But further: the wide separation of the early Churches from each other; and, according to the opinions of those against whom I am reasoning, their want of a governing power acknowledged by all, must have rendered agreement on the basis of mutual compromise impossible. Compromises are the results of considerations of policy, and are unheard of among fanatics, such as my opponents assert the early followers of Jesus to have been. But what further renders this theory untenable is, that it is compelled to imagine a number of developments accompanied by corresponding compromises between hostile parties, before we can succeed in evolving the Christianity of the New Testament. Not only does it contradict the history of man; not only is it an assumption made to form the connecting link between other established facts, but it is itself founded on other assumptions. Among these are the assertions made as to the evidence of the party spirit existing in the Church, and the opposition between its leaders. Party spirit we know to have existed, but not with the violence which this theory is compelled to postulate. The statement also that the doctrinal opposition between these parties was of so declared a type is not founded on the evidence that we possess, but on a highly exaggerated view of it, distorted for the purpose of adding strength to the theory; or, in other words, it is founded on a set of unwarranted assumptions. The passages in the New Testament alleged to prove the declared opposition between the leaders of the Church, which this theory is compelled to pre‐ suppose, can only be made to do so by taking it for granted that they do. For example, the assertion that the person denounced in the Epistles to the Seven Churches in the book of Revelation, is St. Paul, is a simply gratuitous one, the only evidence for which is the will and pleasure of those who make it. The theory, therefore, not only contradicts the history of man, but is based upon a number of alleged facts which are either absolute assumptions or exaggerations, and fail to give any account of the origin of Christianity which will stand the test of the scrutiny of a sound philosophy.