ities of our weak nature, the solemn fast of Lent lasts until Easter Sunday. In the Protestant Church, Ash Wednesday is distinguished by the performance of the usual long morning and evening services, and by the circumstance that, in addition to the accustomed dishes that occupy their table, people consider it essential to commence dinner with salt fish and egg sauce,-by that solitary instance of momentary coquetting with penitential food, compounding, as it were, for the utter disregard of either fast or abstinence during the forty days that follow. On Palm Sunday, the blessing of the palms, which the faithful hold in their hands during the chaunting of the Gospel, strikingly recalls to devout minds the triumphant entry of our Saviour into Jerusalem. By the Anglican Church, this commemorative ceremonial is utterly discarded from their ritual. The services of the Catholic Church during Holy Week have an almost dramatic reference to the great events of our Redeemer's passion; and it is impossible for a person attentively to follow their course, without feelings of the most profound edification. The offices of "Tenebræ," on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings, carry, in their very structure and quaintness of ceremonial, the impress of remote antiquity. Six lights on the altar, and fifteen on a triangular candlestick, burning at the commencement of the service, which consists of Psalms, interspersed with the lamentations of Jeremiah and lessons from the writings of ancient fathers, betoken the light of faith preached by the prophets and JESUS Christ. As the service proceeds, the candles are successively extinguished, to remind us that the Jews were totally deprived of the light of faith, when they put our Saviour to death. The fifteenth candle, which occupied the top of the triangular candlestick, is finally removed, and hidden under the altar during the solemn chaunting of the Psalm "Miserere," at the end of which it is produced, still burning, to typify that, although the humanity of Christ lay for a brief interval dormant in the sepulchre, the eternal vitality of His divine nature was not for one moment eclipsed by the temporary obscuration of a merely mortal death. The total darkness, and noise made, at the end of the office of "Tenebræ," naturally indicate the gloom and convulsion of nature which marked the hour when the Messiah breathed His last,-when the earth trembled, the rocks were riven, the graves opened, and the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom! On Maundy Thursday, the mass of the day commences with all the festive accompaniments of white vestments, music and lights, incense and ringing of bells, in honour of the institution of the ever adorable sacrament of the Holy Eucharist; and a host, by immemorial custom consecrated for the purpose of being used at the solemn "Mass of the Presanctified" of the ensuing day, is processionally carried to a subsidiary altar, prepared and decorated for the occasion, where it remains exposed to the worship of the faithful. On Good Friday, the prostrate figures of the clergy and acolytes before the naked and unadorned altar,-the chaunting of the long gospel of the Passion,-the ancient and beautiful prayers,—and the ceremony of the Adoration of the Cross,-are all accessories of the most striking and solemn import, intended to commemorate the at once mournful and glorious mystery of human redemption. Who that joins in the all-appropriate formularies of the Church on that great day, but feels the exquisite pathos of that time-honoured hymn, "CRUX FIDELIS INTER OMNES! ARBOR UNA NOBILIS: NULLA SILVA TALEM PROFERT FRONDE, FLORE, GERMINE. DULCE LIGNUM, DULCES CLAVOS, It is not generally known that the paraphrase of this quaint but graceful piece of monkish Latinity, commencing, "O FAITHFUL CROSS, O NOBLEST TREE, IN ALL OUR WOODS THERE'S NONE LIKE THEE," is the production of our Catholic poet Dryden. The morning service of Holy Saturday, by the Primitive Church performed at the hour of midnight, abounds in mystical and imposing ceremonies. A triple candle is lighted from five previously blest, signifying that our faith in the blessed Trinity proceeds from the light communicated to us by Christ risen from the dead. The paschal candle, blest in the next place by the deacon, is a figure of the body of JESUS Christ, and the five grains of incense fixed in it represent the. aromatic spices that embalmed Him in the sepulchre. Twelve prophecies, chosen with singular felicity from the Old Testament, are successively chaunted;-the baptismal font and water are solemnly blest; -prostrate on the earth, the clergy recite the Litanies of the Saints;and at the high mass which concludes the morning service and the religious observances of the week, the ringing of bells, and the joyous burst of the organ, proclaim, in a manner that appeals to every heart, the glorious tidings of our Saviour's resurrection. And how have our brethren of the Anglican Establishment commemorated the solemnities of Holy Week? Their churches indeed have been opened for the everlasting morning and evening formularies of the Conimon Prayer Book, unmarked by the slightest apparent reference to the mysteries of the particular season. Protestantism has converted Good Friday, the holiest of fasts, and an eminently working, because so strictly penitential day, into a Sunday and holiday, upon which, however, it is again deemed indispensable to re-enact the Ash Wednesday quasi austerity of commencing the usual every-day dinner with salt fish. On Easter Sunday the Church puts forth all her splendour, to honour the grandest festival of Christianity; and exulting Alleluias welcome to the sacramental rail crowds of her repentant children, who from the tribunal of penance, as from the grave of sin, have risen with Christ to a new life of revived faith and fervour! ance. The next great religious holiday, kept in all Catholic countries with extraordinary solemnity, is Ascension Day,-mentioned as such indeed in Protestant calendars, but unconsecrated by any particular observThe churches of the Establishment may indeed be open for morning prayer, but we may safely aver that by the great bulk of the community the anniversary of our Saviour's glorious ascension to heaven is passed over with utter indifference. The paschal candle, which, ever since its introduction on Easter Eve, had been lighted every day during mass, is no longer seen on Ascension Day. Its disappearance is