It is at all events certain that the correctest notion of the use and the value of the Eusebian Sections will be obtained by one who will be at the pains to substitute for _the Eusebian Numbers_ in the margin of a copy of the Greek Gospels _the References_ which these numbers severally indicate. It will then become plain that the system of Sections and Canons which Eusebius invented,—ingenious, interesting, and useful as it certainly is; highly important also, as being the known work of an illustrious Father of the Church, as well as most precious occasionally for critical purposes,(545)—is nothing else but a clumsy substitute for what is achieved by an ordinary “Reference Bible”:—participating in every inconvenience incidental to the unskilfully contrived apparatus with which English readers are familiar,(546) and yet inferior in the following four respects:— (1st.) The references of Eusebius, (except those found in Canon X.), require in every instance to be _deciphered_, before they can be verified; and they can only be deciphered by making search, (and sometimes laborious search,) in another part of the volume. They are not, in fact, (nor do they pretend to be,) references to the inspired Text at all; but only _references to the Eusebian Canons_. (2ndly.) In their scope, they are of course strictly _confined to the Gospels_,—which most inconveniently limits their use, as well as diminishes their value. (Thus, by no possibility is Eusebius able to refer a reader from S. Luke xxii. 19, 20 to 1 Cor. xi. 23-25.) (3rdly.) By the very nature of their constitution, reference even to _another part of the same Gospel_ is impossible. (Eusebius is unable, for example, to refer a reader from S. John xix. 39, to iii. 1 and vii. 50.) But besides the preceding, which are disadvantages inherent in the scheme and inseparable from it, it will be found (4thly), That Eusebius, while he introduces not a few wholly undesirable references, (of which some specimens are supplied above), is observed occasionally to withhold references which cannot by any means be dispensed with. Thus, he omits to refer his reader from S. Luke’s account of the visit to the Sepulchre (chap. xxiv. 12) to S. John’s memorable account of the same transaction (chap. xx. 3-10): _not_ because he disallowed the verse in S. Luke’s Gospel,—for in a certain place _he discusses its statements_.(547)