Michaelmas Day. The Festival of St. Michael and all Angels on September 29th, was instituted in the year 487, to commemorate the ministry of these Holy Angels, the messengers of goodwill towards men. St. Michael was also esteemed the protector of the Christian Church. At the Reformation, though the worship of angels was expressly condemned as superstitious and idolatrous, this festival was preserved, but restrained to its original intent, of returning thanks to God, who, to use the words of the Collect for the day, "has constituted the service of men and angels in a wonderful order," and to pray that they may continue to succour and defend us on earth as they do constantly serve God in heaven. The reason of Michael being specially named, to the exclusion of Gabriel, or Raphael, names also contained in Scripture—although, according to the classification of angels recognised in the Middle Ages, he belonged to the third or lowest of the three hierarchies into which the angelic hosts were divided is to be found in the more active part assigned to him in Sacred Writ, or inferred from what is there mentioned. For he, as the prince of the Jews, was considered to be the destroyer who smote the first-born of Egypt, the angel who led the children of Israel through the Wilderness; and as the prince now of the true spiritual Israel, the Church, he it is who is represented as casting down the devil when there was war in heaven; and who is the guardian of Paradise, the keeper of the souls of men. But the immediate cause of the institution of this festival in his honour is said to have been the following circumstance :-On Mount Gargan, about forty miles from Siponto, in Apulia, is a cavern, at the entrance whereof, a rich man of Siponto, at some time in the fourth century-the date is variously fixed in A.D. 320 and 390-found a stray ox, of which he was in search. He shot at it with an arrow; but the weapon rebounded, and wounded the shooter. Terrified at this phenomenon, he consulted the bishop of the place, who instituted a three days' fast; when the archangel Michael appeared to him, announced his name, and promised to take the city under his protection. The 8th of May is assigned as the date of this apparition. The promise of protection was fulfilled in a battle between the Christian Sipontines and the Pagan Neapolitans, when the archangel again appeared to the Bishop of Siponto before the mysterious cavern, and assured him of victory. This was secured by a fearful storm of thunder and lightning accompanied by a trembling of the earth. After these twofold appearances, the bishop was anxious to dedicate a church on the sacred spot to St. Michael, but hesitated. He had not long to wait, before Michael again appeared, and stated that it was unnecessary to build him a church, as he would found and consecrate one himself, where divine service might be performed the next day. The next morning, accordingly, the bishop and people entered the cavern, and found a magnificent church, excavated from the rock, with three altars, and a fountain of the sweetest water, dropping into a glass basin suspended by a silver chain. In memory of so remarkable a circumstance, the Pope consecrated the 29th of September in honour of St. Michael and All holy Angels.-Neale's Feasts and Fasts. .... St. Michael is represented in armour, with a cross or scales, weighing souls. In the legend he is in armour winged, in one hand holding a sword, in the posture of going to strike, in the other a cross bottonée. His design, according to Randle Holme, is a banner having on it a cross; and he is armed as representing victory, with a dart in one hand, and a cross on his forehead. Bishop Horsley and others consider Michael only another designation for the Son of God. We may add, as a certain Biblical truth, that the Lord Himself is always meant, in an eminent sense, by any angel named as his minister; and He is called the Angel of the Covenant, because He embodied in his person the whole power representation of the angelic kingdom, as the messenger, not of separate and temporary command, but of the whole Word in its fulness. and The church of St. Michael, in Cornhill, has recently been redecorated with a series of wood carvings of great beauty, by W. G. Rogers; a few being characteristic of the patron saint, and all the subjects selected with excellent judgment. Michaelmas Day is, in England, one of the four quarterly terms on which rents are paid. The election of public officers is common on this day, perhaps derived from the opinion of guardian genii and titular spirits as defenders of cities and persons. On this day is elected the Lord Mayor of London. It was an old notion that there would be as many floods as the moon was days old on Michaelmas Day. In the autumnal garden, the day is florally commemorated : The Michaelmas Daisy, among the dead weeds, Blooms for St. Michael's valorous deeds. The custom of Eating Goose on Michaelmas Day has much exercised the ingenuity of antiquaries; and is referred by some to a goose being the dish before Queen Elizabeth, when the news was brought of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. But the practice can be traced to the previous century; since bringing a goose "fit for the lord's dinner" on this day