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THIS month was so called by Romulus from re spect to the senators and nobles of his city, who were named Majores; as the following month was termed Junius, in honour of the youth of Rome, in honorem juniorum, who served him in the war: others derive May from Maia, the mother of Mercury, sacrifices being offered to her on the first of this month. 'May must be drawn with a sweet and amiable countenance, clad in a robe of white and green, embroidered with daffadilles, hawthorn, blew-bottels; upon his head a garland of white, damask, and red roses; in one hand a lute, upon the fore-finger of the other a nightingale, with the sign Gemini.'(Peacham, p. 418, 19.)

The pleasant month of May, they (the Saxons) termed tri-milki, because in that moneth they began to milke their kine three times in the day.'-(Verstegan, p. 60.)

Remarkable Days.

1.-MAY-DAY.

ANTIENTLY, all ranks of people went out a maying early on the first of this month. The juvenile part of both sexes, in the north, were wont to rise a litle after midnight, and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns; where they break down branches from the trees, and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this is done, they return with their booty homewards, about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after part of the day is chiefly spent in dancing round a tall pole, which is called a May-pole; which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were, consecrated to the goddess of flowers, without the least violation offered it in the whole circle of the year.'

One of our own poets thus mentions the May-pole ceremonies:

Your May-pole deck with flowery coronal;
Sprinkle the flowery coronal with wine;
And in the nimble-footed galliard, all,
Shepherds and shepherdesses, lively join.
Hither from village sweet, and hamlet fair,
From bordering cot and distant glen repair:

Let youth indulge its sport, to eld1 bequeath its care.

With heel so nimble wear the springing grass,

To shrilling bagpipe, or to tinkling brass;

Or foot it to the reed.

Old John Stow tells us, that on May-day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would

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walk into the sweet meadows and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind.' Henry VIII rode a maying from Greenwich to Shooter's Hill, with his Queen Katherine, accompanied by many lords and ladies.

In Herrick's Hesperides are the following allusions to May-day customs :

Come, my Corinna, come: and comming, marke
How each field turns a street; each street a park
Made green and trimmed with trees: see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

Or branch; each porch, each doore, ere this,
Au arke, a tabernacle is

Made up of white-thorne, neatly enterwove.

*

* *

A deale of youth ere this is come

Back, and with white-thorne laden home,
Same have dispatched their cakes and creame,
Before that we have left to dreame.

The May-day ceremonies are merely a relic of heathen customs; as the Romans on the four last days of April, and on the first of May, held their Floralia, or games in honour of Flora, the goddess of fruits and flowers.

1.-SAINT PHILIP and SAINT JAMES THE LESS.

Philip was born at Bethsaida, near the sea of Tiberias, the city of Andrew and Peter. Of his parents and trade the Gospel takes no notice; though he was most probably a fisherman. He was one of the first disciples, and an apostle. John i, 43-47. There are but few passages relating to him in the history of the Gospel. In the distribution of the several provinces made by the apostles, we learn that Upper Asia was the country assigned to him, and that he also preached and planted Christianity in Scythia, where he obtained many converts, whom he baptized into the profession of the Christian

faith. Philip also performed several miracles, in confirmation of his mission; healing diseases, dispossessing dæmons, settling churches, and appointing them guides and ministers. Having for many years successfully discharged the duties of the apostolic office, towards the close of his life, he came to Hierapolis, a city of Phrygia, now called by the Turks Pambne Kulasi. In Phrygia it was that this apostle is said to have suffered martyrdom, by being fastened to a cross, and stoned to death.

After

James the Less, called also, James the Just, and by the apostle Paul James, the Lord's brother, Gal. i, 19, was the son of Joseph, afterwards husband to the 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. There is no mention in the Scriptures of the place of his birth, or of his trade, or way of life, before he was called to be a disciple and apostle, nor any particular account of him during our Saviour's life. our Lord's resurrection, he was honoured with a `manifestation of his Master, 1 Corinth. xv, 7.— After that, he was seen by James. This apostle wrote the canonical Epistle of James. He suffered martyrdom in the former part of the year 62, in the ninety-sixth year of his age. The Scribes and Pharisees, bearing a mortal hatred to St. James, hurried him up into a gallery of the temple, and attempted to make him renounce the Gospel before the assembled multitude. Instead, however, of denying Christ, he made a public confession of him before the people, who almost unanimously cried out Hosanna to the Son of David! This so enraged the Jews, that they threw him headlong from the high place where he stood. Not being quite dead, however, he prayed to God to forgive his

murderers. This prayer doubly enraged his malicious persecutors, and one of them, a fuller by profession, immediately despatched him with his staff.

3.-INVENTION OF THE CROSS.

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 ascertain which was the real cross of Christ, she ordered them all to be 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.

John the Evangelist, so called from the Greek term Evayyeλos, 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 en

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