wayward paths, have we been brought back to the contemplation of things unseen and eternal.

And on his brest a bloodie Crosse he bore,
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living ever, Him adored :

Upon his shield the same was also scored,

For soveraine hope, which in His helpe he had ;
Right, faithful, true he was in deede and word,
But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.
Faerie Queene, B. I. c. I. 2.

MAY.

MAY 3.

Envention of the Holy Cross.

326.

THE event commemorated by the Church on this day is one which provokes the incredulous smile of those who presume to limit the power of God; nevertheless it is attested by S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Ambrose, S. John Chrysostom, Rufinus, Sulpitius Severus, S. Paulinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. All of these writers agree in their testimony regarding the discovery of the Cross, although in several minute circumstances they vary, as no independent historians can fail to do. S. Helena, widow of the emperor Constantius Chlorus, and mother of Constantine the Great, was honoured by God on this occasion. She had been converted to the Christian faith in 311 soon after her son, when she was about sixty-three years of age. Fifteen years afterwards, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to visit the scenes of our Lord's passion and resurrection. But Jewish and Pagan profaneness had effaced nearly every trace of them. The holy Sepulchre had been filled up with earth, and paved over, so as to leave no mark where it had been, and

on its site a temple of Venus had been built. The Emperor Adrian had also built a temple of Jupiter near the same place, that the Christians might no longer pay their devotions at the sacred spot. The Jews had buried the Cross on which the Redeemer died, along with the other instruments of His passion, near the place where He suffered, as was their custom with criminals; the demon rejoicing, as S. Ambrose remarks, to hide from the eyes of men the sword with which he had been pierced. The Christian writers say that this long concealment was designed to save those precious instruments from the malice of the enemies of Christ, till His disciples were able to guard them, and pay them becoming honour.

S. Helena then in 326 was seized with an anxious desire to recover the Cross, and to remove the profane buildings which covered the places where the Lord's blessed footsteps had been. But she found the search most difficult, for no one then living had ever heard of its place of concealment. As the best means of finding it, she made careful inquiry at the oldest inhabitants, both Christians and learned Jews, as to the probable place of the sepulchre. Having been directed to the most likely spot, she levelled all the buildings which stood upon it, and ordered the earth and rubbish to be removed till the old soil should be laid bare. After digging to a great depth, the Sepulchre was discovered, and on examining, further, three crosses were found, and the title fixed to one of them, as some of the historians say, though according to the greater number it was lying separate from the crosses. The number of the nails which

were found at the same time has been variously stated, but it seems probable that there were four, as the feet of a person who was crucified were generally supported by a board to which each foot was nailed separately. No mention is made of the nails of the two thieves, and hence probably they are usually represented as bound to their crosses. This may perhaps explain the necessity which the Jews were under to hasten their death by additional violence, though it is by no means necessary to suppose that they were not nailed, in order to account for this. The history which describes the title as detached from the Cross, proceeds to record the difficulty which was found in distinguishing among the crosses which was the Lord's. Macarius bishop of Jerusalem proposed that they should be carried to a sick lady in the city, not doubting that God would honour the wood of the Redeemer's Cross by restoring her to health. And it happened as he had

expected.

S. Helena thus rewarded for her reverent care, "adored in this sacred wood," says Tillemont quoting from St. Ambrose, "not the wood itself, which would have been the error of the heathen, but the King of Heaven Who had been fixed to the wood.” She sent a portion of it to Constantine, which was removed to Paris in the thirteenth century during the reign of S. Louis. The rest she enclosed in a rich case, and entrusted it to the care of the bishop of Jerusalem. He from time to time exposed it to the devout veneration of the faithful, and distributed small portions of it among them. S. Cyril and S. Paulinus testify that it remained undiminished by

the loss of these fragments 1. She herself carried to Rome a large portion, which she deposited in the church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem which she had built. On the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross we shall learn what afterwards befel that portion of it which remained at Jerusalem. The title was also sent to Rome, where it was again recovered in 1492. Of the nails, S. Helena placed one in a diadem for her son, enriched with pearls; another, or according to some historians two others, she fixed in the bridle of his war-horse, as a protection in danger; and the third was thrown into the Adriatic to allay a storm. Regarding the finding of the lance, the reed, the sponge, and the crown of thorns, there is less certainty, though S. Gregory of Tours affirms that he had seen them.

A stately church was built by the emperor on the site of the Sepulchre. It was called the Basilica of the Holy Cross, or of the Holy Sepulchre, also of the Resurrection. It was consecrated in 335, the bishops who had sat in the council of Tyre going to Jerusalem to assist at the ceremony. But this event belongs rather to the history of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. S. Helena returned to Constantinople, and went thence to Rome, where

1 The miraculous circumstances related of the Cross rest on entirely separate ground from the finding of the Cross itself, and must not be confounded with it. We have no better reason for believing in the existence of Constantine or S. Helena, than in the principal event which this day commemorates. See the Essay before quoted, On the Miracles of the Early Ages, by the Rev. Mr. Newman, pp. cxliii—clxx.