The critics may endeavour to weaken this solution by representing that it was Herod only who imposed taxes; that the Romans at that time levied nothing on Judea; that Augustus left Herod completely his own master for the tribute which that Idumean paid to the empire: But, in an emergency, it is not impossible to make some arrangement with a tributary prince, and send him an intendant to establish in concert with him the new tax.

: We will not here say, like so many others, that copyists have committed many errors, and that in the version we possess there are to be found more than ten thousand, we had rather say, with the doctors of the church and the most enlightened persons, that the gospels were given us only to teach us to live holily and not to criticise learnedly.

These pretended contradictions produced a dreadful impression on the much lamented John Meslier, rector of Etrepigni and But in Champagne. This truly virtuous and charitable, but at the same time. melancholy man, being possessed of scarcely any other books than the Bible and some of the fathers, read them with a studiousness of attention that became fatal to him. Although bound by the duties of his office to inculcate docility upon his flock, he was not sufficiently docile himself. He saw apparent contradictions, and shut his eyes to the means suggested for reconciling them. He imagined that he perceived the most frightful contradictions between Jesus being born a Jew and afterwards recognised as God; in regard to that God known from the first as the son of Joseph the carpenter and the brother of James, yet descended from an empyreum which does not exist, to destroy sin upon earth that is still covered with crimes; in regard to that God, the son of a common artizan and a descendant of David on the side of his father, who was not in fact his father-between the creator of all worlds, and the descendant of the adulterous Bathsheba, the prurient Ruth, the incestuous Thamar, the prostitute of Jericho, the wife of Abraham, so suspiciously attractive to a king

of Egypt, and again at the age of ninety years to a king of Gerar.

Meslier expatiates with an impiety absolutely monstrous on these pretended contradictions, as they struck him, for which however he might easily have found an ́explanation, had he possessed only a small portion of docility. At length his gloom so grew upon him in his solitude, that he actually became horror-struck at that holy roligion which it was his duty both to preach and love; and, listening only to his seduced and wan→ dering reason, he abjured christianity by a will written in his own hand, of which he left three copies behind him at his death, which took place in 1732. The copy of this will has been often printed, and exhibits, in truth, a most cruel stumbling-block. A clergyman who, at the point of death, asks pardon of God and his parishioners for having taught the doctrines of christianity! a charitable clergyman, who holds christianity in execration because many who profess it are depraved; who is shocked at the pomp and pride of Rome, and exasperated by the difficulties of the sacred volume; a clergyman who speaks of christianity like Porphyry, Jamblicus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Julian! And this just before he is to make his appearance before God! How fatal a case for him, and for all who may be led astray by his example!

In a similar manner the unfortunate preacher Anthony, misled by the apparent contradictions which he imagined he saw between the new and the old law, between the cultivated olive and the wild olive, wretchedly abandoned the Christian religion for the Jewish; and, more courageous than John Meslier, preferred death to recantation.

It is evident from the will of John Meslier, that the apparent contradictions of the gospels were the principal cause of unsettling the mind of that unfortunate pastor, who was, in other respects, a man of the strictest virtue, and whom it is impossible to think of without compassion. Meslier is deeply impressed by the two genealogies, which seem in direct opposition; he had not seen the method of reconciling them; he feels agi

tated and provoked to see that St. Matthew makes the father and mother of the child travel into Egypt, after having received the homage of the three eastern magi or kings, and while old king Herod, under the apprehension of being dethroned by an infant just born at Bethlem, causes the slaughter of all the infants in the country, in order to prevent such a revolution. He is astonished that neither St. Luke, nor St. Mark, nor St. John, make any mention of this massacre. He is confounded at observing that St. Luke makes Joseph, and the blessed Virgin Mary, and Jesus our Saviour, remain at Bethlem, after which they withdraw to Na zareth. He should have seen that the Holy Family might at first go into Egypt, and some time afterwards to Nazareth, which was their country."

