be increased in proportion to the time he can continue. this exercise. His opponent, who is supposed to represent Summer, is styled Captain Florio; and, as there are scarcely any flowers at this time of the year, he is decorated with green boughs and leaves. These two personages, after much riding and carvetting, contrive to meet and fight: Summer is sometimes assisted by a band of horsemen bearing boughs of birch made green by art; but, however ardent the champions for Winter may be, the people always give the palm to Summer, because nature and inclination dispose them to shake off the iron yoke of Winter as soon as possible. Summer thus obtaining the victory, a general festival takes place, in which the libations peculiar to the northern nations are most liberal.

The Jews commemorate the death of Samuel the Prophet, by a general mourning, on the 1st of May.

3.-INVENTION OF THE CROSS.

tain which was them all to be

The Romish Church celebrates this day as a festival, to commemorate the invention or finding of the cross. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, being warned in a dream to search for the cross of Christ at Jerusalem, went thither, and employed many days at Golgotha in digging for it. After opening the ground to a great depth, she found three crosses, which Helena concluded were the crosses of our Saviour and the two malefactors who were crucified with him. Being at a loss, however, to ascerthe real cross of Christ, she ordered applied to a dead person. Two of them, as the legend relates, had no effect; but the third raised the corpse to life, which was not only a probable sign, but an absolute demonstration to Helena, that that was the cross she so diligently sought. No sooner was the secret discovered, than every one was anxious to procure a piece of it; so great was this desire, that in the time of Paulinus, a disciple of St. Ambrose, and Bishop of Nola, in the year 420, there were more reliques of the cross than there was of the original wood. And that venerable father asserts, that it was miraculously augmented: It very kindly afforded,' says he, wood to men's importunate desires, without any loss of its substance.'

6.-JOHN EVANGELIST, A. P. L.

[ocr errors]

John the Evangelist, so called from the Greek term Evάyyɛλos, the messenger of glad-tidings, was a Galilean by birth, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the younger brother of James, but not of him that was surnamed the Just, and who was the brother of our Lord. His brother James and he were surnamed by Jesus the Sons of Thunder, meaning the principal ministers of the Gospel, and John was more endeared to him than any of his disciples. Being carried prisoner to Rome, he was condemned to be thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, but was miraculously preserved, and came out of it alive. This

circumstance took place before the gate of Latina, ante port. lat.; hence the abbreviation, A. P. L. After this, he was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote his Revelations; but, being recalled by the Emperor Nero, he returned to Ephesus, and there penned his three Epistles. Lastly, he composed his Gospel to supply the omissions of the other evangelists some few years before his death. He survived to the reign of Trajan, and died about ninety years of age.

19. SAINT DUNSTAN.

Dunstan was a native of Glastonbury, and nobly descended; Elphegus, Bishop of Winchester, and Athelm, Archbishop of Canterbury, being his uncles; he was also related to King Athelstan. He was a skilful painter, musician, and an excellent forger and refiner of metals: he manufactured crosses, vials, and sacred vestments; and also painted and copied good books. Dunstan was promoted to the see of Worcester by King Edgar, and he was afterwards Bishop of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 988, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and in the twenty-seventh of his archiepiscopal dignity. His miracles are too commonly known to be repeated.

19.-QUEEN CHARLOTTE BORN.

Her present Majesty (Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz) was born on the 19th of May, 1744; but her birthday is celebrated on the 18th of January.

21. ROGATION SUNDAY.

This day takes its name from the Latin term rogare, to ask; because, on the three subsequent days, supplications were appointed by Mamertus, Bishop of Vienna, in the year 469, to be offered up with fasting to God, to avert some particular calamities that threatened his diocess.

23.-ASCENSION DAY.

From the earliest times, this day was set apart to commemorate our Saviour's ascension into heaven;

M

all processions on this, and the preceding rogation days, were abolished at the reformation. In London, on this day, the minister, accompanied by the churchwardens, and a number of boys, with wands, walk in procession, and beat the bounds of the parish. But this is not always practised, nor in every year.

May 25 is kept by the Jews, in consequence of a tradition that the Egyptians, having made application to Alexander the Great, when at Jerusalem, to become an arbitrator in respect to the charge brought against the Jews, that they had robbed the Egyptians of their jewels of silver and gold; Alexander, then calling upon some of the leading men of the Jews to answer this accusation, they did it effectually, by saying, that, if the Egyptians would pay for the services of six hundred thousand persons for four hundred years, they would oblige themselves to pay what they pretended they had been robbed of. This answer confounding the Egyptians, the Jews were honourably acquitted, and established a festival in its commemoration.

26.-AUSTIN.

This English apostle, as he is termed, was commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the Saxons. He was created Archbishop of Canterbury in 556, and died about the year 610.—(See T. T. for 1815, p. 174.)

27.-VENERABLE BEDE.

Bede was born at Yarrow in Northumberland, in 673, and afterwards instructed in the Greek and Latin languages, in which he made a surprising proficiency. He is author of several very learned philosophical and mathematical tracts, as also of long and laborious comments on the scriptures: his grand work, however, is the Ecclesiastical History of the Saxons. Being a monk, he studied in his cell, where spending more hours, and to better purpose, than most of the monks did, it was reported that he never left it. So much attached was he to his retirement,

that he would not quit it for any preferment at Rome, to which the pope had often invited him. Bede has obtained the title of Venerable, for his profound learning and unaffected piety, and not on account of any celebrity for miraculous and angelic operations.

29.-KING CHARLES II RESTORED,

On the 8th of May, 1660, Charles II was proclaimed in London and Westminster, and afterwards, throughout his dominions, with great joy and universal acclamations. On the 16th he came to the Hague; the 23d he embarked with his two brothers for England, and landed at Dover on the 25th, where he was received by General Monk, and some of the army. He was then attended by numbers of the nobility and gentry to Canterbury, and on the 29th he made his magnificent entry into London. This day is also his birthday.

In some parts of England it is customary for the common people to wear oak leaves, covered with leafgold, in their hats, in commemoration of the concealment of Charles II in an oak tree, after the battle of Worcester. To this tree, not far from Boscobel House, the king and his companion Colonel Careless resorted, when they thought it no longer safe to remain in the house; climbing up by the henroost ladder, and the family giving them victuals on a nut-hook.

History of Astronomy.

[Continued from p. 111.]

Astronomy of Modern Europe.

WHILE Galileo was distinguishing himself in Italy, Kepler, in Germany, was developing the laws of the planetary motions; but, previously to a detail of his discoveries, it may be necessary to take our youthful readers a little back, and describe the progress of

« ZurückWeiter »