2. But next, even had the discrepancy been real, the remedy for it which is here proposed, and which is advocated with such tedious emphasis, would probably prove satisfactory to no one. In fact, the entire method advocated in the foregoing passage is hopelessly vicious. The writer begins by advancing statements which, if he believed them to be true, he must have known are absolutely fatal to the verses in question. This done, he sets about discussing the possibility of reconciling an isolated expression in S. Mark’s Gospel with another in S. Matthew’s: just as if on _that_ depended the genuineness or spuriousness of the entire context: as if, in short, the major premiss in the discussion were some such postulate as the following:—“Whatever in one Gospel cannot be proved to be entirely consistent with something in another Gospel, is not to be regarded as genuine.” Did then the learned Archbishop of Cæsarea really suppose that a comma judiciously thrown into the empty scale might at any time suffice to restore the equilibrium, and even counterbalance the adverse testimony of almost every MS. of the Gospels extant? Why does he not at least deny the truth of the alleged facts to which he began by giving currency, if not approval; and which, so long as they are allowed to stand uncontradicted, render all further argumentation on the subject simply nugatory? As before, I really cannot tell,—except on the hypothesis which has been already hazarded. 3. Note also, (for this is not the least extraordinary feature of the case,) what vague and random statements those are which we have been listening to. The entire section (S. Mark xvi. 9-20,) “_is not met with in all_ the copies:” at all events _not_ “_in the accurate_” ones. Nay, it is “_met with seldom_.” In fact, it is _absent from_ “_almost all_” copies. But,—Which of these four statements is to stand? The first is comparatively unimportant. Not so the second. The last two, on the contrary, would be absolutely fatal,—if trustworthy? But _are_ they trustworthy?