Laurastinus. _Laurastinus sempervirens._
Dedicated to _St. Fortunatus_.
~November 2.~
_All Souls; or the Commemoration of the Faithful departed._ _St.
Victorinus_ Bp. A. D. 304. _St. Marcian_, A. D. 387. _St. Vulgan_, 8th
Cent.
~All Souls.~
This day, also a festival in the almanacs, and the church of England
calendar, is from the Romish church, which celebrates it with masses and
ceremonies devised for the occasion. “Odilon, abbot of Cluny, in the 9th
century, first enjoined the ceremony of praying for the dead on this
day in his own monastery; and the like practice was partially adopted by
other religious houses until the year 998, when it was established as a
general festival throughout the western churches. To mark the
pre-eminent importance of this festival, if it happened on a Sunday it
was not postponed to the Monday, as was the case with other such
solemnities, but kept on the Saturday, _in order that the church might
the sooner aid the suffering souls_; and, that the dead might have every
benefit from the pious exertions of the living, the remembrance of this
ordinance was kept up, by persons dressed in black, who went round the
different towns, ringing a loud and dismal-toned bell at the corner of
each street, every Sunday evening during the month; and calling upon the
inhabitants to remember the deceased suffering the expiatory flames of
purgatory, and to join in prayer for the repose of their souls.[379]”
_Time._
Mr. John M‘Creery, to whose press Mr. Roscoe committed his “History of
Leo X.,” and the subsequent productions of his pen, has marked this day
by dating a beautiful poem on it, which all who desire to seize the
“golden grains” of time, will do well to learn and remember daily.