DERIVATION OF WHITSUNDAY.

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Sunday (for, in truth, the colour is red), nor Huit Sunday, as the eighth after Easter; but simply by the various corruptions of the German Pfingsten, the Danish Pintse; the various patois Pingsten, Whingsten, &c., derived from Pentecost. The corruption is easy and plain enough: if more proof were wanted, note

"1. That as it is not Easter Sunday, but Easter Day, so it is not Whit Sunday, but Whitsun Day."

"2. Although the barbarous corruptions of Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday are now in vogue (they do not occur in the Prayer-Book), yet no one ventures to speak of Whit Week, Whit-tide, or Whit-holidays, but Whitsun Week (just as Pfingsten Woche in German), &c. If the derivations were from White, was it utterly impossible that the unmeaning syllable should here have got in? Who ever heard of Easter-sun Week, or Easter-sun holidays ?"

"The Romance languages have, for the most part, vernacularized the Latin name. But in Spain the day is usually called the Fiesta del Espirito Santo, and in Portugal Pascoa do Espirito Santo. In Italy it is Pasqua Rosata, because the roses are now in full flower.'

The history of the morning of Pentecost is given in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; all the rest of which book may be considered as an edifice erected on the miraculous outpouring of the Spirit as on a necessary foundation. The most salient events of this, the birthmorning of a new dispensation, are presented in simple epitome in a hymn often attributed to St. Ambrose, one version of which occurs in the Roman Breviary, where it is set down for Whitsunday at Matins. There is also an older version extant; and Daniel gives both in his "Thesaurus Hymnologicus," with the remark that the Hymnus de die Pentecostes, commencing Jam Christus astra ascenderat, is found in very few of the more ancient Breviaries.

Dr. J. M. Neale's Essays on Liturgiology and Church History: Church Festivals, and their Household Words.

The English translation which follows is taken verbatim from the Rev. E. Caswell's "Lyra Catholica."

Above the starry spheres,

To where He was before,

Christ had gone up, soon from on high
The Father's Gift to pour.

And now had fully come,

On mystic circle borne,

Of seven times seven revolving days,
The Pentecostal morn:

When, as the Apostles knelt,
At the third hour in prayer,
A sudden rushing sound proclaimed
The God of glory near.

Forthwith a tongue of fire

Alights on every brow;

Each breast receives the Father's light,
The Word's enkindling glow.

The Holy Ghost on all

Is mightily outpoured,

Who straight in divers tongues declare
The wonders of the Lord.

While strangers of all climes

Flock round from far and near,
And with amazement all at once
Their native accents hear.

But Judah, faithless still,
Denies the Hand Divine;

And madly jeers the saints of Christ,
As drunk with new-made wine.

Till Peter, in the midst
Stood up, and spake aloud:
And their perfidious falsity
By Joel's witness showed.

Praise to the Father be!

Praise to the Son who rose !
Praise, Holy Paraclete, to Thee,
While age on ages flows!

Bishop Jeremy Taylor, in a poem "On the Feast of Pentecost, or Whitsunday," turns into a prayer a simple statement of the descent of the tongues on the heads of the Apostles :

Tongues of fire from heaven descend

With a mighty rushing wind,

To blow it up and make
A living fire

Of heavenly charity, and pure desire,
Where they their residence should take.
On the Apostles' sacred heads they sit
Who now like beacons do proclaim and tell
The invasion of the host of hell;

And give men warning to defend
Themselves from the enraged brunt of it.
Lord, let the flames of holy charity,
And all her gifts and graces slide

Into our hearts and there abide :

That thus refined, we may soar above
With it into the element of love,

Even unto Thee, dear Spirit,

And there eternal peace and rest inherit. Amen.

Very early in this paper we made a remark to the effect that Pentecost was a festival of common commemoration to both Judaism and Christianity. In each dispensation its claims to honour rested in part upon the felt and directly apprehended presence of the Deity for the purpose of promulgating a Law. The different circumstances of the two theophanies have been, from the first ages of Christianity, a theme for thankful and trembling exultation. Both Laws were given, as the Fathers, and especially St. Jerome, delighted to point out, on the fiftieth day after the Passover; one on Sinai, the other on Mount Sion. There the mountain quaked; here, the house of the Apostles. There, amid flaming fire and lightnings, spake the thunder and the stormy tempest; here, with the vision of fiery tongues, came the sound of a great wind. There the voice of the trumpet uttered aloud the words of the

Law; here, the trump of the Gospel thundered on the lips. of the Apostles.*

The lines on "Whitsunday," in the "Christian Year," may be taken, with the least possible reservation, whether in point of time or language, as the finest picture in verse of the above-contrasted phenomena of Sinai and of Sion:

When God of old came down from Heaven,

In power and wrath He came ;
Before His feet the clouds were riven,
Half darkness and half flame.

Around the trembling mountain's base
The prostrate people lay;

A day of wrath, and not of grace;
A dim and dreadful day.

But when He came the second time,
He came in power and love,
Softer than gale at morning prime
Hovered His holy Dove.

The fires that rushed on Sinai down
In sudden torrents dread,

Now gently light, a glorious crown,
On every sainted head.

Like arrows went those lightnings forth,
Winged with the sinner's doom;

But these, like tongues, o'er all the earth,
Proclaiming life to come;

And as on Israel's awe-struck ear,

The voice exceeding loud,

The trump, that angels quake to hear,
Thrilled from the deep, dark cloud.

Lo! when the Spirit of our God

Came down His flock to find,

A voice from Heaven was heard abroad,
A rushing, mighty wind.

*St. Jerome's Epistola ad Fabiolam; Mansio 12.

MINOR MEMORABILIA.

Nor doth the outward ear alone

At that high warning start;

Conscience gives back the appalling tone;
'Tis echoed in the heart.

It fills the Church of God; it fills
The sinful world around;
Only in stubborn hearts and wills
No place for it is found.

To other strains our souls are set :

A giddy whirl of sin

Fills ear and brain, and will not let

Heaven's harmonies come in.

Come, Lord; come Wisdom, Love, and Power,

Open our ears to hear;

Let us not miss the accepted hour;
Save, Lord, by Love or Fear.

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The principal-that is, the doctrine-carrying-circumstances of the morning of Pentecost have been mentioned in the preceding examples of Whitsunday verse; but there are, of course, many of a more minute or incidental character, of which we can scarcely offer so much as a suggestion. Amongst the minor memorabilia, however, it may be observed, that it was because Pentecost was one of the three grand seasons on which all the males of Israel were required to present themselves before the Lord in the place of His sanctuary-"one of their great Panegyries or Generals," as L'Estrange claims to call them-that the now fully-inspired* Apostles met with an audience collected "out of every nation under heaven."

There are a few questions which are chiefly important because, historically speaking, they have been thought to be important; and which considerable debate and discus

*The act of inspiration recorded John xx. 22, 23, may be regarded partly as prophetical, partly as a symbol and an earnest of that which was soon to be realized.