"Again, forasmuch as we know that Christ hath not only been manifested great in Himself, but great in other His saints also; the days of whose departure out of the world are to the Church of Christ as the birth and coronation days of kings or emperors; therefore especial choice being made of the very flower of all occasions in this kind, there are annual selected times to meditate of Christ glorified in them which had the honour to suffer for His sake before they had age and ability to know Him, namely, the blessed Innocents: glorified in them who knowing Him, as S. Stephen, had the sight of that before death, whereinto so acceptable a death doth lead; glorified in those sages of the East that came from far to adore Him, and were conducted by strange light; glorified in the second Elias of the world, sent before Him to prepare His way; glorified in every of those Apostles whom it pleased Him to use as founders of His kingdom here; glorified in the Angels, as in S. Michael; glorified in all those happy souls that are already possessed of bliss. Besides these, be four days, annexed to the Feasts of Easter and Whitsunday, for the more honour and enlargement of those high solemnities 1."

These Festivals are either Moveable or Immoveable. The annual return of the latter takes place on the same day of the year; while the return of the former depends in one part of the year upon the falling of Easter; and in Advent upon the day of the week on which the festival of S. Andrew occurs. It was ordered, in the Council of Nicea, in 325, that the Feast of Easter should be kept throughout the Church on the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon the day of the vernal equinox or next after it; and if the new moon fall on a Sunday, Easter day is the Sunday after. The ninth Sunday before it is Septuagesima, or the Sunday within seventy days of the Pasch. Ash Wednesday follows in the third week after, that is, between Quinquagesima and the first Sunday in Lent. Palm Sunday introduces the Holy or Greater week, which is the last, in Lent. Easter Monday and Tuesday immediately follow the Festival of the Resurrection; forty days after is the Ascension; and on the fiftieth day from

1 Rationale of Common Prayer, pp. 83, 84. Eccl. Polity, book v. chap. lxx. 8.

Easter is celebrated the Feast of Pentecost or Whit-Sunday, with Whit-Monday and Tuesday. Trinity Sunday which immediately follows with its long train of weekly festivals to which it gives its name, as it did anciently in the English Church, concludes the sacred year.

The occurrence of Advent Sunday is regulated by the day of the week on which the feast of S. Andrew falls; for the next Sunday to that, whether before or after, is the First in Advent. If Christmas-day fall on a Sunday or Monday, the second Sunday after is the First after the Epiphany; but if on any other day of the week, the Third Sunday. So also if Christmas-day happen on a Sunday, the following Sunday is the feast of the Circumcision, and the Sunday after Christmas is for that year omitted. The number of Sundays after Epiphany is regulated by the occurrence of Septuagesima; as the number after Trinity depends on the time of the year when Easter and consequently Trinity Sunday fall.

Upon four of the great festivals the celebration of the event which they commemorate is continued during the following week, or Octave, as it is called. This is an ancient custom, and is thus commended by the author of the Rationale of the Book of Common Prayer. "The subject matter of these feasts, as namely, Christ's Birth, Resurrection, Ascension, and the sending of the Holy Ghost, is of so high a nature, so nearly concerning our salvation, that one day is too little to meditate of them, and praise God for them as we ought. A bodily deliverance may justly require a day of thanksgiving and joy; but the deliverance of the soul, by the blessings commemorated on those times, deserves a much longer feast. It were injurious to good Christian souls to have their joy and thankfulness for such mercies confined to a day, therefore holy Church, upon the times when these unspeakable blessings were wrought for us, by her most seasonable commands and counsels here invites us to fill our hearts with joy and thankfulness, and let them overflow eight days together." The festival of Whit-Sunday is prolonged for only seven days, for the eighth day is devoted to the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.

Most of these days of solemnity are ushered in by a vigil or

fast, to remind us that those saints who are now comforted with the vision of God were once blessed mourners; and that it is only through mortification and affliction that we shall pass like them into glory and joy, according to the Scripture, Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Therefore the festival of S. Michael and all Angels has no vigil, because those blessed spirits were never like us compassed with infirmity. Sometimes the season of the year is too joyous to allow of fasting, and the holydays which occur during it have not a vigil. As formerly in the Paschal time, from Easter till the eve of Trinity Sunday, which generally falls between the beginning of April and the middle of June, and from Christmas-day till the end of the time of the Epiphany. S. Luke's day wants a vigil because its eve is devoted to the memory of a holy virgin, S. Ethelred. In the ancient Kalendar of the Church of Sarum there were no vigils between Christmas and Whitsuntide.

