With such evidence and from such sources, and the entire absence of any evidence of _substitution_, it may well be regarded as morally certain, that none occurred. What was probable, from the _seeming_ use of the Canonical Gospels by Justin and his contemporaries, has become _a moral certainty_. The Memoirs which, in the year one hundred and eighty, were universally accepted, _were the same_ that forty years before were read with the Prophets, in city and country, in all the churches every Sabbath day. Of this there can be no doubt. The Memoirs of the year one hundred and eighty, _were_ OUR CANONICAL GOSPELS; and the Memoirs of the year one hundred and forty, _were_ OUR CANONICAL GOSPELS. And we take our stand with Justin, with these Gospels in our hands, only forty years from the death of John, the beloved disciple, and at the close of a hundred years from the crucifixion of our Lord. And still we ascend the stream. [1] Wright’s Logic, etc., p. 187, Tischendorf, p. 43. [2] Norton’s Genuineness of the Gospels, etc., Part II. c. 1; Wright, p. 187. [3] Wright, pp. 188, 189, Tischendorf, p. 35. [4] Stowe’s Origin, etc., p. 176. [5] Origin, etc., p. 35; Wright, p. 189. CHAPTER XI. STILL ASCENDING THE STREAM. The evidence thus far has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that at the writing of Justin’s First Apology, the Canonical Gospels were read with the Prophets in city and country, on “the day called Sunday,” as authentic Memoirs of our Lord. Assuming the date[1] of this Apology to have been A.D. 138 or 139, the time was a little over one hundred years from the Crucifixion, and less than eighty years from the death of Mark and Luke, and all the Apostles other than John, and only forty years from his death. How long were these periods as they affect the argument from the universal reception of the Gospels in Justin’s time, and from the universal tradition in their favor which accompanied such reception? The writer has within two days (in April, 1881) met with three persons who saw Lafayette on his visit to New England in 1824. One of them distinctly remembers the sentiment[2] which Lafayette gave at Concord, and another shook hands with him. There were hundreds of Revolutionary soldiers present, some of whom the General recognized and called by name, although he had not seen their faces for more than forty years. This was in 1824. Whittier’s poem describes one of these soldiers, as he now remembers him, at the time of Monroe’s tour in 1817, _sixty-four years ago_: “Once a soldier, blame him not, That the Quaker he forgot, When to think of battles won, And the red coats on the run, Laughed aloud Friend Morrison.”