it may be regarded as certain that in countless minute particulars the text of Scripture has been depraved. Let me not fail to add, that by a judicious, and above all by an _unprejudiced_ use of the materials at our disposal, it may, even at this distance of time, in every such particular, be successfully restored.(400) III. I now proceed to shew, by an induction of instances, that _even in the oldest copies in existence_, I mean in Codd. B, א, A, C, and D, the Lectionary system of the early Church has left abiding traces of its operation. When a few such undeniable cases have been adduced, all objections grounded on _primâ facie_ improbability will have been satisfactorily disposed of. The activity, as well as the existence of such a disturbing force and depraving influence, _at least_ as far back as the beginning of the ivth century, (but it is in fact more ancient by full two hundred years,) will have been established: of which I shall only have to shew, in conclusion, that the omission of “the last Twelve Verses” of S. Mark’s Gospel is probably but one more instance,—though confessedly by far the most extraordinary of any. (1.) From Codex B then, as well as from Cod. A, the two grand verses which describe our LORD’S “Agony and Bloody Sweat,” (S. Luke xxii. 43, 44,) are missing. The same two verses are absent also from a few other important MSS., as well as from both the Egyptian versions; but I desire to fasten attention on the confessedly erring testimony in this place of Codex B. “Confessedly erring,” I say; for the genuineness of those two verses is no longer disputed. Now, in every known Evangelistarium, the two verses here omitted by Cod. B follow, (the Church so willed it,) S. Matth. xxvi. 39, and are read as a regular part of the lesson for the Thursday in Holy Week.(401) Of course they are also _omitted_ in the same Evangelistaria from the lesson for the Tuesday after Sexagesima, (τῇ γ᾽ τῆς τυροφάγου, as the Easterns call that day,) when S. Luke xxii. 39-xxiii. 1 used to be read. Moreover, in all ancient copies of the Gospels which have been accommodated to ecclesiastical use, _the reader of S. Luke xxii. is invariably directed by a marginal note to leave out those two verses_, and to proceed per saltum from ver. 42 to ver. 45.(402) What more obvious therefore than that the removal of the paragraph from its proper place in S. Luke’s Gospel is to be attributed to nothing else but the Lectionary practice of the primitive Church? Quite unreasonable is it to impute heretical motives, or to invent any other unsupported theory, while this plain solution of the difficulty is at hand.