March 30.

St. John Climacus.

St. Zozimus, Bishop St. Regulus,

of Syracuse, A. D. 660.
or Rieul, Bishop of Senlis.

St. John Climacus, A. D. 605, Was caverned as a hermit in a rock near Mount Sinai, in Syria, and became at seventy-five, abbot and superior-general of all the monks and hermits of the country. He admired one of the principal citizens of Alexandria in Egypt, who, petitioning to become a monk, was ordered to remain without the gate, and manifested his obedience by staying there for seven years, and begging prayers for his leprous soul of every passenger. St. John also admired a monkish cook, because he generally cried while he cooked, and assigned as a reason, that "the fire he always had before his eyes, reminded him of that fire which will burn

souls for all eternity."* It is related that

a woman who had committed so enormous a sin that she dare not confess it, came to

St. John, who bade her write it, and seal it, and give it to him, and he would pray for her; this she did, and shortly after St. John died. The woman sorely afraid

that her written secret would be read, wept and prayed at St. John's tomb, and begged he would appear and tell her what he had done with the paper; on a sudden, St. John came forth habited like a bishop, with a bishop on each side of him, and he said to the woman, "Why troublest thou me so much, and these saints with me? thou sufferest us to have no rest look here, our clothes are all wet with thy tears." Then he delivered to her the paper, sealed as she had given it to him, and said, "See here, look at the seal, open the writing, and read it." So she did; and she found all her sin "defaced clean out ;" and instead thereof was written, "All thy sins are forgiven, and put away by the prayer of St. John, my servant. Then she returned thanks, and St. John and his two bishops returned to their sepulchres.

SHERE THURSDAY.

Maundy Thursday is always the Thursday before Easter; its name has

occasioned some trouble to antiquaries. One writer conceives maundy to be cor-. rupted from the mandate of Christ to his disciples to break bread in remembrance

of him or from his other mandate, after

he had washed their feet, to love one

another. With better reason it is con

ceived to be derived from the Saxon word mand, which afterwards became maund, a name for a basket, and subsequently for any gift or offering contained in the sand favours from her maund she drew:" basket. Thus Shakspeare says, “a thouand Hall in his satires, speaks of " maund charged with household merchandize:" so also Drayton tells of "a little maund being made of osiers small;" and Herrick says,

"Behold, for us, the naked graces stay With maunds of roses, for to strew theway." The same poet speaks of maundie as

alms:

a

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buns, two-a-penny buns; one-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot-cross-buns!" This proceeds from some little "peep-o'-day boy," willing to take the "top of the morning" before the rest of his compeers. He carries his covered buns in a basket hanging on one arm, while his other hand is straightened like an open door, at the side of his mouth, to let forth his childish voice, and he "pipes and trebles out the sound" to the extremity of his lungs. Scarcely has he departed before others come; "another and another still succeeds," and at last the whole street is in one common cry of buns." Old men and young men, young women and old women, big children and little children, are engaged in this occupation, and some cry now who never cried before." The bun-venders who eclipse the rest in voice and activity, are young women who drive fruit-barrows-barrows, by the bye, are no more, but of them by and bye. A couple of these ex-barrow-women trip along, carrying a wicker clothes-basket between them, in which the "hot-crossbuns" are covered, first by a clean flannel or green baize, and outwardly by a clean white cloth, which coverings are slowly and partially removed, for fear of letting the buns cool, when a customer stops to buy, or calls them to the door. They continue their lengthened cry, with a volume of concerted sound, unequalled by other rivals in the ephemeral Good Friday trade. These scenes and sounds continue till church-time, and resume in the afternoon. It partially commences on the evening before Good Friday, but with little success.

"

Some thirty or forty years ago pastrycooks and bakers vied with each other for excellence in making hot-cross-buns; the demand has decreased, and so has the quality of the buns, But the great place of attraction for bun-eaters at that time was Chelsea; for there were the two “ royal bun-houses." Before and along the whole length of the long front of each, stood a flat-roofed, neat,wooden portico or piarra of the width of the foot-path, beneath which shelter from summer's heat and winter's cold," crowds of persons assembled to scramble for a charce of purchasing "royal hot cross Che sea buns," within a reasonable true; and several hundreds of square black tips, with dozens of hot buns on each tin, were disposed of in every hour from a little after six in the morning, till after the

same period in the evening of Good Friday. Those who knew what was good, better than new comers, gave the preference to the "old original royal bun-house," which had been a bun-house "ever since it was a house," and at which "the king himself once stopped," and who could say as much for the other? This was the conclusive tale at the door, and from within the doors, of the "old original bun-house." Alas! and alack! there is that house now; and there is the house that was opened as its rival; but where are ye who contributed to their renown and custom, among the appren tices and journeymen, and the little comfortable tradesmen of the metropolis, and their wives and children-where are ye? With ye hath the fame of" Chelsea buns' departed, and the "royal bun-houses" are little more distinguished than the humble graves wherein ye rest.

