Whoever hopes to obtain the benedictions of the Virgin, must salute her every day, both at his going out and coming in. The legends have transmitted several remarkable instances of the advantages arising from the repetition of the _Ave Maria_--not to mention a thousand day's indulgence granted by some of the popes (Leo X. and Paul V.) to those who shall repeat it at the hour of the _Angelus_. St. Margarite, of Hungary, said an Ave kneeling before every image of the Virgin she met in her way--St. Catharine, of Sienna, repeated as many Aves as she went up steps to her house. Fasting on _Saturday_, in honour of the Virgin, is looked upon as a treasure of indulgences and delights, and as an excellent preservative against eternal damnation. Various festivals are instituted to commemorate her, such as the Purification, the Annunciation, the Visitation, and others. The fifth of August is the festival of _our Lady of the Snow_. We are informed that the solemnization of it was owing to a miracle. When Liberius was pontiff, a patrician, or Roman nobleman, finding himself old and childless, resolved, with his wife's approbation, to make the blessed Virgin his sole heiress. The vow being made with great devotion, their principal concern, in the next place, was to employ their inheritance conformably to our Lady's will: and accordingly they applied themselves to fasting, praying, giving alms to the poor, and visiting the sick, to know her pleasure. The Virgin at length appeared to each of them in a dream, and told them "it was her and her Son's will, that they should employ their effects in erecting a church for her on a particular part of the _Mons Esquilinus_, which they should find covered with snow." The pious husband first communicated the revelation to his wife, who told him, with great surprise, that she had had the same revelation that very night. But, supposing the two dreams had not proved alike, an excess of zeal would have been sufficient to have given them all the _conformity_ that was requisite; These two devotees went immediately and declared their dreams to the pope, who perceived that he was a third man in the revelation; for his holiness had been favoured with the same vision. It was no longer questioned, but that heaven was engaged in this affair. The pontiff assembled the clergy together, and there was a solemn procession to Mount Esquiline, on purpose to find out whether the miracle were real or not; when the place specified in the dream was found covered with snow. The ground was exactly of a suitable extent to erect a church upon, which was afterward called _Liberius's Basilica_, and _St. Mary ad præcepe_, (because the manger, which was used as a cradle for our Lady, was brought thither from Bethlehem,) and is now called _St. Mary Major_. Every festival day, the commemoration of this miracle is revived, by letting fall white jessamine leaves, after so artificial a manner, as to imitate the falling of snow upon the ground. [24]