Let us but follow for a little the simple method of selection prescribed by Mr. Sinclair, and see what we get. What we are to make of Mark i, 1-9, is far from clear. It sets forth the advent of John as the fulfilment of a prophecy--i.e., a miracle; and it describes his mission in the baldest conceivable summary, save for the sentence: "And John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leathern girdle about his loins, and did eat locusts and wild honey." Is this "convention" or "reality"? I am not inclined to call it "literary artifice," unless we are to apply that description to the beginning of the average nursery tale, as perhaps we should. What must strike the inquiring reader is that if we were to have a touch of "reality" about the Baptist we should be told something about his inner history, his antecedents, and what he preached. What we are told is that "he preached, saying, There cometh after me he that is mightier than I.... I baptized you with water; but he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit." If this part of the narrative has not been "struck out" by Mr. Sinclair's neophytes as plainly belonging to the miraculous, the next five verses presumably must be. The non-miraculous narrative begins at v. 14:-- Now, after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe in the Gospel [not a word of which has been communicated]. And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left the nets, and followed him. And going on a little further, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending the nets. And straightway he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after him.