and authority of the record which he bears, be left to follow his own private opinion of the most proper principle of arrangement to be followed in enumerating the apostles. Thus, while it is noticeable that the whole twelve were disposed in six pairs by each of the evangelists, yet the order and succession of these is somewhat changed, by different circumstances directing the choice of each writer. Matthew modestly puts himself after Thomas, with whom he seems by all the gospel lists, to have some close connection; but Mark and Luke combine to give Matthew the precedence, and invert the order in which, through unobtrusiveness, he had, as it would seem, robbed true merit of its due superiority. And yet these points of precedence were so little looked to, that in the first chapter of Acts, Luke makes a new arrangement of these names, advancing Thomas to the precedency, not only of Matthew, but of Bartholomew, who, in all other places where their names are given, is mentioned before him. So also Matthew prefers to mention the brothers together, and gives Andrew a place immediately after Peter, although, in so many places after, he speaks of Peter, James and John together, as most highly distinguished by Christ, and favored by opportunities of beholding him and his works, on occasions when other eyes were shut out. Mark, on the contrary, gives these names with more strict reference to distinction of rank, and mentions the favored trio together, first of all, making the affinities of birth of less consequence than the share of favor enjoyed by each with the Messiah. Luke, in his gospel, follows Matthew’s arrangement of the brothers, but in the first chapter of Acts puts the three great apostles first, separating Andrew from his brother, and mentioning him after the sons of Zebedee. These changes of arrangement, while they show of how little vital importance the order of names was considered, yet, by the uniform preservation of Peter in the first rank, prove that the exalted pre-eminence of Peter was so universally known and acknowledged, that whatever difference of opinion writers might entertain respecting more obscure persons,――as to him, no inversion of order could be permitted. How far Peter was by this pre-eminence endowed with any supremacy over the other apostles, may of course be best shown in those places of his history, which appear either to maintain or question this position. That Simon Cephas, or Peter, then, was the first or chief of the apostles, appears from the uniform precedence with which his name is honored on all occasions in the Scriptures, where the order in which names are mentioned could be made to depend on rank,――by the universal testimony of the Fathers, and by the general impressions entertained on this point throughout the Christian world, in all ages since his time. HIS BIRTH.