_He_ knows wondrous little about this department of Sacred Science who can require to be informed that such a weight of _public_ testimony as this to the last Twelve Verses of a Gospel is simply overwhelming. The single discovery that in the age of Augustine [385-430] this portion of S. Mark’s Gospel was unquestionably read at Easter in the Churches of Africa, added to the express testimony of the Author of the 2nd Homily on the Resurrection, and of the oldest Syriac MSS., that they were also read by the Orientals at Easter in the public services of the Church, must be held to be in a manner decisive of the question. Let the evidence, then, which is borne by Ecclesiastical usage to the genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9-20, be summed up, and the entire case caused again to pass under review. (1.) That Lessons from the New Testament were publicly read in the assemblies of the faithful according to a definite scheme, and on an established system, _at least_ as early as the fourth century,—has been shewn to be a plain historical fact. Cyril, at Jerusalem,—(and by implication, his namesake at Alexandria,)—Chrysostom, at Antioch and at Constantinople,—Augustine, in Africa,—all four expressly witness to the circumstance. In other words, there is found to have been _at least at that time_ fully established throughout the Churches of Christendom a Lectionary, which seems to have been essentially one and the same in the West(390) and in the East. That it must have been of even Apostolic antiquity may be inferred from several considerations. But that it dates its beginning from a period _anterior to the age of __ Eusebius,—which is the age of Codices B and_ א,—at least admits of _no_ controversy. (2.) Next,—Documents of the vith century put us in possession of the great Oriental Lectionary as it is found at that time to have universally prevailed throughout the vast unchanging East. In other words, several of the actual Service Books, in Greek and in Syriac,(391) have survived the accidents of full a thousand years: and rubricated copies of the Gospels carry us back three centuries further. The entire agreement which is observed to prevail among these several documents,—added to the fact that when tested by the allusions incidentally made by Greek Fathers of the ivth century to what was the Ecclesiastical practice of their own time, there are found to emerge countless as well as highly significant notes of correspondence,—warrants us in believing, (in the absence of testimony of any sort to the contrary,) that the Lectionary we speak of differs in no essential respect from that system of Lections with which the Church of the ivth century was universally acquainted.