GEORGE HERBERT'S "QUIP."

First, Beauty crept into a rose ;
Which when I pluckt not, Sir, said she,
Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?
But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Then Money came, and chinking still,
What tune is this, poor man? said he;
I heard in Music you had skill:
But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Then came brave Glory puffing by,
In silks that whistled, who but he!
He scarce allowed me half an eye:
But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Then came quick Wit and Conversation,
And he would needs a comfort be,
And, to be short, made an oration:
But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Yet when the hour of Thy design
To answer these fine things shall come;
Speak not at large, say, I am Thine,
And then they have their answer home.

441

St. Michael and all Angels.

SEPTEMBER 29.

LTHOUGH there is a tradition that the Feast of St. Michael and all Angels was instituted so early as the fourth century by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, its celebration took a long time to work its way into uniform and general acceptance. About the year 366 a sect called Angelites seem to have numbered many adherents in Phrygia, where they dedicated oratories and chapels to St. Michael, to whom they offered prayers as to the Chief Captain of the Host of God. The heresy became of sufficient importance and dimensions to attract the reprobation of the Council of Laodicea, which, in the fourth century, decreed that "we ought not to leave the Church of God, and invocate angels." Superstitious and heretical excesses would naturally have the effect of retarding the general acceptance and consolidation of a festival to which attached the discredit of having once been tainted with them. Yet, after all, it did so happen that the celebration of the day was based upon a piety so fond as to carry it very near to, if not over, the marches of superstition. For the festival was not instituted in commemoration of the appearances of St. Michael and other Angels, attested in the Scriptures, but rather in remembrance of several Apparitions of St. Michael in divers places, which were treasured

APPARITIONS OF ST. MICHAEL.

443

in ecclesiastical tradition as having occurred from the fifth to the eighth century.

Of these Apparitions, three principal ones have become famous. The one most celebrated amongst the members of the Greek Church is that which is said to have occurred at Chonæ, in Phrygia, the Colossæ of St. Paul. Constantine the Great had already built a famous church about four miles from Constantinople, which he called Michaelion, in honour of the Archangel; to whom there were at one time as many as fifteen churches in Constantinople itself, which had been dedicated by several Emperors. But the Greeks had at least three different feasts of St. Michael, with as many different days of celebration, the chief of these being referred to the 8th of November.

Amongst the Latins, the most celebrated Apparition of St. Michael is that which is said to have taken place on Mount Garganus, May 8th, 490. At this time Apulia was infested by northern invaders; and the Christians, after a three days' fast, obtained a signal victory, for which they were fain to believe themselves indebted to the presence and prestige of the warlike Archangel. A church was at once erected on Mount Garganus, where he was said to have appeared; and the consecration of this building took place September 29, 793, which day, as well as the day of his apparition, became a stated festival in his honour.

The third principal Apparition which gave its own date to another celebration of St. Michael's day, was one reported to have occurred on Mount Tumba or its neighbourhood, October 16th, in or about the year 707. On this occasion the Archangel thrice counselled Autbert, Bishop of Abrincatæ (Avranches, in Lower Normandy), that he should found a memorial church in his honour on a sea-side eminence called Tumba, and In Periculo Maris, wishing that a reverence should be paid to him in the sea equal to that he enjoyed on Mount Garganus. This legend frequently localised itself during the Middle Ages, and churches to St.

Michael became frequent wherever eminences, crags, or the crests of isolated hills, looking down upon the sea, invited such a dedication. The most noted example of this tendency in our own country is to be found in the romantic St. Michael's Mount that "wards the western coast" of Cornwall; which, no less than Mont St. Michel, the Peril of the Sea, in Normandy, was looked upon as a scene of past conflict between the Archangel and the arch-fiend.

We have thus various churches inscribed to St. Michael in ancient times, whose dedication is mentioned as having been celebrated by a special office. These several dedications would appear to have gradually coalesced into one festival, observed on the 29th September, and called the "Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel." Baronius observes that "although called a Dedication, it does not follow that the Dedication was like that of other churches; but rather in honour and remembrance of St. Michael and the Angels; and that it only seemed to be called a Dedication because the first observance of the feast coincided with the day of Dedication."

But, as we have already intimated, it was a long time before uniformity obtained as to the day to which the Festival of St. Michael should be referred. In some particular Martyrologies the victory of the Archangel over the Dragon is found conjoined with the anniversary of the Death of Christ, and commemorated on the 25th March. The Copts celebrated the day of St. Michael on the 6th September; and the Ethiopians observed more than one anniversary whilst in some part or other of Spain it was being constantly honoured on nearly every day of every month between March and October, both inclusive. Finally, however, the divergent traditions were reduced to something like harmony; and an almost universal practice settled on one particular day. But it does not appear that this day was kept by the Church collectively until the eighth century; and it was first formally recognised in

THE ANGEL OF THE RESURRECTION.

445 the 36th Canon of the Council of Mentz, A.D. 813. After this authorization the custom prevailed more and more; and its observance was at length secured in the Greek Church in the twelfth century, when it was established in that communion by order of the Emperor Michael Com

nenus.

How it is that St. Michael alone stands nominally in the forefront of his fellow angels in the designation of their Festival, to the prejudice of St. Gabriel, the Angel of the Annunciation, who "stands in the presence of God," may be understood from the fact that St. Michael was always regarded as the Angel of the Resurrection and the vanquisher of Satan. It was he who repeated his historic conflicts with the Devil, in the mind and person of every believer. It was his special province to strike for and to animate the faithful in their contests with Antichrist; to expose the frauds and fallacies and lying wonders of the great Deceiver; and to defend at the Last Judgment the souls of the saints against the charges of the great Accuser. It has, moreover, been inferred from the offices he sustains, that St. Michael was the chief and prince of the good, as Lucifer was of the fallen, angels; and on this account he was formerly accepted as the tutelary Angel of the Jewish Synagogue, as afterwards as the Guardian of the Christian Church.

Drummond of Hawthornden signalizes the victorious valour and prowess of the champion of light against darkness, in a short poem, "On the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel."

To Thee, O Christ! Thy Father's light,
Life, virtue, which our heart inspires,
In presence of Thine angels bright,
We sing with voice and with desires :
Ourselves we mutually invite,
To melody with answering choirs.

With reverence we these soldiers praise,
Who near the heavenly throne abide ;