want of candour on the part of objectors to claims which could be better met on other and larger grounds.

It is stated by Hospinian that the joint festival "was instituted in the place of the feast of Hercules and the Muses, which was celebrated at Rome on the twenty-ninth of June." * Be this as it may, the commemoration of the two Apostles was of early observance in the Church. If the genuineness of a controverted Homily of St. Chrysostom could be established, it would follow that the festival was known in the East as early as the middle of the fourth century; whilst its observance in the West, in the latter part of the same century and the beginning of the fifth, is certified by the undisputed Homilies of Maximus Taurinensis,† St. Ambrose,‡ Leo the Great,§ and St. Augustine.|| It was about the year 500 that the festival attained its greatest splendour of celebration; at which time Festus, a Roman senator, was sent on a mission to the Emperor Anastasius at Constantinople. The piety of Festus was grieved on discovering the comparatively slight amount of honour which was done to the memory of two such mighty champions for the faith; and he addressed himself by way of petition to the Empress Ariadne, with the intent to ensure her influence for an anniversary of greater pomp and circumstance. The request coincided with the disposition of the Empress; and from the period of the visit of Festus to Constantinople the feast of the two great Apostles was celebrated with a solemnity it had never previously enjoyed. In the course of years it was felt to be something less than seemly that two so illustrious pro*De Origine Festorum Christianorum.

Sermones lxvi.-lxix; In Natali Sanctorum Petri et Pauli.

Sermones liii. and liv; In Natali Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli; and De Neglecta solemnitate Beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli.

§ Sermo; In Natali Apostolorum Petri et Pauli.

|| Sermones ccxcv-ccxcix; In Natali Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Theodorus Lector; Ecclesiastical History; lib. ii. c. 16.

CHARACTER OF THE APOSTLE.

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pagators of the faith should be partners in a single commemoration; and Gregory the Great (590-604), reserving the twenty-ninth of June for the commemoration of St. Peter alone, appointed the day after for the festival of St. Paul; the feast of whose Conversion is observed in the English Church on the twenty-fifth of January.

*

It is known that the place of St. Peter's nativity was the city of Bethsaida, on the Sea of Galilee, but the time of that event has not been ascertained; and it has been debated whether the seniority should be adjudged to him or to his brother Andrew, who first brought him to the Saviour, and whose fellow-disciple in the school of John the Baptist he had probably been. The original name of Peter was Simon or Simeon; and upon his vocation to the Apostolate he received in addition the title of Cephas, which in the Aramaic dialect spoken in Palestine in the days of our Lord is the equivalent of the Greek Hέrpos, the Peter of our vernacular.

Peter was one of our Lord's most intimate companions, and admitted by Him to the peculiar evidences of His Divine glory, as well as to His agony and humiliation for the fulfilment of the prophecies. Peter was so forward in zeal and attachment that he is constantly seen in the forefront of the Twelve; and his promptness of speech, whether to avow or to question, or, after the Ascension of Christ, to preach and to organize, gained for him among the Fathers the sobriquet of the "Mouthpiece of the Apostles."

The Evangelists abundantly establish the character of St. Peter for unequivocal piety, and ardent affection for his Master, and jealousy for His honour. His mind, however, was rather quick than accurate in its perceptions, and his feelings were rather hasty in their impulse than determined and tenacious in their exercise. Always ready to give utter

*Hugo Menard's Nota et Observationes in S. Gregorii Magni Librum Sacramentorum.

ance to his opinions, he was rash in their formation; and his exuberant courage was liable to collapse in the presence of new and appalling forms of danger. Of such a character the narrative of St. Peter's denial and repentance, his fall and recovery, offers a natural exposition.

"Peter stood more firmly after he had lamented his fall than before he fell; insomuch that he found more grace than he lost grace." These words of St. Ambrose are appended, in Quarles's "Emblems," to a poem in paraphrase of the text: "A just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked shall fall into mischief” (Proverbs xxiv. 16).

'Tis but a foil at best, and that's the most

Your skill can boast:

My slippery footing failed me; and you tript,
Just as I slipt:

My wanton weakness did herself betray

With too much play :

I was too bold: he never yet stood sure,
That stands secure :

Who ever trusted in his native strength,
But fell at length?

The title's crazed, the tenure is not good,
That claims by th'evidence of flesh and blood.

Boast not thy skill; the righteous man falls oft
Yet falls but soft:

There may be dirt to mire him, but no stones
To crush his bones :

What if he staggers? Nay, but case he be
Foiled on his knee?

That very knee will bend to Heaven, and woo
For mercy too.

The true-bred gamester ups afresh, and then
Falls to 't again;

Whereas the leaden-hearted coward lies,

And yields his conquered life, or cravened dies.

Boast not thy conquest; thou that every hour
Fall'st ten times lower;

STABILITY BY FALLING.

Nay, hast not power to rise, if not, in case,
To fall more base:

Thou wallow'st where I slip; and thou dost tumble
Where I but stumble :

Thou glory'st in thy slavery's dirty badges,
And fall'st for wages;

Sour grief and sad repentance scours and clears
My stains with tears:

Thy falling keeps thy falling still in ure;
But when I slip, I stand the more secure.

LORD, what a nothing is this little span,
We call a MAN!

What fenny trash maintains the smothering fires
Of his desires!

How slight and short are his resolves at longest :
How weak at strongest!

Oh, if a sinner, held by that fast hand,

Can hardly stand,

Good GOD! in what a desperate case are they,
That have no stay!

Man's state implies a necessary curse;

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When not himself, he's mad; when most himself, he's worse.

The practical piety of George Wither extracts from the circumstances of St. Peter's fall a warning and a prayer. The verses which, in the Hymns and Songs of the Church," illustrate "St. Peter's Day," are the following:

How watchful need we to become,

And how devoutly pray,

That Thee, O Lord, we fall not from,
Upon our trial day!

For if Thy great Apostle said

He would not Thee deny,

Whom he that very night denayed,
On what shall we rely?

For of ourselves we cannot leave

One pleasure for Thy sake;

No, nor one virtuous thought conceive,
Till us Thou able make:

Nay, we not only Thee deny,
When persecutions be,

But or forget, or from Thee fly,

When peace attends on Thee.

O let those prayers us avail,

Thou didst for Peter deign,

That when our foe shall us assail,
His labour may be vain!

Yea, cast on us those powerful eyes,
That moved him to lament;

We may bemoan with bitter cries
Our follies, and repent.

And grant that such as him succeed
For pastors of Thy fold,

Thy sheep and lambs may guide and feed,
As thou appoint'st they should;

By his example speaking what

They ought in truth to say,

And in their lives confirming that

They teach them to obey.

It is a very natural and just remark that the fall and recovery of St. Peter operated most beneficially upon the Apostle's mind; being connected, as they were, with the mysterious events of his Master's Crucifixion and Resurrection, and with the new light thrown by them upon His character and mission. From this time forward, Peter is presented in a new aspect. The hasty zeal of the past is lost in the sober dignity and firmness, in the sagacity and prudence, of the present; whilst his love, more rather than less, shows itself no longer in loud or extravagant protestation, but in active labour and much-enduring patience in the service of Christ. In the Acts of the Apostles are recorded many remarkable incidents which befel him in the course of his Apostolate; and which, being so recorded, we may pass over, content with reminding the reader of the memorable encounter between him and Simon Magus, because in the course of a few sentences we shall see him