But,--what may easily enough have happened, distance in time and place, together considered, is--that to those particulars, which composed no more than the surface of the business, _their_ knowledge was confined: while _we_, though at the distance of more than seventeen centuries, know more or less of the inside of it,--let into it, as we have been, by the author of the Acts. As to their arriving sooner or later, at the suspicion, or though it were the discovery, that the money had not, any part of it, reached the hands it was intended for, nor was in any way to do so,--what bar could the apprehension of any such result oppose, to the enterprise, systematic, as we see it was, of the creator of Antichrist? When, to a man, who occupies a certain situation in the eye of the political world, calls for accounts are become troublesome,--Scipio might have informed him, if he had not well enough known of himself, how to answer them. When a charge made upon you is true--evidence full against you, and none to oppose to it,--fly into a passion, magnify your own excellence--magnify the depravity of your adversaries. This mode, of parrying a charge, is perfectly well understood in our days, nor could it have been much less well understood in Paul's days. As for _his_ adversaries, Paul had a storm _in petto_ at all times ready for them: for the materials, turn to any page of his Epistles: whatever, in this way, he had for rivals,--_that_ and more he could not fail to have for accusing witnesses. To the creator of Antichrist--sower of tares between Pharisees and Sadducees,--whatever were the charges, defence, the most triumphant, could never be wanting: arguments, suited with the utmost nicety, to the taste of judges. He would warn them, against false brethren, and liars, and wolves, and children of Satan, and so forth: he would talk to them, about life and death, and sin and righteousness, and faith and repentance, and this world and that world, and the Lord and resurrection: he would talk backwards and forwards--give nonsense for mystery, and terror for instruction: he would contradict everybody, and himself not less than anybody: he would raise such a cloud of words, with here and there an _ignis fatuus_ dancing in the smoke,--that the judges, confounded and bewildered, would forget all the evidence, and cry out _Not Guilty_ through pure lassitude. As to us,--the case being now before us, what shall be our verdict? Obtaining money on false pretences is the charge. Guilty shall we say, or not guilty? Obtainment on a certain pretence, is proved by _direct_ evidence--his own evidence: proof, of falsity in the pretence, rests, as it could not but rest, on _circumstantial_ evidence.