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A Key to the Calendar: Church

Ascension Day. Holy Thursday, in commemoration of the day Christ "ascended into heaven, led captivity captive, and opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers." It is celebrated forty days after Easter. The High Church party, supported by a few of the schools of thought, have been unwearied in their efforts to promote a better attendance at church on this day, in many cases with complete success. On this day the parochial bounds are beaten by the charity children, who are attended by the beadle and other officials. Formerly it was the custom to flog or bump some of the children at the bounds, in order that those localities might be impressed on their memories. 19. St. Dunstan was born in the Isle of Avalon, and early assumed the monastic habit with all its austerities; he built a cell near the Abbey of Glastonbury, and employed himself in goldsmith's work. The great enemy of souls, foreseeing his future greatness, tried in various ways to seduce St. Dunstan, who on one occasion seized the fiend with a pair of red-hot tongs. At the age of 21 he restored Glastonbury Abbey, then in ruins, and became abbot. He was banished by Edwy, but recalled by Edgar, and made Archbishop of Canterbury, in which office he died, A. D. 988. 26. St. Augustine. When Pope Gregory determined to send a mission to England, he selected St. Augustine, then prior of a Roman monastery, to head the 40 monks. Apparently, neither St. Augustine nor St. Gregory was aware that

England had been, more or less, a Christian country, although at that time in a retrograde condition. St. Augustine landed in Kent in 596, and converted King Ethelbert, whose wife, Bertha, was a French Christian princess, and had brought over her own chaplain. St. Augustine introduced and insisted upon the observance of the Roman ritual, and was strenuously opposed by the native bishops. He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 597, and died in 604. 27. Venerable Bede was born at Jarrow. He was regarded as a prodigy of learning, and was much esteemed for his saintly life, but does not appear to have conformed in all things to the established usages of the Church of Rome.

He died in 735.

Whit Sunday commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles immediately after the Ascension. It derives its name from the Saxon word Witte, or wisdom, which the Holy Spirit imparted. It is also called Pentecost, a Jewish term for the feast which fell fifty days after Easter. Monday and Tuesday are also holydays, a fact of which people in general are willing to avail themselves. The weather at this time is mostly fine, and working men and women are but too glad to get away for a few hours from their close homes. 29. Restoration of King Charles II. Royal Oak day, in memory of Charles II. having sought safety by hiding in the thick branches of an oak. Oak-apples used to be worn in England on this day, which was also a red-letter day in the calendar, having been set apart as a day of public thanksgiving for "that signal and wonderful deliverance vouchsafed to the then most gracious sovereign King Charles the Second, and all the Royal Family, and in them to this whole Church and State, and all orders and degrees of men in both, from the unnatural Rebellion, Usurpation and Tyranny of ungodly and cruel men, and from the sad confusion and ruin thereupon ensuing." But like the service for King Charles' execution, it was set aside in 1859.

JUNE.