Hence it follows that in judging of the character of a various reading proposed for our acceptance, we must carefully mark whether it comes to us from many directions or from one. And herein the native country of the several documents, even when we can make sure of it, is only a precarious guide. If the Ethiopic or the Armenian versions have really been corrected by the Latin Vulgate, the geographical remoteness of their origin must go for nothing where they agree with the latter version. The relation in which Cod. L and the Bohairic version stand to Cod. B is too close to allow them their full value as independent witnesses unless when they are at variance with that great uncial, wheresoever it may have been written: the same might be said of the beautiful Latin fragment _k_ from Bobbio. To whatever nations they belong, their resemblances are too strong and perpetual not to compel us to withhold from them a part of the consideration their concord would otherwise lay claim to. The same is incontestably the case with the Curetonian and margin of the Harkleian Syriac in connexion with Cod. D. Wide as is the region which separates Syria from Gaul, there must have been in very early times some remote communication by which the stream of Eastern testimony or tradition, like another Alpheus, rose up again with fresh strength to irrigate the regions of the distant West. The Peshitto Syriac leans at times in the same direction, although both in nation and character it most assimilates to the same class as Cod. A. With these, and it may be with some further reservations which experience and study shall hereafter suggest, the principle of grouping must be acknowledged to be a sound one, and those lines of evidence to be least likely to lead us astray which converge from the most varied quarters to the same point. It is strange, but not more strange than needful, that we are compelled in the cause of truth to make one stipulation more: namely, that this rule be henceforth applied impartially in all cases, as well when it will tell in favour of the Received text, as when it shall help to set it aside. To assign a high value to cursive manuscripts of the best description (such as 1, 33, 69, 157, Evst. 259, or 61 of the Acts), and to such uncials as LRΔ, or even as א or C, whensoever they happen to agree with Cod. B, and to treat their refined silver as though it had been suddenly transmuted into dross when they come to contradict it, is a practice too plainly unreasonable to admit of serious defence, and can only lead to results which those who uphold it would be the first to deplore(306). 7. It is hoped that the general issue of the foregoing discussion may now be embodied in these four practical rules(307):—