fering with the sense.

Let me before going further lay before the reader a few specimens of
Transposition.

Take for example St. Mark i. 5,--[Greek: kai ebaptizonto pantes],--is
unreasonably turned into [Greek: pantes kai ebaptizonto]; whereby the
meaning of the Evangelical record becomes changed, for [Greek: pantes]
is now made to agree with [Greek: Hierosolumitai], and the Evangelist is
represented as making the very strong assertion that _all_ the people of
Jerusalem came to St. John and were baptized. This is the private
property of BDL[Symbol: Delta].

And sometimes I find short clauses added which I prefer to ascribe to
the misplaced critical assiduity of ancient Critics. Confessedly
spurious, these accretions to the genuine text often bear traces of
pious intelligence, and occasionally of considerable ability. I do not
suppose that they 'crept in' from the margin: but that they were
inserted by men who entirely failed to realize the wrongness of what
they did,--the mischievous consequences which might possibly ensue from
their well-meant endeavours to improve the work of the Holy Ghost.

[Take again St. Mark ii. 3, in which the order in [Greek: pros auton
paralytikon pherontes],--is changed by [Symbol: Aleph]BL into [Greek:
pherontes pros auton paralytikon]. A few words are needed to explain to
those who have not carefully examined the passage the effect of this
apparently slight alteration. Our Lord was in a house at Capernaum with
a thick crowd of people around Him: there was no room even at the door.
Whilst He was there teaching, a company of people come to Him ([Greek:
erchontai pros auton]), four of the party carrying a paralytic on a bed.
When they arrive at the house, a few of the company, enough to represent
the whole, force their way in and reach Him: but on looking back they
see that the rest are unable to bring the paralytic near to Him ([Greek:
prosengisai auto][338]). Upon which they all go out and uncover the
roof, take up the sick man on his bed, and the rest of the familiar
story unfolds itself. Some officious scribe wished to remove all
antiquity arising from the separation of [Greek: paralytikon] from
[Greek: airomenon] which agrees with it, and transposed [Greek:
pherontes] to the verb it is attached to, thus clumsily excluding the
exquisite hint, clear enough to those who can read between the lines,
that in the ineffectual attempt to bring in the paralytic only some of
the company reached