John’s account of Jesus differs from that of the synoptic gospels; but in a very similar manner, and probably for a very similar reason, Plato’s account of Socrates differs from that of Xenophon. Each saw and described that side of his subject which he was by nature best fitted to comprehend,—compare the Venice of Canaletto with the Venice of Turner, the former the picture of an expert draughtsman, the latter the vision of a poet who sees the palaces of the Doges glorified by air and mist and distance. In Christ there was a “hiding of his power”_ (Hab. 3:4)_; “how small a whisper do we hear of him!”_ (Job 26:14)_; he, rather than Shakespeare, is “the myriad-minded”; no one evangelist can be expected to know or describe him except “in part”_ (1 Cor. 13:12)_. Frances Power Cobbe, Life, 2:402—“All of us human beings resemble diamonds, in having several distinct facets to our characters; and, as we always turn one of these to one person and another to another, there is generally some fresh side to be seen in a particularly brilliant gem.” E. P. Tenney, Coronation, 45—“The secret and powerful life he [the hero of the story] was leading was like certain solitary streams, deep, wide, and swift, which run unseen through vast and unfrequented forests. So wide and varied was this man’s nature, that whole courses of life might thrive in its secret places,—and his neighbors might touch him and know him only on that side on which he was like them.” (_d_) A slight amount of positive testimony, so long as it is uncontradicted, outweighs a very great amount of testimony that is merely negative. The silence of a second witness, or his testimony that he did not see a certain alleged occurrence, cannot counterbalance the positive testimony of a first witness that he did see it. We should therefore estimate the silence of profane writers with regard to facts narrated in Scripture precisely as we should estimate it if the facts about which they are silent were narrated by other profane writers, instead of being narrated by the writers of Scripture.