Whitsuntide Customs.

WHITSUNTIDE CUSTOMS .

BY BRO . THOMAS B . TROWSDALE , Author of " Glimpses of Olden Kent , " "Lore of the Months , " etc . WHITSUNTIDE , perhaps more than any other festival of the calendar , has for centuries been observed b 3 the rural population of our land as

a season of merriment ancl jollity . Genial old William Howitt , in his enjoyable work entitled " Rural Life of England , " treating of this subject , says : —¦ " 'Tis merry Whitsuntide , and merrily holiday goes in hamlet and green field , " and in language characteristicall y his own , gives a charming rh y thmical relation of the sports incident to the occasion as enjoyed b y the peasantry .

The origin of the name of the festival has called forth at various times much discussion . Even now , considerable diversity of opinion exists regarding it , ancl the matter has been treated at great length in the colums of the valuable repertory of antiquarian lore , Notes and Queries . The most popular method of accounting for the derivation of the term is that the persons baptized on Whit-Sunday , according to the ceremonial of the ancient

church , were dressed in white garments . On the day corresponding with our Whit-Sunday , the apostles commenced their public ministry by baptizing three thousand persons ; and throughout the history of the church , the seventh Sunday after Easter has been regarded as a most fitting occasion for public baptism . Whit-Sunday is observed as a scarlet day in the calendars of the Universities of Oxford ancl Cambridge . * In Strutt ' s "Manners and Customs , " allusion is made to " font hallowing , " as performed on Whit-Sunday Eve ; and the author of a MS . volume of Homilies preserved in the Harleian collection at the British Museum , writes as follows : —

"In the beginning of holy church , all the children weren kept to be chyrstened on thys even , at the Font Hallowing , but now for eachisone that in so long abydunge they might die without chryteudom , therefore holy church ordeyueth to chrysten at all tymes of the yeare ; save eight days before these Evengs the childe shall abyde till the Font Hallowings , if it may safely for peril ! of death and ells not . "

In Catholic times , when miracle plays formed a part of the ritual of the church , it was usual at Whitsuntide to present a dramatised representation of the descent of the Holy Ghost . This custom is alluded to in Barnab y George ' s translation of " Naogeorgus " : — "On Whit-Snnday whyte pigeons tame in strings from heaven die , And one that framed is of wood still hangeth in the skie .

Thou seest how they with idols play and teach the people too ; None otherwise than little girls with puppets used to do . " In an old Computus A . D . 1509 , of St . Patrick ' s , Dublin , we find ivs . viiebpaid to those playing with the great ancl little angel and the dragon ; ills , paid for little cords emploj-ecl about the Hol j Ghost ; ivs . vid . for making the angel ( thurificantis ) cersing ; ancl lis . ii . for cords of itall on the feast of Penticost .

, Hone , in his " Every Day Book , " records that Lambarde , when a child , witnessed one of these Whit-Sunday performances at St . Paul ' s Cathedral . A white pigeon , having a censer filled with perfumery attached to it , was caused to fl y through a hole in the roof of the edifice . In the course of the bird ' s flight through the building the incense was diffused through the air ancl pervaded the whole structure .