For instance, in the passage about a camel going through the eye of a needle, it will make a difference in the sense, whether you read in the Greek word for _camel_ the oriental animal of that name, or a ship's cable; but no difference at all arises in the spiritual doctrine. Or, illustrating the case out of Shakspeare, it makes no difference as to the result, whether you read in Hamlet 'to take arms against a _sea_ of troubles,' or (as has been suggested), 'against a _siege_ of troubles;' but it makes a difference as to the integrity of the image.[Footnote: _'Integrity of the metaphor_.'--One of the best notes ever written by Warburton was in justification of the old reading, _sea_. It was true, that against a _sea_ it would be idle to take _arms_. We, that have lived since Warburton's day, have learned by the solemn example of Mrs. Partington, (which, it is to be hoped, none of us will ever forget,) how useless, how vain it is to take up a mop against the Atlantic Ocean. Great is the mop, great is Mrs. Partington, but greater is the Atlantic. Yet, though all arms must be idle against the sea considered literally, and χατα την φαντασιαν under that image, Warburton contended justly that all images, much employed, _evanesce_ into the ideas which they represent. A _sea_ of troubles comes to mean only a _multitude_ of troubles. No image of the _sea_ is suggested; and arms, incongruous in relation to the literal sea, is not so in relation to a multitude; besides, that the image _arms_ itself, evanesces for the same reason into _resistance_. For this one note, which I cite from boyish remembrance, I have always admired the subtlety of Warburton.] What has a sea to do with arms? What has a camel,[Footnote: Meantime, though using this case as an illustration, I believe that _camel_ is, after all, the true translation; first, on account of the undoubted proverb in the East about the _elephant_ going through the needle's eye; the relation is that of _contrast_ as to magnitude; and the same relation holds as to the camel and the needle's eye; secondly, because the proper word for a cable, it has been alleged, is not 'cam_e_lus,' but 'cam_i_lus.'] the quadruped, to do with a needle? A prodigious minority, therefore, there is of such various readings as slightly affect the _sense;_ but this minority becomes next to nothing, when we inquire for such as affect any _doctrine_. This was Bentley's opinion upon the possible disturbance offered to the Christian by various readings in the New Testament. You thought that the carelessness, or, at times, even the treachery of men, through so many centuries, must have ended in corrupting the original truth; yet, after all, you see the light burns as brightly and steadily as ever. We, now, that are not bibliolatrists, no more believe that, from the disturbance of a few words here or there, any evangelical truth can have suffered a wound or mutilation, than