2. For her parents had presented her when she was but three years old, in the temple, and she dwelt in the temple of the Lord

nine years.

3. And when the priests saw that the holy virgin fearing the Lord was becoming a young woman, they spake one among other, saving.

4. Let us seek out a righteous and good man to whom we may entrust Mary.

5. Lest tarrying in the temple, that should befall her which is not unusual to women, and we sinning in that way, God should be provoked against us.

CHAPTER IV.

1. Wherefore immediately they sent messengers, and called together the twelve elders of the tribes of Juda.

2. And they wrote the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the lot fell upon that good old man Joseph the righteous. 3. And the priests answering, said to my blessed mother, "go with Joseph, and be with him until the time of wedlock."

4. And Joseph the righteous, took therefore my mother, and brought her to his own house.

5. And Mary found James the Less in his father's house, dejected and sorrowful for the loss of his mother, and she educated him. Hence is Mary called the mother of James.

6. Afterwards Joseph leaving her went to his carpenter's shop.

7. But after the Holy Virgin had passed two years in his house, she was exactly fourteen years of age, reckoning the time since Joseph had taken her.

CHAPTER V.

1. And I loved her in a peculiar motion of my will, with the good pleasure of my father, and by the counsel of the Holy Ghost.

2. And I became incarnate upon her in a mystery surpassing the comprehension of the reason of created beings.

3. But when three months from her conception had elapsed, Joseph the righteous returned from the place where he had been following his trade.

4. And when he caught the Virgin, my mother, big with child, he was troubled in mind, and thought of sending her away secretly.

5. Nor was he able to eat or drink all that day, from fear and sadness, and anguish of heart.

CHAPTER VI.

But about the middle of the day, the Holy Gabriel, the prince

Gabriel is the angel mentioned by Luke, as sent on this amorous errand. Matthew probably had not the advantage of this Gospel, or chose to slight it in this place.

چه

of angels, appeared to him in a dream, having received commandment from my father,

2. And said to him, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take to thee Mary thy wife,

3. For she hath conceived by the Holy Ghost, and shall bring forth a son, whose name shall be called Jesus.

4. And this is he who shall rule all nations with a rod of iron."

5. And the angel departed from him.

6. And Joseph arose from sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord had said unto him, and Mary continued to abide with him.

CHAPTER VII.

1. And after a time there went forth a command from Augustus, Cæsar and King, that the whole habitable world should be described, each individual in his own city.

2. Therefore Joseph the righteous old man arose, and took Mary the virgin.

3. And they came to Bethlehem, because her delivery was

near.

4. And Joseph wrote his name in the list.

5. For Joseph the son of David whose bride Mary was, was of the tribe of Juda.

6. And indeed my mother brought me forth at Bethlehem in a cave, near to the sepulchre of Rachael, the wife of the patriarch Jacob, who was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin.

CHAPTER VIII.

1. But Satan went and told Herod the Great, the father of Archelaus.

2. And it was this same Herod who ordered my friend and kinsman John to be beheaded.

3. And forthwith he diligently sought after me, supposing that my kingdom was of, this world.

4. But Joseph that good old man, was admonished of this in a dream.

5. Wherefore he arose and took my mother, and I lay in his bosom, and Salome' accompanied us.

6. And departing from his home, he went into Egypt, and he abode there for one whole year, till the envy of Herod had passed away.

The parallel passage in Luke's Gospel is an audacious plagiarism from this, though he endeavours to falsify prophecy itself, which had foretold of the Messiah:-"Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." 2 Psalm. The priority and superiority of this Gospel to that of St. Luke is almost demonstrable.

And laid him in a manger, says Luke, because there was no room for them in the inn. It is hence apparent that the writer of this Gospel, had never heard Luke's account, nor Matthew's tale about the wise men.

That Satan inspired the Magi, was Matthew's conceit superadded.
Mentioned by Luke as attending on Jesus.

(To be continued.)

To the Editor of "The Lion."

Bristol, August, 1828. THE following extracts are taken from a work published a few years since, with a design to prove that St. Paul was not an apostle of Christ, that he had no such a commission as he professed to have; that his enterprize was a scheme of personal ambition, and that his Epistles inculcate a religion totally opposite to the religion of the four Gospels. From Paul's own historiographer, his own panegyrist and steady friend (the author of the Acts) he has proved by collected evidence, that if ever there was an Antichrist, St. Paul was an undeniable one.

"Plaintiffs, dealers in silver goods: Defendants, dealers in words. To be rivals in trade, it is not necessary that men should deal in the same articles the sale of the words injured the sale of the goods: so at least the plaintiffs took upon them to aver: for in such a case suspicion is not apt to lie asleep. The church of Diana was the established church of that place and time.

"To the honour, the plaintiffs added the profit of being silversmiths to that same excellent church. To the value of that sort of evidence, which is the province of silversmiths to furnish, no established church was ever insensible. That of the church silversmiths of these days is composed of chalices under the Pagan dispensation, the evidence furnished by the church silversmiths of the church of the Ephesian Diana, was composed of shrines.

