(1.) In the ancient days, when it was the universal belief of Christendom that the Word of GOD must needs be consistent with itself in every part, and prove in every part (like its Divine Author) perfectly “faithful and true,” the difficulty (which was deemed all but insuperable) of bringing certain statements in S. Mark’s last Twelve Verses into harmony with certain statements of the other Evangelists, is discovered to have troubled Divines exceedingly. “In fact,” (says Mr. Scrivener,) “it brought suspicion upon these verses, and caused their omission in some copies seen by Eusebius.” That the maiming process is indeed attributable to this cause and came about in this particular way, I am unable to persuade myself; but, if the desire to provide an escape from a serious critical difficulty did not actually _occasion_ that copies of S. Mark’s Gospel were mutilated, it certainly was the reason why, in very early times, such mutilated copies were viewed without displeasure by some, and appealed to with complacency by others. (2.) But times are changed. We have recently been assured on high authority that the Church has reversed her ancient convictions in this respect: that _now_, “most sound theologians have no dread whatever of acknowledging minute points of disagreement” (i.e. minute _errors_) “in the fourfold narrative even of the life of the Redeemer.”(1) There has arisen in these last days a singular impatience of Dogmatic Truth, (especially Dogma of an unpalatable kind,) which has even rendered popular the pretext afforded by these same mutilated copies for the grave resuscitation of doubts, never as it would seem seriously entertained by any of the ancients; and which, at all events for 1300 years and upwards, have deservedly sunk into oblivion.