the study of logic.
1670. Aug. 20. 23. I returned to the reformed religion, and
made a private abjuration of the Romish
religion, in the hands of four ministers.

His brother was one of these ministers; while a catholic, Bayle had
attempted to convert him, by a letter long enough to evince his
sincerity; but without his subscription we should not have ascribed it
to Bayle.

For this vacillation in his religion has Bayle endured bitter censure.
Gibbon, who himself changed his about the same "year of his age," and
for as short a period, sarcastically observes of the first entry, that
"Bayle should have finished his logic before he changed his religion."
It may be retorted, that when he had learnt to reason, he renounced
Catholicism. The true fact is, that when Bayle had only studied a few
months at college, some books of controversial divinity by the catholics
offered many a specious argument against the reformed doctrines. A young
student was easily entangled in the nets of the Jesuits. But their
passive obedience, and their transubstantiation, and other stuff woven
in their looms, soon enabled such a man as Bayle to recover his senses.
The promises and the caresses of the wily Jesuits were rejected; and the
gush of tears of the brothers, on his return to the religion of his
fathers, is one of the most pathetic incidents of domestic life.

Bayle was willing to become an expatriated man; to study, from the love
of study, in poverty and honour! It happens sometimes that great men are
criminated for their noblest deeds by both parties.

When his great work appeared, the adversaries of Bayle reproached him
with haste, while the author expressed his astonishment at his slowness.
At first, "The Critical Dictionary," consisting only of two folios, was
finished in little more than four years; but in the life of Bayle this
was equivalent to a treble amount with men of ordinary application.
Bayle even calculated the time of his headaches: "My megrims would have
left me had it been in my power to have lived without study; by them I
lose many days in every month." The fact is, that Bayle had entirely
given up every sort of recreation except that delicious inebriation of
his faculties, as we may term it for those who know what it is, which he
drew from his books. We have his avowal: "Public amusements, games,
country jau