But while you do not “deny the genuineness or alter the translation of any part,” perhaps you question the _inspiration_ of certain portions of the sacred volume. You will remember that this was _one_ of the branches of _evidence_ that we proposed to discuss with you, and that not the least in importance. Why are you silent on this head? Is it not of any moment, think ye, to admit the _genuineness_ and confess the _authenticity_ of a book or a chapter or a verse of scripture, if you withhold your conviction of its _inspiration_? Is it not a fact that you might hold the _genuineness_ of the two first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and feel no disposition to alter the _translation_ of a word, and, at the same time, boldly deny that they were “given by inspiration of God?” If I am mistaken here too, I pray to be set right. If not, then the public will decide upon the candour and fairness of your profession to remove the necessity of any controversy with you on the score of EVIDENCE, because of your admission of the _genuineness_ and your satisfaction with the _accuracy_ of the authorized version, while by an expressive but momentous silence, you acknowledge that the _greatest of testimonial questions_ is by you disputed, and you at the same time refuse to come forward boldly, and debate it fairly before the church. Again—“Unitarians have neither canon nor version of their own different from those recognised by,” &c. You anticipate here a reference to “the improved version,” and tell us that “it contains only the private criticism of one or two individuals—that it has never been used in your churches, and is utterly devoid of all authority with you.” Will you excuse me for expressing my doubts of the accuracy of this statement, for these reasons: —1. That work was the joint production of some of the ablest men and best scholars that the Unitarian sect has ever been able to boast of; and that the shades of Belsham, Lindsey, Jebb, Priestley, Wakefield, &c.,[5] might well be astonished to hear their learned labours so contemptuously spoken of by three modern disciples of their school. 2. That, in the year 1819, (the date of the edition which I possess,) the improved version had gone through no fewer than _five editions_—a tolerable criterion of the extent of its circulation in little more than twenty years. How many it may have passed through since, I have been as yet unable to ascertain. 3. That so far from its being “devoid of all authority,” it professes, in the title page, to have been “published by the Unitarian Society for promoting Christian Knowledge and the practice of virtue by the distribution of Books.” That it may “never have been used in your churches” I can well believe, as it is probable that the feelings of your people would have revolted too strongly against its introduction, to make the experiment advisable: the food which it furnishes may have proved too coarse even for the digestive organs of popular Unitarianism itself.