1. So then, the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark’s Gospel were anciently often observed to be missing from the copies. Eusebius expressly says so. I observe that he nowhere says that _their genuineness_ was anciently _suspected_. As for himself, his elaborate discussion of their contents convinces me that individually, he regarded them with favour. The mere fact,—(it is best to keep to his actual statement,)—that “the entire passage”(393) was “not met with in all the copies,” is the sum of his evidence: and two Greek manuscripts, yet extant, supposed to be of the ivth century (Codd. B and א), mutilated in this precise way, testify to the truth of his statement. 2. But then it is found that these self-same Twelve Verses,—neither more nor less,—anciently constituted _an integral __ Ecclesiastical Lection_; which lection,—inasmuch as it is found to have established itself in every part of Christendom at the earliest period to which liturgical evidence reaches back, and to have been assigned from the very first to two of the chiefest Church Festivals,—must needs be a lection of almost Apostolic antiquity. Eusebius, I observe, (see p. 45), designates the portion of Scripture in dispute by its technical name,—κεφάλαιον or περικοπή; (for so an Ecclesiastical lection was anciently called). Here then is a rare coincidence indeed. It is in fact simply unique. Surely, I may add that it is in the highest degree suggestive also. It inevitably provokes the inquiry,—Must not these two facts be not only connected, but even _interdependent_? Will not the omission of the Twelve concluding Verses of S. Mark from certain ancient copies of his Gospel, have been in some way _occasioned by the fact_ that those same twelve verses constituted an integral Church Lection? How is it possible to avoid suspecting that the phenomenon to which Eusebius invites attention, (viz. that certain copies of S. Mark’s Gospel in very ancient times had been mutilated from the end of the 8th verse onwards,) ought to be capable of illustration,—will have in fact _to be explained_, and in a word _accounted for_,—by the circumstance that at the 8th verse of S. Mark’s xvith chapter, one ancient Lection _came to an end_, and another ancient Lection _began_?