In relation to all the several facts, or supposed facts, anterior to this period,--the best evidence, which, for anything that appears, ever came within his reach, was composed of such statements as, in the course of his service, it may have been the pleasure of the master to make to, or in the hearing of, this his attendant. Whatsoever may be the grounds of suspicion that may be found attaching themselves to evidence passing through such a channel, or issuing from such a source; other evidence will, if taken in the lump, present itself as being in comparison much less trustworthy. All other evidence consists of statements, coming from we know not whom, at we know not what times, on we know not what occasion, each of them with we know not how many reporting witnesses, one after and from another, through so many different and successive channels, between the percipient witness or witnesses, and the last reporting witness or witnesses, from whom the historian received the statement in the way of personal intercourse. The period of _rumour_, and the period of _observation_--By these two appellations it should seem, may the two periods be not altogether unaptly or uninstructively distinguished. With reference to the period of rumour,--whether, it was from Paul's own statement, or from a source still more exposed to suspicion, that the historian's conception was derived,--one consideration presents itself, as requisite to be kept in mind. This is, With what facility, especially in that age, upon an occurrence in itself true, and including nothing that lies without the ordinary course of nature,--a circumstance out of the course of nature, giving to the whole a supernatural, and to use the ordinary word a miraculous, character, may, in and by the narrative, have been superinduced.[2] Fact, for instance, as it _really_ was--at the word of command, (suppose) a man, having the appearance of a cripple, stands up erect and walks: untrue circumstances, one or both superinduced by _rumour_--the man had been so from his birth; from his birth down to that same time he had been an inhabitant of that same place. In the chapter on Paul's supposable miracles, about a dozen occurrences of this description will be found. On each one of these several occasions, the propriety of bearing in mind the above-mentioned consideration, will, it is believed, not appear open to dispute, whatsoever on each several occasion may be the application made of it. SECTION 2. VISION I.--DIALOGUE ON THE ROAD: PAUL HEARS A VOICE, SEES NOTHING. I. ACCOUNT.--_As per Acts_ ix. 1-9.