Formerly "hot-cross-buns" were commonly eaten in London by families at breakfast, and some families still retain the usage. They are of the usual form of buns; though they are distinguished from them inwardly by a sweeter taste, and the flavour of all-spice, and outwardly by the mark or sign of the cross. The "hot-cross-bun" is the most popular symbol of the Roman catholic religion in England that the reforination has left. Of the use of the cross, as a mark or sign in papal worship and devotion, most readers are aware; for it has been insisted on by Roman catholic writers from the days of Constantine to Alban Butler himself, who giving example of its great virtue on Good Friday, says, "to add one more instance, out of many, St. Teresa assures us, in her own life, that one day the devil, by a phantom, appeared to sit on the letters of her book, to disturb her at her devotions; but she drove him away thrice by the sign of the cross, and at last sprinkled the book with holy water: after which he returned no more." In the houses of some ignorant people, a Good Friday bun is still kept "for luck," and sometimes there hangs from the ceiling a hard biscuit-like cake of open cross-work, baked on a Good Friday, to Good Friday by one of similar make; and remain there till displaced on the next of this the editor of the Every-Day Book

Sader's Moveable Feasts, 1774, 8vo. p. 379.

has heard affirmed, that it preserves the house from fire;" "no fire ever happened in a house that had one." This undoubtedly is a relic of the old superstition; as is also a vulgar notion in the west of England, that the straight stripe down the shoulders of the ass, intersected by the long one from the neck to the tail, is a cross of honour conferred upon him by Christ, and that before Christ rode upon the ass, that animal was not so distinguished.

Hot-cross-buns are the ecclesiastical Eulogiæ, or consecrated loaves, bestowed in the church as alms, and to those who from any impediment could not receive the host. They are made from the dough from whence the host itself is taken, and are given by the priest to the people after mass, just before the congregation is dismissed, and are kissed before they are eaten. They are marked with the cross as our Good Friday buns are. Winckelman relates this remarkable fact, that at Herculaneum were found two entire loaves of the same size, a palm and a nalf, or five inches in diameter. They were marked by a cross, within which were four other lines; and so the bread of the Greeks was marked from the earliest periods. Sometimes it had only four lines, and then it was called quadra. This bread had rarely any other mark than a cross, which was on purpose to divide and break it more easily.*

The Tenebra, a Roman catholic service signifying darkness, is performed on and before Good Friday, to denote the circumstances and darkness at the crucifixion. This is partly symbolized by a

triangular candlestick with fourteen yerlow wax candles and one white one seven of these yellow candles being on one side, the seven other yellow ones on the cther side, and the white wax candle being at the top. The fourteen yellow candles represent the eleven apostles, the virgin Mary, and the women that were with her at the crucifixion; the white candle at the top is to represent Christ. Fourteen psalms are sung, and at the end of each psalm one of the yellow candles is put out till the whole fourteen are extinguished, and the white candle alone left alight. After this and the extinction of the light on the altar, "the white candle is taken down from the top of the triangular candlestick, and hid under the altar." The putting out of the fourteen candles is to denote the flight or mourning of the apostles and the women; and the hiding of the white candle denotes that Christ is in the sepulchre; then a noise is made by beating the desks or books, and by beating the floor with the hands and feet, and this noise is to represent the earthquake and the splitting of the rocks at the crucifixion.

In the church of St. Peter's at Rome on Good Friday, the hundred burning lamps on the tomb of St. Peter are extinguished, and a stupendous illuminated cross depends from the immense dome of the cathedral, as if it hung self-supported. But to relate the papal ceremonies pertaining to the fast of lent, and its ensuing festival, would fill volumes of this size, and we hasten from the devices of men to contemplate works which all his art is incompetent to rival.

Fosbroke's Brit. Monach. Herculaneum it will be remembered was overwhelmed and destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, A. D. 79.

Butler's Moveable Feasta.