It is universally admitted that beside the four Gospels which the churches believe to be genuine, there were, in the early centuries, hundreds of Gospels which have been rejected as spurious. Pause for a moment, and think of what that means. Why were there so many lying Gospels? The very fact that our four Gospels were chosen from a pile of manuscripts, everyone of which claimed to be genuine, is a sad commentary upon the morality of the early churchmen. I trust you duly appreciate the significance of this. What was it that gave an impetus to the industry of imposture? How explain the vogue which lying for religion enjoyed after the conversion of the Roman Empire? Was it so profitable to manufacture Gospels that everybody tried his hand at it? I cannot get away from the tremendous fact that by the admission of the churches themselves, there were a great number of apocryphal Gospels thrown upon the religious market as soon as Christianity became well established in Europe. What made lying so popular and profitable all at once? If it is true, and it is, that our four Gospels had to be voted upon from among a heap of other manuscripts; and if it is true, as one Church father reports, that a great number of manuscripts were placed under a table, and that prayers were then offered to induce the genuine Gospels to jump upon the table, and that four of them did so, while the rest, failing to jump upon the table, were disowned; and if it is also true, and we know it is, that some of the Christian fathers claimed that only four Gospels could be genuine because the earth has four corners, and four winds. If all this is true--then, speaking as a student of history, whether it unsettles you or not, I am constrained to say that this Oriental religion, as soon as it set foot in Europe, lifted both superstition and lying to the dignity of a vocation. But when we come to the four Gospels themselves, pronounced to be canonical, do you know, my hearers, that there are upwards of 150,000 different readings of these same Gospels? That is to say, the same passages read one way in one manuscript, and another, in another, while they may be absent altogether from a third, etc. In view of all these facts, reflect upon the intelligence of the man who, Sunday after Sunday, holds up the Gospels as the infallible word of God. He does so because he is speaking by the creed, to which he has sworn allegiance for the rest of his life. One hundred and fifty thousand various readings of the New Testament! And think of the centuries of bloodshed and controversy over these various readings!