In former days in England, these principal festivals, which, as I have said, were then more numerous than now, were observed by a total cessation from all servile labour, as on Sundays. And on many of the lesser holydays agricultural labour alone was allowed, and sometimes not till after the vesper hour. That this is the way in which the Church still intends them to be kept holy I might easily show by abundant authorities; but I shall only quote the testimony of Hooker: "The sanctification of days and times is a token of that thankfulness and a part of that public honour which we owe to God for admirable benefits, whereof it doth not suffice that we keep a secret kalendar, taking thereby our private occasions, as we list ourselves, to think how much God hath done for all men, but the days which are chosen out to serve as public memorials of such His mercies ought to be clothed with those outward robes of holiness whereby their difference from other days may be made sensible. . . . . . This is the day which the Lord hath made,' saith the prophet David, let us rejoice and be glad in it.' So that generally offices and duties of religious joy are that wherein the hallowing of festival time consisteth. The most natural testimonies of our rejoicing in God are, first, His praises set forth with cheerful alacrity of

mind; secondly, our comfort and delight expressed by a charitable largeness of somewhat more than common bounty; thirdly, sequestration from ordinary labours, the toils and cares whereof are not meet to be companions of such gladness. Festival solemnity therefore is nothing but the due mixture as it were of these three elements, Praise, and Bounty, and Rest 1."

A sight so blessed as our pious ancestors might behold in merry England on the morn of some glorious festival it is not for me to describe; hardly can imagination in these days pourtray the scene. For "a godless century," says Carlyle, "looking back on centuries that were godly, produces portraitures more miraculous than any other." "I will therefore," in the words of bishop Taylor, "deny leave to my own affections to ease themselves by complaining of others; I shall only crave leave that I may remember Jerusalem, and call to mind the pleasures of the temple, the order of her services, the beauty of her buildings, the sweetness of her songs, the decency of her ministrations, the assiduity and economy of her priests and levites, the daily sacrifice, and that eternal fire of devotion that went not out by day nor by night. These were the pleasures of our peace, and there is a remanent felicity in the very memory of those spiritual delights which we then enjoyed, as antepasts of heaven, and consignations to an immortality of joys. And it may be so again, when it shall please God who hath the hearts of all princes in His hand, and turneth them as the rivers of waters; and when men will consider the invaluable loss that is consequent, and the danger of sin that is appendant to the destroying forms of such discipline and devotion, in which God was purely worshipped and the Church was edified, and the people instructed to great degrees of piety, knowledge, and devotion 2."

Besides the principal festivals, there are many other holydays in the Kalendar which in later days have been almost forgotten. "Alas! in spite of the variety of books now circulated among all classes of the community," cries an eloquent

Eccl. Polity, book v. chap. lxx. 1, 2. 2 Apology for the Liturgy.

doctor, "how little is known about the saints of past times? How is this? Has Christ's Church failed in any age? or have His witnesses betrayed their trust? Are they not our bone and our flesh? Have they not partaken the same spiritual food as ourselves, and the same spiritual drink, used the same prayers, and confessed the same creed? If a man merely look into the Prayer-book he will meet there with names about which perhaps he knows and cares nothing at all. What do these names mean? Sad it is, you have no heart to inquire after and celebrate those who are fellowcitizens with you, and your great benefactors. . . . . . Truly they were in their day men of God; they were rulers and teachers in the Church; they had received by succession of hands the power first given to the Apostles, and now to us. They laboured, and suffered, and fainted not, and their writings remain to this day 1."

.....

Their place in the Kalendar may teach us that the English Church has some purpose in commemorating them; and that at least they ought not to be as little regarded by us as if they were not commemorated at all. Alas! that there should have arisen men in high station in the Church, who have laboured to prove that they merely serve a worldly purpose, and hardly deserve to be named. The field of controversy is to be avoided, but here something must be said regarding this unworthy view of the Kalendar. Mr. Wheatley, in his "Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer," gives a short history of these holydays, which has been adopted in the edition of the Prayer-book by bishop Mant. He introduces his history of them in these words: "As to the Popish holydays retained in our Kalendar. small account of these has been desired by some persons, I shall here insert it, to gratify their curiosity." And to the remarks which follow he prefixes this title, “Of the Romish Saints' Days and Holydays in general;" and to each month, "Of the Romish Saints' Days and Holydays in January, February, &c." With what justice can these holy days be called "Romish," or "Popish," as implying that they have

1 Mr. Newman's Sermons, Vol. iii. Serm. 17.

Since some