HOLY SATURDAY.
Through that Jewish Sabbath day,
Through our Holy Saturday,
Thus he lay:
In his linen winding-sheet,
Wrapped in myrrh and spices sweet,
Angels at his head and feet;
Angels, duteous alway,
Watched the wondrous beauteous clay
As he lay.
Through that Jewish Sabbath day,
Through our Holy Saturday.
Thus he lay
And our mother Church this day
Doth with solemn Office keep
That strange day's mysterious sleep;
Her "Exultet" breaks the sadness
With triumphant strains of gladness;
Paschal hope presaging morn,
As in east just streaks the dawn;
Darkest night ere brightest day;
Such is Holy Saturday.
Translated from the Études Religieuses, Historiques et Littéraires.
EAST-INDIAN WEDDINGS.
LETTER FROM FATHER GUCHEN OF THE MADURA MISSION.
A very days ago I blessed a marriage in which great pomp was displayed, and I will describe the festival to you, that you may have an idea of what takes place on such occasions, for the same ceremonial is always scrupulously observed. Indeed, every action of an Indian's life from the cradle to the grave is irrevocably ordered by custom.
The solemnity I am speaking of now is called here, "a grand marriage." My Christians are generally too poor to have to do with any but "little marriages," which are performed very quietly, though with some attendant circumstances that perhaps deserve a slight notice.
A remarkable peculiarity, and one that belongs to both kinds of marriage, is that the bride and bridegroom do not know each other, do not even see or speak to each other, until it is too late to draw back. This is the decision of custom, and has its good and bad side, like many other things in this world. "Why have you come here?" I asked the other day of a little girl hardly twelve years old, who was led into church. "My father said I was to be married, so I came," she replied. A few hours later arrived the young man, pale, exhausted, and writhing in the grasp of pangs unutterable. Begging me to serve him first in the quality of physician, he told me his story: "I had just done dinner and was going out to my palm-trees, when my father told me to go to the church, and be married; so I took my bath of oil immediately, which interfered with my digestion and caused my illness."
The bath of oil is a necessary preliminary on these occasions. That over, the bridegroom arrays himself in his finest garments. Two cloths, about one foot three inches wide, and four or five times as long, ornamented with a fringe, compose his costume; one covers his loins and the other is wrapped around him; a red kerchief is rolled about his head, and three pendants, nearly two inches long, and wide in proportion, adorn each ear. If he is too poor to own these jewels, he borrows them of his neighbors, and thus apparelled, goes to the church and presents himself before the sonami, (missionary.)
The maiden also lavishes oil or butter upon her toilette, but on the wedding day, she is so completely swathed in the ten or eleven yards of cloth that form her raiment, that neither her jewels nor her face can be distinguished. Not only is she invisible, but she is supposed to see nothing herself, and when she wishes to change her place, the person who accompanies her, often a poor old woman hardly able to stand leads her by clasping her round the waist. I have sometimes beheld the singular spectacle of a score of little girls from twelve to fifteen years of age, muffled in cloth and crouched against the wall of the church, repeating their prayers to satiety as they waited for me to come and hear them recite.