Matthias' tide. 53 



FEB. 22. St. Peter's Chair at Antioch. 

 St. Margaret of Cortona, penitent, a.d. 1297. 

 SS. Tlialassius and Limneus, confessors. 

 St. Baradat, confessor. 



Obs. That St. Peter, before he went to Rome, founded the see 

 of Antioch, is attested by Eusebius, Origer, St. Jerom, St, Innocent, 

 Pope Gelasius in his Roman council, St. (Ihrysostom, and others. 

 St. Gregory the great says that he was seven years Bishop of 

 Antioch ; not that he resided there all that time, but that he had a 

 particular care over that church. If he sat tv^enty five years at 

 Rome, the date of his establishing his chair at Antioch must be 

 within three years of our Saviour's ascension, for in that supposition 

 he must have gone to Rome in the second year of Claudius. 



The festival of St. Peter's Chair in general, Nalale Petri de 

 Cathedra, is marked on this day in the most antient Calendar ex- 

 tant, made in the time of Pope Liberius about the year 354 ; it also 

 occurs in Gregory's Sacramentary, and in all the Martyrolo^ies. It 

 was kept in France in the sixth century, as appears from the council 

 of Tours and from Le Cointe. 



St. Tvlargaret of Cortona was a native of Alviano in Tuscany. The 

 harshness of a stepmother and her own induced propension to vice 

 cast her headlong into the greatest disorders. The sight of the carcase 

 of a man half putrified, who had been her gallant, struck her with so 

 great a fear of the divine judgments, that she became a perfect 

 penitent. After begging her father's pardon for her contempt of his 

 authority, she went to the parish church of Alviano with a rope to 

 her neck, and there asked public pardon for the scandal she had 

 given by her crimes. After this she repaired to Cortona, and made 

 her confession to a father of the Order of St. Francis, who prescribed 

 to her austerities suitable to her fervour. Her conversion happened 

 in the year 1274, the twenty fifth of her age. 



Herb Margaret Bellis perennis flowers. 



The Double Daises which begin now to blow in our cottage gar- 

 dens called Herb Margaret seem to have been so called either after 

 the saint recorded today, or after St. Margaret of Hungary, Jan. 28, 

 this being the usual time of their beginning to flower in mild weather. 

 In the present late spring, 1827, the second winter, which followed 

 a clear cold Candlemas, has so thrown them back that they scarcely 

 flowered by the middle of March. The following lines relate to the 

 origin of the name of this flower : 



There is a double fiow'ret, wtiite and red. 

 That our lasses call Herb Margaret, 

 In hoiiouie ot" C'ortona's penitent, 

 Whose contrile sowle with red remorse was rent. 

 While on her penitence kinde Heaven did throwe 

 The white of puritie, surpassing snoie ; 

 So vyhite and red in this fair fionre entwine. 

 Which maids are wont to scatter at her shrine. 



