against it of being interpolated and debased by Jewish elements. Any argument for the mere existence of our Synoptics, based upon their supposed rejection by heretical leaders and sects, has the evitable disadvantage that the very testimony which would show their existence would oppose their authenticity. There is no evidence of their use by heretical leaders, however, and no direct reference to them by any writer, heretical or orthodox, whom we have examined. We need scarcely add that no reason whatever has been shown for accepting the testimony of these Gospels as sufficient to establish the reality of miracles and of a direct Divine revelation." (Here he says, in a foot-note: "A comparison of the contents of the three Synoptics would have confirmed the conclusion, but this is not at present necessary, and we must hasten on.") "It is not pretended that more than one of the Synoptic Gospels was written by an eye-witness of the miraculous occurrences reported; and whilst no evidence has been, or can be, produced even of the historical accuracy of the narratives, no testimony as to the correctness of the inferences from the external phenomena exists or is now even conceivable. The discrepancy between the amount of evidence required and that which is forthcoming, however, is greater than under the circumstances could have been thought possible." There is a plausibility, combined with an assumed conclusiveness, in this summary, which may impose for a moment on those readers of his book who are not conversant with the question under discussion. They will be likely to have glanced at the foot-notes indicating the great number of books referred to, and take it for granted that an author so learned and painstaking would scarcely have asserted conclusions so boldly without having found good reasons for them, which, before he has done, he will adduce and make plain. It is evident, however, that whatever his reasons may be as a whole, when his promised further volume has been published, it is quite certain that, so far, his argument from the silence of early writings, supposing he had conducted it successfully, combined with his logic on the abstract question of the credibility of miracles, is not sufficient to justify his assertion that the testimony of the Gospels is insufficient to establish the reality of miracles; because the Gospels might have existed, although no trace of them can be found in the fragments extant of books written during the few years between the composition of the Gospels and the period when they were generally acknowledged as authoritative, and read everywhere in the Christian assemblies on the Lord's Day, that is, from about A.D. 100 to 150.