things she kept in her heart," for it does not appear that she communicated any of them to her husband; to him she never opened her lips on the subject; no angel visited him, sleeping or waking, to tell him of it; nothing is said about his "knowing her not till she had brought forth her first-born" they lived together in the ordinary way of poor people, as man and wife, until she was brought to bed in a stable, Joseph all the time considering the child as his.

Luke's story, stripped of its verbiage, is this:—The angel Gabriel was sent by God to Mary, who was espoused to Joseph. The angel addresses her very familiarly—she becomes alarmed, and the angel tells her she shall "conceive in her womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus." Mary, in her simplicity, asks how that can be, "seeing I know not a man." The angel replies,—"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." And Mary says, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word." Mary then went to her cousin Elizabeth, who lived at a distance "in the hill-country, where she staid about three months," and then she came home again. Afterwards Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem to be taxed, (enrolled); here Mary is delivered in a stable, there being no room in the inn.

A Mr. Le Clerc, a very learned, that is, a very bookish man, made what he called a harmony of the Evangelists; he puts the relation of Luke first, and supposes all that he relates, happened to Mary, before Joseph and she got together: and that she concealed from him all that had passed between her and the angel Gabriel, and between her and Elizabeth; and that Joseph being left in utter ignorance of all that had passed, resolved to put her away. To prevent this, says the learned Doctor, an angel appeared to him in a dream (what does appearing in a dream mean, simply in his imagination) and told him the story as related by Matthew. The learned Doctor says: "Joseph being awaked from his dream, perceived it had been sent by God, as well because Mary, upon his enquiry, related to him what had happened to her just after the same manner as the angel had told him in his sleep."

To what miserable shifts is folly driven to support superstition; what miserable pretexts does roguery have recourse to, to propagate and uphold imposition! Not one word is there to warrant this pretended conference with Mary, which the learned Doctor has so circumstantially related. That Joseph was ignorant of the intercourse Mary had had with the angel, could not be concealed from the reader, who believed Matthew's relation, according to which Mary had said nothing to Joseph of the communication and commerce she had had with the angel, neither is there the least reason from that account to suppose that Matthew knew any thing of the decently told story of Elizabeth, or of Mary's going and remaining three months with her; but, according to Luke, she hurried off in her exultation of being with child, and there they communed together in a state of the highest enthusiasm. Elizabeth, being filled with the Holy Ghost, and the babe leaping for joy in her womb, spake out in a loud voice,—and Mary followed in the same manner, and in the same strain. But notwithstanding this, notwithstanding the exultation between the women, Joseph was not to be let into the secret; all the rapturous feelings of Mary were now subdued; she not only suppressed her joy which seemed unbounded, but she kept the whole matter a profound secret, even at a risk of being turned out of doors as a strumpet, and an angel is obliged to be sent from God to Joseph in a dream, to prevent the catastrophe; the deception is approved by God, who sends the "angel from heaven" to reconcile Joseph to his wife's perfidy.

According to Matthew, a certain man had a dream. According to Luke, an angel called privately on a young woman, who, in consequence of the visit, was with child. And this is all there is to establish the divinity of Jesus Christ.

It cannot be