I observe that Scholars and Divines of the best type (as the Rev. T. S. Green(243)) at last put up with them. The wisest however reproduce them under protest, and with apology. The names of Tischendorf and Tregelles, Meyer and Davidson, command attention. It seems to be thought incredible that they can _all_ be _entirely_ in the wrong. They impose upon learned and unlearned readers alike. “Even Barnabas has been carried away with their dissimulation.” He has (to my surprise and regret) two suggestions:— (_a_) The one,—That this entire section of the second Gospel may possibly have been written long after the rest; and that therefore its verbal peculiarities need not perplex or trouble us. It was, I suppose, (according to this learned and pious writer,) a kind of after-thought, or supplement, or Appendix to S. Mark’s Gospel. In this way I have seen the last Chapter of S. John once and again accounted for.—To which, it ought to be a sufficient answer to point out that there is _no appearance whatever_ of any such interval having been interposed between S. Mark xvi. 8 and 9: that it is highly improbable that any such interval occurred: and that until the “verbal peculiarities” have been ascertained to exist, it is, to say the least, a gratuitous exercise of the inventive faculty to discover reasons for their existence. Whether there be not something radically unsound and wrong in all such conjectures about “after-thoughts,” “supplements,” “appendices,” and “second editions” when the everlasting Gospel of JESUS CHRIST is the thing spoken of,—a confusing of things heavenly with things earthly which must make the Angels weep,—I forbear to press on the present occasion. It had better perhaps be discussed at another opportunity. But φίλοι ἄνδρες(244) will forgive my freedom in having already made my personal sentiment on the subject sufficiently plain. (_b_) His other suggestion is,—That this portion may not have been penned by S. Mark himself after all. By which he clearly means no more than this,—that as we are content not to know _who_ wrote the conclusion of the Books of Deuteronomy and Joshua, so, if needful, we may well be content not to know who wrote the end of the Gospel of S. Mark.—In reply to which, I have but to say, that after cause has been shewn why we should indeed believe that not S. Mark but some one else wrote the end of S. Mark’s Gospel, we shall be perfectly willing to acquiesce in the new fact:—but _not till then_.