Now consider the tremendous force of the proved fact that, within forty years of the time when Justin wrote his First Apology, we reach a period when it is no longer a debatable question whether our Gospels are “the Memoirs” of Christ which were read with the Prophets in city and country. The presumption of _continuance_ attaches. It has before been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that, in the year one hundred and forty, there were accepted “Memoirs” of our Lord, which were read with the Prophets in all the churches. There is no evidence whatever that those Memoirs in the intervening forty years were dropped and others substituted for them; therefore it should be presumed that they were in the churches in the year one hundred and eighty; and the Memoirs in the churches at this latter period _are positively known and seen, to have been the Canonical Gospels_. They have come closer to us, and in the nearer vision we are able to determine their identity with the utmost certainty. And the natural presumption that there was no substitution within the short interval of forty years, is immensely strengthened by the difficulties attending any attempted substitution,—difficulties so great that they must have left unmistakable evidence of conflict upon the page of history. The churches were very numerous, and occupied a territory of more than two thousand miles in extent from Syria to Gaul. Each church had its bishop or presbyter, and elders; and in each church, once in seven days, were the Memoirs of our Lord read with the Prophets. There were hundreds who, from their own recollections, and thousands who, from their parents or instructors, at any given time within these forty years, had perfect knowledge what Memoirs were thus read in the year one hundred and forty. Young men of twenty then, were only sixty, forty years later. Was there a substitution in those forty years, and these bishops, and elders, and thousands of communicants every Sabbath of all ages, not know it; or knowing it had not objected; or objecting, and history have no record of it? Not a few of these were educated men; and indeed all the bishops and elders may be presumed to have been as well versed in the accepted Gospels as in the writings of the prophets. It is to be borne in mind that we are dealing now with the question of substitution within the short period of forty years. A _score_ of names can be given of men living within that time or immediately after, who, from their own recollection or from others, must have had perfect knowledge of the whole subject: Athenagoras, a philosopher at Athens about the year one hundred and sixty; Caius, a presbyter at Rome about the year two hundred; Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, _cir._ 173; Clement of Alexandria, who became the head of the Alexandrian School in 187; Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, who died a martyr in 173; Hegesippus, the historian (whose works are now lost), who died in 180;