When we turn from the external or historical evidence for the genuineness of the Gospels to study their internal structure and their relations to one another, we come upon some curious facts. These Gospels, in the form in which we possess them, are written in the Greek language. But the Greek language was not the vernacular of the Jews in Palestine when our Lord was on the earth; the language which was then spoken by them, as I have before explained, was the Aramaic. It is true that Palestine was, to some extent, a bilingual country,--like Wales, one writer suggests, where the English and the Welsh languages are now freely spoken,--that Aramaic and Greek were used indifferently. I can hardly imagine that a people as tenacious of their own institutions as the Jews could have adopted Greek as generally as the Welsh have adopted the English tongue. Even in Wales, if a Welshman were speaking to a congregation of his countrymen on any important topic, he would be likely to speak the Welsh language. And much more probable does it seem to me that the discourses and the common conversation of Jesus must have been spoken in the vernacular. The discourses and sayings of our Lord, as reported for us in these Gospels, are not therefore given us in the words that he used. We have a translation of his words from the Aramaic into the Greek, made either by the writers of the Gospels, or by some one in their day. We have quoted the testimony of Papias, that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew (by which he undoubtedly means Aramaic), and that each one interpreted it as best he could; and if this be true, then that copy first made by Matthew did contain many of our Lord's very words. But that Aramaic copy has never been seen since that day; we have no manuscript of any New Testament book except in the Greek language. There are a few cases in which the writers of the Gospels have preserved for us the very words used by Christ. Thus in the healing of the deaf man in the neighborhood of Decapolis, of which Mark tells us (vii. 34), Jesus touched his ears, and said unto him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." The Evangelist gives us the Aramaic word which Jesus used, and translates it for his readers into Greek. Likewise in the healing of the ruler's daughter (Mark v. 41) he took her by the hand, and said unto her, "Talitha cumi, which is, being interpreted," the Evangelist explains, "Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise." Doubtless most readers get the impression that our Lord used here some cabalistic words in a foreign tongue; the fact is that these are the words of the common speech of the people; only the Evangelist seems to have thought them especially memorable, and he has given us not merely, as he generally does, a translation into the Greek of our Lord's words, but the Aramaic words themselves, with their meaning appended in a Greek phrase. The same is true of our Lord's words on the cross: "Eli,