Now, these principles are fully admitted in daily life. If your friend comes to you with ever so improbable a tale, the last thing which enters into your mind is to disbelieve him. Is he in earnest? Yes, on his honour. Is he sure he is not mistaken? _That_ very doubt of yours requires an apology: but your friend says,--"I am as sure as I am of my existence." "Give it me under your hand and seal then." Your friend begins to suspect your sanity; but the matter being of some importance, he complies. "It must be so then," you exclaim, "though I _cannot_ understand it.".... I only wish that men would be as fair to the Evangelists as they are to their friends! You are requested to observe,--for really you _must_ admit,--that _any_ possible solution of a difficulty, however _improbable_ it may seem, any _possible_ explanation of the story of a competent witness, is enough logically and morally to exempt that man from the imputation of an incorrect statement. The illustration which first presents itself may require an apology; but the dignity of the pulpit shall not outweigh the dignity of _His_ Gospel after whose blessed Name this House is called[361]: and I can think of nothing as apposite as what follows. It is a conceivable case, that, hereafter, three persons of known truthfulness should meet, in a Court of Justice at the Antipodes; where the entire difficulty should turn on a question of time. The case is conceivable, that the first should be heard to declare that at Oxford, on such a day, of such a year, he had seen such an one standing before Carfax Church while the clock _was striking one_:--that the second should declare that he also, on the same day of the same year, had seen the same person passing by St. Mary's, when the clock of _that_ Church was also striking one:--that the third should stand up and assert,--"I also saw the same person on that same day, but it was on the steps _of the Cathedral_ I met him; and I also remember hearing the clock at that moment strike one."--Now I can conceive that the result of such evidence would be adverted upon in some such way as the following:--"While we are disposed to recognize the substantial agreement, and general conformity in respect of details, among the synoptical witnesses, in their leading external outlines, we are yet constrained,"--and the rest of the impertinence we had before. Whereas you and I know perfectly that the three clocks in question were, till lately, _kept five minutes apart_: a sufficient interval, (I beg you to observe in passing,) for the individual in question to have been seen _by you_ walking in an easterly direction; and _by me_ due west; and by a third person, due east again. Highly improbable circumstances, I freely grant, every one of them; and yet, by the hypothesis, all perfectly _true_! Meantime, it is conceivable that Judge and jury would have the indecency openly to tax the three men I spoke of with inexactitude in their statements: and it