_f_--Ascension Day, or Holy Thursday, one of the great religious festivals of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, is held on the fortieth day after Easter, and ten days before Whitsun Day, to commemorate the Ascension of our Lord into heaven. Ascension Day has been observed at least since the year of our Lord 64, and perhaps earlier. Saint Augustine believed it to have been instituted either by the apostles themselves, or the bishops immediately succeeding them. Expectation Week is the whole of the interval between Ascension Day and Whitsun Day, so called because at this time the apostles, according to the command of our Saviour, continued at Jerusalem, in earnest prayer and expectation of the Holy Comforter which was to abide with them forever. The Sunday between Ascension Day and Whitsun Day is called Expectation Sunday. Pentecost, (Greek, _Pentecostos_, fiftieth), a Jewish festival; so called because it was observed on the fiftieth day after the feast of unleavened bread, called also the feast of weeks, being celebrated seven weeks from the feast of the Passover. It also commemorated the giving of the law on Mount Sinai upon that day. The origin of the Anglo-Saxon name of White Sunday, which also occurs in Icelandic, is somewhat obscure, for in the Roman churches the _Dominica_ in _Albis_, (Low Sunday, q. v.) so called from the white robes then worn by the persons baptized at Easter, has always been the Sunday immediately following Easter. It hardly seems probable that there should be another Sunday of White Garments within six weeks. In German it is known by the name _Pfingsten_, old German _Wingsten_, old English _Whitsun_, hence, probably, our word Whitsun Day, not White Sunday.