THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES. BY THE REV. STANLEY LEATHES, M.A., PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, KING'S COLLEGE. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES. The attacks upon that body of traditional belief and received thought which is conveniently expressed and commonly understood by the term Christianity have turned very much of late years upon the authenticity of the several books composing the New Testament. Inquiries of this nature have commended themselves to an age which we need not shrink from characterising as critical and discriminating. There is a manifest and a very intelligible pleasure to be derived from reopening questions which many have been accustomed to regard as settled, from proving former conclusions erroneous, or showing that considerable doubt still remains where certainty was believed to exist; and in the natural enthusiasm attending investigations of this kind, it is by no means a matter of surprise if the actual importance of the results has been somewhat overrated. The inferences following from the conclusions arrived at, have been estimated in proportion to the supposed certainty of the conclusions. If a particular Gospel can be shown to be falsely, or at any rate with doubtful truth, ascribed to its traditional author, the inference drawn, or at least suggested, is the comparative depreciation, if not worthlessness, of that Gospel. We know not why, but it is frequently assumed that if everything is not in exact accordance with the popular belief in any matter, nothing which is popularly associated with that belief can reasonably be maintained. The whole edifice will fall, or must even be destroyed, because a stone here or there is faulty, or out of place. Because investigation shows that the foundation does not lie as it was thought to lie, therefore there is no foundation at all. The rashness and precipitancy of any such inference will be at once apparent to every thoughtful mind. Because the reasons usually assigned are inconclusive, it by no means follows that no reasons can be given. The central questions really involved, may be altogether unaffected by the technical and subordinate question, who was actually the writer of some particular book. The critical investigation of authorship may have positively no bearing at all on the opinions expressed, or the facts recorded in the book. Whether or not this be so in any given instance, it is at any rate conceivably possible in the abstract.