appears to have been customary in the time of Edward IV.; and that it was common before the Armada victory is shown in the following passage from Gascoigne, who died in 1577, eleven years before the event: And when the tenauntes come to pay their quarter's rent, At Christmas a capon, at Michaelmas a goose; And somewhat else at New Yere's tide, for feare their lease flies loose. The most probable reason is that Michaelmas Day was a great festival, and geese at that time were most plentiful. In Paris, both goose and turkey are commonly eaten on this day. In Scotland was made on this day, St. Michael's or Bannock Cake, of which, after a turn round the church, all the family and visitors ate. Presentation of Sheriffs. The Sheriffs of London and Middlesex are chosen by the Livery, but are presented for the approval of the sovereign on the morrow of the Feast of St. Michael, September 30th. It was formerly the custom for the newly-elected Sheriffs to proceed on this day to the Court of Exchequer, at Westminster, accompanied by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, when the Recorder introduced the Sheriffs, and detailed their family history, and the Cursitor-Baron signified the sovereign's approval; the writs and appearances were read, recorded, and filed, and the Sheriffs and senior undersheriff took the oaths; and the late Sheriffs presented their accounts. The Crier of the court then made proclamation for one who did homage for the Sheriffs of London to "stand forth and do his duty;" when the senior Alderman below the chair rose, the usher of the court handed him a bill-hook, and held in both hands a small bundle of sticks, which the Alderman cut asunder, and then cut another bundle with a hatchet. Similar proclamation was then made for the Sheriff of Middlesex, when the Alderman counted six horse-shoes lying upon the table, and sixty-one hob-nails handed in a tray; and the numbers were declared twice. The sticks were thin peeled twigs, tied in a bundle at each end with red tape; the horse-shoes were of large size, and very old; the hob-nails were supplied fresh every year. By the first ceremony the Alderman did suit and service for the tenants of a manor in Shropshire, the chopping of sticks betokening the custom of the tenants supplying their lord with fuel. The counting of the horse shoes and nails was another suit and service of the owners of a forge in St. Clement Danes, Strand, which formerly belonged to the City, but no longer exists. The presentation is no longer made in the Court of Exchequer, but in a more private manner.. St. Francis's Day. St. Francis, the founder of one of the four orders of Mendicant Friars called Franciscans, was born at Assisi, in Umbria, in 1182. He was at first a young man of dissolute manners, but through a fit of sickness he retired into solitude and mortified himself severely. His father threw him into prison, but ineffectually; and then carried him before the Bishop of Assisi, to make him renounce all title to the paternal possessions, which he did, and stripped off all his clothes, even to his shirt. He then induced many others to devote themselves, as he had done, to the poverty which he considered as enjoined by the Gospel; and his Order increased so fast, that in a few years 5000 friars of it were present at a chapter. He went into the Holy Land, and endeavoured, but in vain, to convert the Sultan Meledin; and offered to throw himself into the flames to prove his faith in what he taught. He returned soon after to Assisi, where he died, Oct. 4th, 1226, and was canonized by Pope Gregory IX.: and the very death, He was ennobled in his life by many miracles, which is to all men horrible and hateful, he admonished them to praise it. And also he warned and admonished death to come to him, and said, "Death, my sister, welcome be you!" And when he came at the last hour, he slept in our Lord; of whom a friar saw the soul, in manner of a star, like to the moon in quantity, and the sun in clearness.-Golden Legend. The Franciscans came to England in 1224; they had their first house in Canterbury, and their second in London; the latter upon the site of Christ's Hospital. Here, on the Feast of St. Francis, the mayor and aldermen were anciently received in grand procession as founders. St. Ethelreda's Day. October, though from the age of Numa it has been the tenth month of the year, derives its name from its original position in the Alban Calendar; being compounded of Octo, eight; and imber, a shower. The Saxons called it Wyn Monath, or the Wine-Month; and also, WynterFyllyth, from the approach of Winter. Ethelreda was the daughter of Anna and Heriswitha, king and queen of East Anglia, and she was born at Exning, then the capital of that kingdom-now a little village in a detached part of Suffolk, that lies like an island in the eastern portion of Cambridgeshire. Ethelreda early embraced a resolution of perpetual virginity. She was twice wedded, first to Tonbért, Prince of the Gervii; and some years after his decease, to Egfrid, King of Northumberland: but both her marriages were merely nominal. Egfrid, in compliance with her earnest prayers and tears, reluctantly consented to her taking the veil under his aunt, St. Ebbe, at Coldingham. She had not, however, taken up