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JULY.

2nd. Visitation of Virgin Mary, that is, to Elisabeth (Luke i. 39). -A late festival, instituted by Urban vi. in 1389, during the great schism, and confirmed at the Council of Basle (1431), in order "that she, being honoured, might reconcile her Son by her intercession, and grant peace and amity among the faithful."

4th. Translation of St. Martin (of Tours) from Cande, where he died, to the great Basilica of Tours in 478. St. Martin, Bishop of Tours (371-397), was the son of a Roman tribune, and himself a soldier up to the age of 40, pupil and friend of St. Hilary of Poitiers. As a Bishop he still shewed his soldierly character in resolute war against Arianism and the last remnants of Paganism, and vigorous assertion of spiritual discipline. He is best known by the celebrated story of his dividing his cloak with a naked beggar, and in a dream seeing the Lord Himself clothed in it, and by the vision being converted to Christ. (See Nov. 11th.)

15th. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, Translation.-Bishop (838 -862) at the beginning of the monastic reforms, and the increase of the authority of Rome, which led to the struggle under Dunstan in the next century. He was buried, by his own desire, outside the Cathedral, where men might walk over his grave. After canonization in 912, his remains were translated to a shrine in the Cathedral; and, according to the legend, the saint showed his anger by a rain which stopped the work for 40 days. Hence the common belief that rain on St. Swithun's day presages a continued rain of 40 days.

20th. Margaret, Virgin and Martyr, said to have been martyred at Antioch in Pisidia (A.D. 278); commemorated as a "Great Martyr" by the Greek Church on July 17th. Nothing is really known about her; but, being usually represented as trampling on or piercing a dragon, she was obviously taken as a type of the power of faith in the weak to confound the strong.

22nd. St. Mary Magdalene.This was a red-letter Saint's Day, with Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, in 1549. In the Collect she was cited as an example of penitence and forgiveness, and in the Gospel (Luke vii. 36-50) she was identified with "the woman who was a sinner," as also, in the common Western tradition, with Mary the sister of Lazarus. With this the Eastern tradition disagrees, and Holy Scripture gives no authority for it. All we really know is that "out of her went seven devils," that she ministered to the Lord in His life, at the cross, and the grave; and that she was blessed with the first sight of Him after the Resurrection (Luke viii. 2, 3; Mark xv. 40; xvi. 1; John xx. 1-18). Why a Commemoration, so reasonable and spiritually instructive, was dropped in 1552, does not appear.

20th. St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin, wife of Joachim. She appears in the Apocryphal Gospels in a legend of long childlessness, followed by special promise and miraculous birth of her child. The name is unknown in Scripture or the early Fathers before Epiphanius (A.D. 368), and the legend marks the growing cultus of the Virgin. The Emperor Justinian built a church to St. Anne in the 6th century.

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JUNE.

1st. Nicomede, Martyr.-Commemorated in the Sacramentary of Gregory. He is said to have been a martyr in the days of Domitian, beaten to death with clubs; but nothing can be said to be really known of him.

5th. Boniface, Bishop (A.D. 600 -755). The "Apostle of Germany,' "born at Crediton, educated at Exeter, and a monk at Nutshalting near Winchester, highly honoured for learning and ability. Following in the steps of St. Willibrod and other English monks, he resolved to devote himself under the sanction of Gregory II. to missionary work in Germany, beyond the old Roman frontier among the Saxons; there he felled the sacred oak at Geismar, preaching and baptizing with marvellous success; afterwards he was consecrated to the new see of Mayence, founding monasteries and bishoprics, to organize conquests already won; finally martyred in Frisia on June 5th, 755. He was a man great indeed, alike in holiness of character, missionary enterprise, and power of rule.

17th. St. Alban, Martyr, according to the old tradition, the first martyr of Britain. He is described as a young Roman officer in the days of Diocletian, who sheltered a Christian priest, and was converted by him. Enabling him to escape, and, while yet a catechumen, offering himself boldly as a Christian to martyrdom, he was scourged and beheaded at Verulamium, A.D. 303. There the great Benedictine Abbey of St. Alban's, holding precedence of all others, afterwards arose. The whole tradition is late (in Bede, i. 6.7); and the Diocletian persecution prevailed but little in Britain (then under the rule of Constantius). But it is difficult to suppose that in it there is no element of historic truth. It is curious that in the old Sarum and modern Roman Calendar St. Alban is commemorated on the 22nd.

20th. Translation of King Edward (see March 18th), commemorates the translation of the body of the murdered young king from a marsh near Corfe Castle, where it was first buried, to Shaftesbury.

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JULY.

2nd. Visitation of Virgin Mary, that is, to Elisabeth (Luke i. 39). -A late festival, instituted by Urban vi. in 1389, during the great schism, and confirmed at the Council of Basle (1431), in order "that she, being honoured, might reconcile her Son by her intercession, and grant peace and amity among the faithful."

4th. Translation of St. Martin (of Tours) from Cande, where he died, to the great Basilica of Tours in 478. St. Martin, Bishop of Tours (371-397), was the son of a Roman tribune, and himself a soldier up to the age of 40, pupil and friend of St. Hilary of Poitiers. As a Bishop he still shewed his soldierly character in resolute war against Arianism and the last remnants of Paganism, and vigorous assertion of spiritual discipline. He is best known by the celebrated story of his dividing his cloak with a naked beggar, and in a dream seeing the Lord Himself clothed in it, and by the vision being converted to Christ. (See Nov. 11th.)

15th. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, Translation.-Bishop (838 -862) at the beginning of the monastic reforms, and the increase of the authority of Rome, which led to the struggle under Dunstan in the next century. He was buried, by his own desire, outside the Cathedral, where men might walk over his grave. After canonization in 912, his remains were translated to a shrine in the Cathedral; and, according to the legend, the saint showed his anger by a rain which stopped the work for 40 days. Hence the common belief that rain on St. Swithun's day presages a continued rain of 40 days.

20th. Margaret, Virgin and Martyr, said to have been martyred at Antioch in Pisidia (A.D. 278); commemorated as a "Great Martyr" by the Greek Church on July 17th. Nothing is really known about her; but, being usually represented as trampling on or piercing a dragon, she was obviously taken as a type of the power of faith in the weak to confound the strong.

22nd. St. Mary Magdalene.This was a red-letter Saint's Day, with Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, in 1549. In the Collect she was cited as an example of penitence and forgiveness, and in the Gospel (Luke vii. 36-50) she was identified with "the woman who was a sinner," as also, in the common Western tradition, with Mary the sister of Lazarus. With this the Eastern tradition disagrees, and Holy Scripture gives no authority for it. All we really know is that 46 out of her went seven devils," that she ministered to the Lord in His life, at the cross, and the grave; and that she was blessed with the first sight of Him after the Resurrection (Luke viii. 2, 3; Mark xv. 40; xvi. 1; John xx. 1-18). Why a Commemoration, so reasonable and spiritually instructive, was dropped in 1552, does not appear.

20th. St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin, wife of Joachim. She appears in the Apocryphal Gospels in a legend of long childlessness, followed by special promise and miraculous birth of her child. The name is unknown in Scripture or the early Fathers before Epiphanius (A.D. 368), and the legend marks the growing cultus of the Virgin. The Emperor Justinian built a church to St. Anne in the 6th century.

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