Perhaps the following Note and Query on the much-disputed origin of the word _Whitsunday_, as used in our Liturgy, may find a place in your Journal. None of the etymologies of this word at present in vogue is at all satisfactory. They are--
1. From the garments of _white linen_, in which those who were at that season admitted to the rite of holy baptism were clothed; (as typical of the spiritual purity therein obtained:) or,--
2. From the glorious light of heaven, sent down from the father of Lights on the day of Pentecost: and "those vast diffusions of light and knowledge, which were then shed upon the Apostles, in order to the enlightening of the world." (Wheatley.) Or,--
3. From the custom of the rich bestowing on this day all the milk of their kine, then called _white meat_, on the poor. (Wheatley, from Gerard Langbain.)
II. _Huict Sunday_: from the French, _huit_, eight; i.e. the eighth Sunday from Easter. (L'Estrange, _Alliance Div. Off._)
III. There are others who see that neither of these explanations can stand; because the ancient mode of spelling the word was not _Whit_-sunday, but _Wit_-sonday (as in Wickliff), or _Wite_-sonday (which is as old as _Robert of Gloucester_, c. A.D. 1270). Hence,--
1. Versteran's explanation:--That it is _Wied_ Sunday, _i.e. Sacred_ Sunday (from Saxon, _wied_, or _wihed_, a word I do not find in Bosworth's _A.-S. Dict._; but so written in Brady's _Clovis Calendaria_, as below). But why should this day be distinguished as sacred beyond all other Sundays in the year?
2. In _Clavis Calendaria_, by John Brady (2 vols. 8vo. 1815), I find, vol. i. p. 378., "Other authorities contend," he does not say who those authorities are, "that the original name of this season of the year was _Wittentide_; or the time of choosing the _wits_, or wise men, to the _Wittenagemote_."
Now this last, though evidently an etymology inadequate to the importance of the festival, appears to me to furnish the right clue. The day of Pentecost was the day of the outpouring of the Divine Wisdom and Knowledge on the Apostles; the day on which was given to them that HOLY SPIRIT, by which was "revealed" to them "_The wisdom of God_ ... even the _hidden wisdom_, which GOD ordained before the world." 1 Cor. ii. 7.[1] It was the day on which was fulfilled the promise { 139} made to them by CHRIST that "The Comforter, which is the HOLY GHOST, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall _teach you all things_, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." John, xiv. 26. When "He, the Spirit of Truth, came, who should _guide_ them _into all truth_." John xvi. 13. And the consequence of this "unction from the Holy One" was, that they "knew all things," and "needed not that any man should teach them." 1 John, ii. 20. 27.