emblematical of the great event of our Redeemer's final ascent after the forty days on earth, during which he was at times seen by many." 66 On Whit Sunday, the solemn services of the Church are dedicated to glorify in a peculiar manner the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The vestments of her ministers are crimson, and the beautiful hymns "VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS," and "VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS," vividly impress on the minds of the faithful the memory of the wonderful miracle of the fiery tongues, which transformed the still weak and powerless disciples into ardent and inspired Apostles. Ten days later, and exactly three weeks after the Ascension, occurs the festival of Corpus Christi, expressly instituted to honour the sacred and ineffable mystery of JESUS Christ's real and corporeal presence in the adorable Sacrament of the Eucharist. In all Catholic countries, this great feast is solemnized by gorgeous processions in the open streets, affording to entire populations the opportunity of doing homage to the Saviour of mankind, and of vindicating the majesty and integrity of a sacrament, assailed alike by the scoffs of infidelity and error. On the 29th of June, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul; and on the 15th of August, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,an article of pious belief, which supposes her to have been carried up to heaven, but "who we know departed this life to satisfy the condition of our mortality."* The solemnities of the ecclesiastical year may be said to conclude with the feast of All Saints,—a day upon which we do homage to the glorified army of martyrs, prophets, and confessors, and all holy persons who have preceded us into the realms of immortality, after victoriously withstanding the temptations that had beset their path through this life; imploring them to join their powerful intercessions to ours, to obtain from GOD for their still struggling brethren on earth such graces as should enable these to tread the bright path of salvation. How touching the contrast between the joyous festival of All Saints, and the lugubrious solemnity of All Souls, which immediately succeeds it,-when the prayers of the Universal Church are poured forth on behalf of the suffering souls of the departed faithful! On All Saints, faith glorifies the chosen children of heaven, and hope points to their bright abode, as destined to be one day ours! On All Souls, the Church vindicates the claim of charity to be considered the greatest of all virtues, by earnest and affectionate prayers for the everlasting happiness of all her deceased children ! How does the Anglican Establishment deal with the last four or five feasts mentioned ? She leaves them indeed a place in her calendars, but practically expunges them from the list of days which should be kept holy. What, in fact, can the frigid spirit of Protestantism have to do with "Corpus Christi," after reducing the holy sacrament of Christ's body and blood, to a commemorative participation of bread and wine?-or with the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, after denouncing as idolatrous the homage which Catholics are proud to offer to the Mother of their Redeemer?-or with " All Saints," after utterly rejecting the belief in their ability to hear our petitions?—or with "All Souls," after a cold and heartless condemnation of the consoling doctrine which teaches us that the prayers of the living may still benefit the souls of the dead? Were we inclined to swell the catalogue of Catholic fasts and festivals, we might expatiate on the Patron Saint days of the various countries in Christendom, and of the various trades and confraternities, lay * Secret. in Offic. Miss. Assump. B.V.M. and religious, the fasts of the Rogation and Ember days, and vigils of the principal feasts,-the religious celebrations of the month of May, consecrated in a peculiar manner to the honour of the immaculate Virgin Mary, the daily Angelus,-and the devotions of the perpetual exposition of the blessed Sacrament, in Catholic countries cultivated with great fervour and assiduity. We believe, however, we have said enough to direct attention to the remarkable constrast existing between the pomp and exuberance of Catholic, and the paucity and meagreness of Protestant solemnities. Before we conclude, we would, in a spirit of unaffected curiosity, ask of the bishop of Rochester, who has very recently delivered a charge to the clergy of his diocese, what may be the meaning of his expressed "anxiety to impress upon them the necessity of a regular observance of Saints' days." Now, inasmuch as the twenty-second of the Thirty-nine Articles expressly declares that "the Romish doctrine concerning invocation of Saints is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God," we would ask, in the name of every thing that is inconsistent and preposterous, how Protestants can be called upon to keep or honour "Saints' days," set apart in Catholic times for the express invocation of those canonized members of the Church triumphant whose names they bear? On the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, for example, we address our prayers to God through the intercession of those great Apostles; but according to the above-recorded article of Protestant belief, it is an absurdity to suppose that they can hear our petitions; what then is the purpose of commemorating their festival?-a question which applies with similar relevancy to every other "Saint's day" in the calendar. We are well aware that the disciples of the Tractarian school entertain opinions upon this, as upon many other articles of Anglican belief, far from accordant with the frigid dogmas of the Church to which they nominally belong; but it is not to them that we look with any confidence for sound expositions of Protestant doctrine. Say what they will, the leaders of what it has become the fashion to call the Puseyite party have, by the approximation of their religious notions to the theory and practice of our Church, deprived themselves of the right to be considered orthodox champions of their own. Adhesion to the views of Tract 90 is not certainly tantamount to a full adoption of Catholic truth; but it is as certainly a virtual repudiation of many of the main constituents of Protestant error. A sound Catholic looks upon Tract 90 as a strange and unlooked-for concession on the part of the adver |