angel's tide. 275 



OCT. 1. St. Remigius, bishop and conf. a.d. 533. 

 St. BaiT, anchoret. 

 St. Piat, martyr. 



St. Wasnul for Wasnon, confessor. 

 St. Fidharleus, abbot in Ireland. 

 Festival of the Rosary, on Sunday. 



06s. St. Remisitis, bv abbreviation called Remy, tbe great apostle of tlie French 

 nation, was one of the brightest lights of the Gaulish church, illustrious fur his learning, 

 eloquence, sanctity, and miracles. An episcopacy of seventy years, and many great 

 actions have rendered his name famous in the annals of the church. He died on the 

 13th of January, 533, being ninety four years old. 



The Festival of the Rosary, which takes place on the first Sunday in October, was 

 instituted by Pius V. in thanksgiving for the victory gained over the infidels at Lepanto 

 on Sunday the 7th of October, in 1.571. It was then called St. I\lary de Victoria. 

 Gregory kill, in 1573 changed the title to that of the Rosary, and granted an office to 

 all churches in which there was an altan bearing tlie title of Our Lady of the Rosary. 

 The Turks afterwards being beaten near Tinieswar on the Feast of Our Lady ad Nives m 

 1716, and those infidels having raised the siege of Corcyro on the Octave of the Assump- 

 tion, Clement XII. made the office of this festival general. The habit of saying the 

 Rosarv on the beads at night, as practised by pious Christians at the present day, does 

 not comprehend the whole office of the Rosary as said on this festival ; it is however a 

 practice of devotion, sa^s Butler, in which by fifteen Our Falhrrs and a hundred and 

 fifty Hail Marys, the taitlil'ul are taught to honor our divine Redeemer in the fifteen 

 principal mysteries of his sacred life and of this Holy Mother. The number of these 

 Pat?r Noaters and Ave Marias is often lessened in the evening devotions, and in the 

 Angelical Salutation repeated at certain hours of the day. See our account of Lady Day, 

 pasfe 85. Though St. Dominic, the pious founder of the Black Friars, first introduced 

 the daily custom of repeating the Rosary w ith the beads, nevertlieless the uSe of beads, 

 as well as of pebble stones, to count prayers witli, is much more antient, and was used 

 by the hermits and anchorites of old centuries before the establishment of the Festival 

 of the Rosary. The word !\lary, says St. Jerome, signifies Miriam or S ar of the Sea, 

 also Lady Star. See various etymologies cited by St. Jerom ; also Butler's Lives, vol. s. 

 p. 22; see also the Pruise of the Angelical Salutation on the Paraphrase of Thomas a 

 Kempis, cited by Butler, x. 27. 



We shall close the account of this festival with a citation from the Catholic Friend, 

 in which a picture is drawn of a vestal at her Rosary: — *' Behold also the misery, tlie 

 vice, the beggary, the crimes, the loathsome cruelij, and all the horrors of a great capi- 

 tal, and, above all, the mutual persecutions of tiie difierent sects and classes, abusing 

 and deprecating each other, and tryin"- mutually to pluck the laurels from the heads of 

 their neighbours which they cannot place upon their own. Turn away, tiien, from this 

 scene of confusion, and, entering the quiet recesseiiof a convent, behold the beanty, the 

 >incerity, the fervour, and sanctity, of a Catholic vestal at her beads. 



welcome pureeyed Faith, whitehanded Hope, 

 The hovering angel girt with uolden wings ; 

 Ami thou unhleniisli'd form of Chastity, 



1 see ye visibly, and now believe. 



Traverse the cloister, walk in the garden, enter the sanctuary ; every thing you will sec 

 is emblematical of some of those eminent religious and moral \irtues which have been 

 practised bv I iiri>tians forages. In the chapel you will hear the divine service of all 

 Catholic Cl'iristciic'.uui, tlie production of the early saints sanctioned by the succession 

 of ages. The most melodious music is emblematical of that harmony which musf prevail 

 in the united and Catholic church. The most beautiful paintings on subjects of our 

 religious history adorn tlie walls, while we behold in the painted glass what the poet 

 calls the 



" Storied windows richly clight, casting a dim religious light." 



The wholi- is calculated to produce a great effect, and dispose the mind to devotion. 

 Look, then, at the outside of the chapel, the form of the arch, the solemn grandeur of 

 the building, the spire pointing to heaven, whither we are to aspire, and surmounted by 

 the cock on the vane, emblems of that vigilance by whi* h alone we can attain any good. 

 The bells in th.' steeple, which call to prayer at the canonical hour, remind us figuratively 

 of the duty to call on each other and exhort each other daily. They are inscribed to 

 saints and" holy persons, whose names, like pious images, serve to remind the I'rail and 

 wandering pilgrim of the virtuous examples that have gone before him, and with whom 

 he may even liovv hold communion in heaven by prayer while he is yet on earth. 



On the antiquity of beads to count prayers, it may be further observed, Augustine is 

 said to have ment.oned their introduction as early as 366 into the Christian Church ; 

 bill they were in use in the remotest antiquity in the East. 



St. Remy's Lily Amaryllis hunulis fl. 