If St. Matthew alone makes mention of the three magi, and of the star which guided them to Bethlem from the remote climes of the east; and of the massa-> cre of the children; if the other evangelists take no notice of these events, they do not contradict St. Matthew: silence is not contradiction.*

If the three first evangelists, St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, make Jesus Christ to have lived but three months from his baptism in Galilee till his crucifixion at Jerusalem; and if St. John extends that time to three years and three months, it is easy to ap proximate St. John to the other evangelists, as he does not expressly state that Jesus Christ preached in Galilee for three years and three months, but only leaves it to be inferred from his narrative. Should a man renounce his religion upon simple inferences, upon points of controversy, upon difficulties in chronology?

It is impossible, says Meslier, to harmonise St. Mark and St. Luke; since the first says that Jesus, when he left the wilderness, went to Capernaum, and the second that he went to Nazareth.

St. John says that Andrew was the first who became

* People ought to read Voltaire before they abuse him He reasons here precisely on the principle which has obtained so much credit for the late bishop of Landaff.-T.

a follower of Jesus Christ; the three other evangelists say that it was Simon Peter.

He pretends also that they contradict each other .with respect to the day when Jesus celebrated the Pas sover, the hour and place of his execution, the time of his appearance and resurrection. He is convinced that books which contradict each other cannot be inspired by the holy spirit; but it is not an article of faith to believe, that the holy spirit inspired every syllable; it did not guide the hand of the copyists; it permitted the operation of secondary causes; it was sufficient that it condescended to reveal the principal mysteries, and that in the course of time it instituted a church for explaining them. All those contradictions with which the gospels have been so often and so bitterly reproached, are explained by sagacious commentators; far from being injurious, they mutually clear up each other, they present reciprocal helps in the concordances and harmony of the four gospels.

And if there are many difficulties which we cannot solve, mysteries which we cannot comprehend, adventures which we cannot credit, prodigies which shock the weakness of the human understanding, and contradictions which it is impossible to reconcile, it is in order to exercise our faith and to humiliate our reason. Contradictions in Judgments upon Works of Literature

or Art.

I have sometimes heard it said of a good judge on these subjects, and of exquisite taste, that man decides according to mere caprice. He yesterday described Poussin as an admirable painter, to-day he represents him as an ordinary one. The fact is, that Poussin has merited both praise and censure.

There is no contradiction in being enraptured by the delicious scenes of the Horatii and Curiatii, of the Cid, of Augustus and of Cinna, and afterwards in seeing," with disgust and indignation, fifteen tragedies in succession, containing no interest, no beauty, and not even written in French.

It is the author himself who is contradictory. It

is he who has the misfortune to differ entirely from himself. The critic would contradict himself if he equally applauded what is excellent and detestable. He will admire in Homer the description of the girdle of Venus; the parting of Hector and Andromache; the interview between Achilles and Priam. But will he equally applaud those passages which describe the Gods as abusing, and fighting with each other; the uniformity in battles which decide nothing; the brutal ferocity of the heroes and the avarice by which they are almost all actuated; in short, a poem which terminates with a truce of eleven days, unquestionably excit→ ing an expectation of the continuation of the war and the taking of Troy, which however are not related?

A good critic will frequently pass from approbation to censure, however excellent the work may be which he is perusing.

CONTRAST.

CONTRAST, opposition of figures, situations, fortune, manners, &c. A modest shepherdess forms a beautiful contrast in a painting with a haughty princess. The part of the impostor and that of Aristes constitute an admirable contrast in the Tartuffe.

The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colours contrast; but there are also colours contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.

"Contradictory" is a term to be used only in logic. It is contradictory for anything to be and not be; to be in many places at once; to be of a certain number or size, and not to be so. An opinion, a discourse, or a decree, we may call contradictory.

The different fortunes of Charles XII. have been contrary, but not contradictory; they form in history a beautiful contrast.

It is a striking contrast,-and the two things are perfectly contrary, but it is not contradictory, that the pope should be worshipped at Rome, and burnt at