"When with that resurrection and Gospel of his own, of which so copious a sample remains to us in his Epistles, Paul, with or without the name of Jesus in his mouth, made his appearance in the market, plaintiffs, as we have seen, took the alarm: they proceeded as the pious sons of an estab- lished church could not fail to proceed. Before action commenced to prepare the way for a suitable judgment, they set to work, and set on fire the inflamable part of the public mind; the church was declared to be in danger, just as the Church of England and Ireland would be, should any such sacrilegious proposition be seriously made, as that of tearing out of her bosom, any of those precious sinecures, of which her vitals are composed. In Ephesus no mention is made of any Vice Society, or Constitutional Association. But of those pious institutions, the equivalent could not be wanting, accordingly the charge of blasphemy was not left unemployed. So the defence shows; the defence, to wit, made by the probity and wisdom of the judge; for by the violence of the church mob, who, but for bim, were prepared to have given a precedent, to that which set Birmingham in flames; the defendents were placed in the condition of prisoners, and the judge seeing the violence of the prejudice they had to encounter, felt the necessity of adding to the function of judge, that of council for the prisoners. The Judge by whom the principal cause was tried, and the plaintiffs nonsuited, is styled "the Town Clerk," the more appropriate and respected title, would on this occasion have been well applied to him. Except what we have been here seeing, we know nothing of him that is positive, but seeing thus much of him, we see that he was an honest man, and an honest man is not ill pourtrayed by negatives.

"He had no coronet playing before his eyes; no overpaid places and sinecures for relatives. He had not been made judge, for publishing a liturgy of the church of Diana, with an embroidery composed of his own comments; or for circulating with anonymous delicacy, a pious warning,

never to be absent from the shrine of Diana, when the sacred cup was proffered by the hands of holy priests. Accordingly when the charge of blasphemy was brought before him, being a heathen, he found no difficulty in treating it in that gentle and soothing mode, in which, when from the bosom of an established church it enters into a man, the spirit, which calls itself the spirit of Christianity, renders him so averse to the treating of it. If when his robes were off, he said of Diana what we now think of her, he did not when they were on, foam or rave, and declare, that all who would not swear to their belief in her, were not fit to be believed, or so much as fit to live.

"By him, one man was not robbed of his rights, because another man, when called upon as a witness, refused to perjure himself. By bim a man was not refused protection for the fruits of his industry, nor deprived of the guardianship of his children, because he waited to see Diana, before he would declare himself a believer in her existence. In the open theatre was pronounced the judgment we have seen. He did not, by private sitting, deprive men of the protection of the public eye. He did not keep mens' property in his hands, to be plundered by himself, his children, or his creatures, till the property was absorbed, and the proprietors sent broken hearted to their graves. He did not wring out of distress a princely income, on pretence of giving decisions, declaring all the while his matchless incapacity for every thing but prating and raising doubts. He did not display any such effrontery, as when a judicatory was to sit upon his conduct, to set himself down in it, and assume and carry on the management of it. In Ephesus he would not have sought impunity in eyes lifted up to heaven, or streaming with crocodile tears. Thus much for his negative; he had one positive merit. When from the inexhaustable source of inflammation, a flaine kindled, he did not fan the flame, he quenched it. The religion of Diana had, on the ground of usefulness, the advantage of that, which is the religion of Paul, and is called the religion of Jesus. Diana drove no men out of their senses, by pictures, or preachments of never-ending torments. On pretence of saving men from future sufferings no men were consigned to present ones. It compelled no perjury, no hypocrisy, it rewarded none. It committed, it supported, it blessed, it lauded no depredation, no oppression in any shape, it plunderered no man of the fruits of his labour in the shape of tythes.

"For the enrichment of the sacred shrines, money in any quantity was received, but in no quantity extorted. One temple was sufficient for that goddess. Believing or not believing in her divinity, no men were compelled to pay more money for more temples, more priests, or more shrines."-NOT PAUL BUT JESUS, (allegedly written by the celebrated Jeremy Bentham.

The author concludes his remarks on the hononrable conduct of the town clerk of Ephesus, and his comparative view of that church, with the Christian church, in the following words: (of Christianity) "We know, that in the fourth century, despotism took possession of it. Becoming established, it became noxious, preponderantly noxious. For where established is the adjunct to it, what does religion mean? what but depredation, corruption, oppression, hypocrisy? These four, with delusion in all its forms and trappings for support.'

E. K. D.

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post-paid, or free of expense, are requested to be left.

The Lion.

No. 12. VOL. 2.] LONDON, Friday, Sept. 19, 1828. [PRICE 6d.

FRIENDS AND FOES,

I am not the enemy of any person, so I do not feel a disposition to return the manners of a foe, where they be presented. My quarrel is not with persons, but with principles, seeking to make you change for the better, where there is room for improvement. My task, or a part of it, this week, is to review Mr. Gilbert's letter, which I, last week, copied into "The Lion:" and this review I dedicate, more especially, to those persons in Nottingham, who are pleased to call themselves my opponents.

The prefatory part of Mr. Gilbert's letter informs us, that he felt it due, both to himself and the public, in relation to the late intended discussion with me, intended only on one side I fear, to give a detail of facts as they have occurred; together with the reasons which have, at different times, determined his conduct.

This would have been fair, had he confined himself to such a proposition; but why should this follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, step out of his line of duty to outdo Mrs. Crosby as a scold and as a something-" such as I find it difficult genteelly to express." Why should he say, that I disregard all appropriate kind of proofs, after complimenting me, in his library, for the very scrupulous manner in which I sought the truth, and making that scrupulosity a reason why it was very desirable that I should be converted to Christianity in his acceptation? Why should he insinuate, that I have not given the most correct account of my interview with him in his library, when any one, who knows the bearing of such arguments as pass in such a case, must see, that I have given a most precise and fair abstract of all that passed as argument, and I challenge correction? Why did he say, that "I did not believe that the object of Mr. Carlile, in seeking it,

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62. Fleet Street.
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No. 12.-Vol. 2.