CATHERINE TIDE. 329 



NOV. 24. St. John of the Cross, conf. a.d. 1591. 

 St. Chrysogonus, martyr, 851. 

 SS. Flora and Mary, virgins and martyrs, 851. 

 St. Cianan or Kenan, bishop in Ireland, 489. 



Obs. St. John of the Cross wus born at Avila in Old Castile in 1542, ami 

 died in 151)1. With his mother's milk, says l^utler, he sucked iu the most 

 tender devotion to the Blessed V'ir;;in, and was preserved from many dangers 

 by her visible intercession. To satisfy liis ilevotion to her, he took at twenty 

 one years of age the religions habit among the Carmelite I'riars of Medina in 

 1568. Aftcrdeliberating with himselfaUout entering the order of t'artliusians, 

 he at length was persuaded by bt. Teresa to become one of the reformed or 

 barefooted Carmelites, uhich took place on Advent Sunday in 15G8. So great 

 were the austerities of tliose friars, that St. Teresa was forced to exert lierself 

 to limit them. Tliis onler was, however, appjoved of by Pope Hius V. and con- 

 firmed by Gregory XIII . in 1580. See Butler's Lives, xi. paae 404. From tlie 

 great attachment of this Saint to the Cross, the emblem of our religion, he 

 was called St. John of the Cross. And from his fervid and flon cry discourses, 

 with this ensign in his hand, he made many converts even in the \vavering aae 

 iu which he lived, when the austere reli;.'ious lites of early Christianity weie 

 about to uive place to the acquisitive and crafty policy ol more unsteady times. 

 St. John is even recorded to have prayed for crosses and troubles to try his pa- 

 tience, perseverance, contempt of tlie Hesh, and love of Co.l. Persecutions, 

 he used to say, were the means to attain to the depth and knowledge of the 

 mystery of the Cross. How contrasted to such a life of austerity is that of the 

 pampered modern Epicurean, who, setting his lieait on the perishable plea- 

 sures of this world, cannot enjoy one of them, from his impatience of the dis- 

 appointments and troubles with which the happiest of mortal lives are not 

 free. In the little solitary convent of Fegnuela in the mountains St. John 

 finished his mystical treatises that compose his works. We find the following 

 aspiration in allusion to this saint:— As rivers when filled with copious rains 

 almost overflow their banks, in impatience to disembogue themselves into the 

 ocean J so may our souls, like that of the Ijoly Johii, replenished with the 

 showers of divine grace, so overflow uith devotion that they may swell wi!'! 

 desire to mingle in the sea of eternal joy. — Florilcghim, \\. 24. 



Saint Flora was a martyr at Cordova in tlie ni'nth centnry, "here she suf- 

 fered martyrdom with St. Alary, another pious virgin, by decapitation, ordered 

 by the Cadi, ou the 24(li of November, 851. 

 The following sonnet is well addressed to St. Flora at this seasoEi : 

 Flower of nectar odours, pride of Sfiaiii, 

 Beautie's unvarnished essence, saintlie mayde, 

 Before whose form all earthborn fl'wers fade. 

 And, blushing, let their petals, fall again; 

 How rightly thou art named from the train 



Of fragrant cups that catcii the morning dew; 

 Thoii the chaste Snowdrop's whiteness without ^taiu, 

 JNIixt with the Hartdiell's deeply purpling blue. 

 Thy care in Spring, wise maid, was to bedew 

 The garden of the soul with heavenlie grace, 

 Weeting that all that's earthlie wends apace 



Into the dark abyss of death and rue. 

 Well did'st thou weave thy crown for that blest place. 

 Where Virtue's flowers ever keep their hue. 



Starry Stapelia Stapelia radiata fl. 



We find the above plant recorded us blowing today in the greenhouse. 



Ff2 



