Contribution (Hastings' Dictionary)

See COMMtTNION. CONTRITE (Lat. contritus, bruised, crushed) appears early in Eng. in a (ig. sense, ' bruised in heart,' jirob. through the inlliience of the Vulg. and tlie Eng. versions, and nearly always with the meaning of penitent. Thus Wyclif (1380), Select Works, ii. 400, ' To assoile men that ben contrite' ; Milton, Par. Lost, x. lO'JI — • Pardon beg, with tean Watorin^ the ground, and with otir si;.'hs the air Freciuenlinjj, Bent from heart contrilc' This is the meaning of c.

in AV and RV. But popular as the tr. has been, it is inaccurate, for the Heb. (xr: Ps 34'" 51 ", Is 57" "", nji Is 66-) so tr^ never describes penitence, but always humility, abase- • CfmtritMX \M never fl(f. until under the Influence of the Vultf., while the Heb. word tr contrite ' four times out of five in A V is never literal. ment.

Certainly, God will ' not despise a broken and a penitent heart ' ; but more than that, He will not despise a broken and a crushed heart: ' Blessed are the poor in spirit.' J. HASTINGS. CONVENIENT, now ^eatly restricted in mean- ing, is freely used in A\ in the sense of befitting, becoming, seemly, as Eph 5 ' Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not c' (RV ' befitting ') : so Pr 30 (RV ' that is needful '), Jei 40*-', Wis 13" 'a c.

room,' not 'commodious,' but 'befitting' {diios, RV 'worthy'), Sir lO^ (RV 'right'), 2 Mac 4'" (RV 'fit'), Ro 1= (RV 'be- fitting'), Philem « (RV ' befitting'). In Merchant of Venice, III. iv. 52, Portia says, 'Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed,' i.e. quick as thouglit ; to which Balthasar replies, ' Madam, I go with all convenient speed,' i.e. speed befitting the urgency.

In the sense of ' morally becoming ' (as Ro 1^, Eph 5, Philem) the word was once quite common, as 'Trans, of Agrippa's Van Artcs (1684), ' She sang and danc'd more exquisitely than was convenient for an honest woman. J. Hastings. CONVENT Jer 49" AVm, ' who wiU c. me in judgment?' and 50" AVm, 'who will c. me to plead?' — an obsolete vb. =summon (convenire). Cf. Elsing, Debates House of Lords (1621), ' The Com- mons have convented Flood, examyned him, and sentenced him.' J. Hastings.