Apr. 23.
Or the observance of St. George's Day in England the Encyclopxdia Britannica remarks coldly that his popularity has never equalled that of St. Andrew in Scotland, St. David in Wales or St. Patrick in Ireland. Further than this we do not propose to'quote from this estimable work. Whether there was one St. George or two, or possibly "no sich a person', what the legend of Metaphrastes the hagiologist may say on the subject, what the emendations of Gelasius or the researches of Burckhardt and Porter—these are proper subjects for the writer of Church Notes. But since the reign of Edward TI, St. George has been the patron saint of England and it is deriorably true that most Englishmen forget his day. From tine to time one of those superheated Radical writers, to whom in some obscure way the celebration of any national festival is an insult to our neighbours and a direct inculcation of the militarist spirit, arises to pour scorn and even contumely on the saint's memory. But the one way has been just as ineffective -as the other in securing remembrance of his day by the average Englishman. Far more people still wear a bunch of primroses on April 19 than a white rose on April 23, although Dizzy's policy has blown to atoms and there is some doubt, we believe, as to whether the primrose was really his favourite flower or Queen Victoria's.
The most obvious explanation of this indifference is the prover-pial want of emotion in all Englishmen. Of which charge one begins to weary somewhat, for it is quite untrue and the true foundation of it is that Englishmen, knowing themselves to be in reality the most emotional creatures in existence (as all their music and much of their literature proves) have sedulously trained themselves to cover up their weakness by a display of coldness as Nature grows moss on the north side of a tree. Rather might we think that the want of attention given to England's patron saint in England itself arises from the lamentable want of imagination, which, in the usual run of school teaching, would seem almost purposely to avoid those subjects which might best be used to turn bad boys into good citizens, The fact that St. George fought a dragon and was martyred by Diocletian is of no great moment, except in so far as we may all, allegorically, be said to have our particular dragons to overcome and martyrdom is. not wholly an extinct profession. But the fact that there is one day in the year when we are_ specially invited to think about England, with the prefix ''merrie'', wherewith it is always coupled to the name~ of St. George, means volumes. And it is, perhaps, more than a coincidence that St.
George's day should fall in the loveliest season of all the yeat in England, when every thought of her is vivid with the fresh green of young foliage, hedges bursting into bloom and meadows golden with cowslip and buttercup.-
Stevenson tells a story of a Scots girl at school in France which, though it deals with martial rather than pastoral thoughts, has an application to what St. George's day might be to Englishmen. She was describing a Scottish regiment on parade to her French schoolmates—
And as.she went on, she told me, the recollection grew so vivid, she became so proud to be the countrywoman of such soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that her voice failed her and she burst into tears. I have never forgotten that girl; and I think she very nearly deserves a statue. She may rest assured of one thing: although she never should marry a heroic general, never see any great or immediate result of her life, she will not have lived in vain for her native land.
Perhaps it is only when we get outside our native land that we really feel the thrill of patriotism. We may never go back there, we may even not particularly yearn to go back. But for those of us who are lucky enough to have early recollections of English countryside, the lush water-meadows of the Itchen, the wooded hills of Shropshire, the wide, eerie. wastes of the Broads, the clouds chasing each other across Sussex downs, these pictures remain with us unique, imperishable, and no other scenery that Wwe may visit, world-famed though it be, can equal their perfect charm. "England does not sound particularly ''merrie'"' nowadays, when her sons appear more set on quarrelling over her broad acres than on sharing them friend-li wise. And so.there may be the greater scope for the influence of St. George's Day,' now that at last we begin to be less shy of uniting to celebrate national" occasions of rejoicing, such as Empire and Armistice days: and it is good news that the Prince of Wales, who seems destined to in-hent his grandfather's name of peacemaker, has made a special appeal for the observance of the festival of St. George.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.