her abode in that convent, when she learnt that the king was about to bring her back by force to his palace. The venerable Ebbe advised immediate flight; and, with two females, Ethelreda set forth on her pilgrimage. Crossing the Humber, she reached Wintringham, and remained for some time in a neighbouring village. Hence she proceeded southward through Lincolnshire, till, weary with her journey, she sat down in a pleasant nook, and fell asleep. She had placed her pilgrim's staff at her head, and (says the legend) on waking, found it had grown into a shady tree, and had protected her, during her repose, from the rays of the At length she arrived in the Isle of Ely, which had been settled on her by her first husband; and here, gathering around her a band of devoted maidens, she laid the foundation of an abbey; she built a church; and finally, in 673, she commenced building a monastery, upon which she expended all that she possessed. St. Wilfrid, on hearing of the progress that the new abbey was making, hastened to Ely, and gave abbatical consecration to St. Ethelreda. Henceforth her life was peace. At length she was seized with a painful swelling in the neck, which she acknowledged a just punishment for the pride she had formerly taken in wearing necklaces. On June 23rd, 679, "she went from the desert of this world, with angels for her companions, into the joys of that which is to come." On the 17th of October, in the same year, her remains were translated to the Church of St. Mary, which Ethelreda had herself built. sun. St. Ethelreda's name, by abbreviation, became corrupted to Auldry or Audry, by which latter she is still denominated in the Isle of Ely. As at the fair held at this place much ordinary but showy lace was usually sold, St. Audry's lace soon became proverbial, and from that cause, tawdry, a corruption of St. Audry, has become a common expression to denote not only lace, but other articles which are more gaudy than of real value; or "ridiculously gay." Bailey, in his Dictionary, has Tawdry, (as Dr. Thomas Henshaw and Skinner suppose, of knots and ribbons, bought at a fair, anciently held in the Chapel of St. Awdrey, St. Audrey, or Ethelred), ridiculously or flauntingly gay, meanly showy, fine without grace or elegance. It is used both of things and persons wearing them. Southey conjectures that St. Audry may have worn the lace which afterwards bore her name, to conceal the scrofulous appearance on her neck; and that from this, when it was afterwards worn as an ornament, which was common and not costly, the word tawdry may have been taken to designate any kind of coarse and vulgar finery. St. Luke's Day. Of this holy person the New Testament gives us very little information. He is not mentioned in the Gospels, nor is he supposed to have been converted to Christianity till after the death of the Saviour. It is, however, evident that he accompanied St. Paul in the greater part of his journeyings; and his Gospel is, with good reason, supposed to have been written under his sanction, as that of St. Mark was under St. Peter's. St. Luke's Gospel is written in elegant Greek, and there is a tradition that he was a Greek by birth, but became a proselyte to Judaism early in life. Of his conversion to Christianity we know nothing. He was a well-educated man, and is thought to have been an eye-witness of many of the events he relates, and to have been in the habit of keeping a journal of events, which he used in composing his histories. He is supposed to have died at the age of eighty, or eighty-four, by a natural death, as there is no mention of his martyrdom. From Coloss. iv. 14, and from the testimony of Eusebius, Jerome, and other early writers, it appears that Luke was a physician; another tradition makes him a painter, but this is little credited. The usual oath of William Rufus was, "By the face of Christ, depicted by St. Luke." He is the patron saint of the Painter-Stainers' Company, who hold their Election Feast on St. Luke's Day, October 18th: and among the pictures in the Company's Hall is Van Somer's St. Luke writing his Gospel. Drake, in his Eboracum, describes St. Luke's Day as known in York by the name of Whip-Dog Day, from a strange custom schoolboys use here of whipping all the dogs that are seen in the streets that day. Tradition ascribes this custom, on this day, to the times of Popery, a dog having swallowed a consecrated pax which a priest let fall: the dog was killed, and thence began a persecution which lasted until our times, when it was forbidden by a Lord Mayor of York. In the Golden Legend, St.Luke is sitting before a reading-desk, beneath which appears an ox's head, "because he devised about the presthode of Jes. Christ.". St. Crispin's Day. October 25th has been for centuries a red-letter day in the calendar of the shoemakers, being the festival of their patron saint. Crispin and Crispinian, are said to have been two Roman youths of good birth, brothers, who in the third century went as Christian missionaries to France, and preached for some time at Soissons. In imitation of St. Paul, who wrought as a tent-maker, they supported themselves by working at the trade of the shoemaker by night, while they preached during the day. They were successful in converting the people to Chris |