I claim to have demonstrated long since that all those imposing assertions respecting the “Style” and “Phraseology” of this section of the Gospel which were rehearsed at the outset,(301)—are destitute of foundation. But from this discovery alone there results a settled conviction which it will be found difficult henceforth to disturb. A page of Scripture which has been able to endure so severe an ordeal of hostile inquiry, has been _proved_ to be above suspicion. _That_ character is rightly accounted _blameless_ which comes out unsullied after Calumny has done her worst; done it systematically; done it with a will; done it for a hundred years. But this is not an adequate statement of the facts of the case in respect of the conclusion of S. Mark’s Gospel. Something _more_ is certain than that the charges which have been so industriously brought against this portion of the Gospel are without foundation. It has been also proved that instead of there being discovered twenty-seven suspicious words and phrases scattered up and down these twelve verses of the Gospel, there actually exist exactly as many words and phrases which attest with more or less certainty that those verses are nothing else but the work of the Evangelist. IV. And now it is high time to explain that though I have hitherto condescended to adopt the method of my opponents, I have only done so in order to shew that it proves fatal to _themselves_. I am, to say the truth, ashamed of what has last been written,—so untrustworthy do I deem the method which, (following the example of those who have preceded me in this inquiry,) I have hitherto pursued. The “Concordance test,”—(for _that_ is probably as apt and intelligible a designation as can be devised for the purely _mechanical_ process whereby it is proposed by a certain school of Critics to judge of the authorship of Scripture,)—is about the coarsest as well as about the most delusive that could be devised. By means of this clumsy and vulgar instrument, especially when applied, (as in the case before us,) without skill and discrimination, it would be just as easy to prove that _the first_ twelve verses of S. Mark’s Gospel are of a suspicious character as _the last_.(302) In truth, except in very skilful hands, it is no test at all, and can only mislead.