estion as an integral part of St. John's Gospel, and as
standing in its traditional place, from an exceedingly remote time_.

Take into your hands at random the first MS. copy of St. John's Gospel
which presents itself, and turn to the place in question. Nay, I will
instance _all_ the four Evangelia which I call mine,--all the seventeen
which belong to Lord Zouch,--all the thirty-nine which Baroness
Burdett-Coutts imported from Epirus in 1870-2. Now all these
copies--(and nearly each of them represents a different line of
ancestry)--are found to contain the verses in question. How did the
verses ever get there?

But the most extraordinary circumstance of the case is behind. Some out
of the Evangelia referred to are observed to have been prepared for
ecclesiastical use: in other words, are so rubricated throughout as to
shew where, every separate lection had its 'beginning' ([Greek: arche]),
and where its 'end' ([Greek: telos]). And some of these lections are
made up of disjointed portions of the Gospel. Thus, the lection for
Whitsunday is found to have extended from St. John vii. 37 to St. John
viii. 12; beginning at the words [Greek: te eschate hemera te megale],
and ending--[Greek: to phos tes zoes]: but _over-leaping_ the twelve
verses now under discussion: viz. vii. 53 to viii. 11. Accordingly, the
word 'over-leap' ([Greek: hyperba]) is written in _all_ the copies after
vii. 52,--whereby the reader, having read on to the end of that verse,
was directed to skip all that followed down to the words [Greek: kai
meketi hamartane] in ch. viii. 11: after which he found himself
instructed to 'recommence' ([Greek: arxai]). Again I ask (and this time
does not the riddle admit of only one solution?),--When and how does the
reader suppose that the narrative of 'the woman taken in adultery' first
found its way into the _middle of the lesson for Pentecost_? I pause for
an answer: I shall perforce be told that it never 'found its way' into
the lection at all: but having once crept into St. John's Gospel,
however that may have been effected, and established itself there, it
left those ancient men who devised the Church's Lectionary without
choice. They could but direct its omission, and employ for that purpose
the established liturgical formula in all similar cases.

But first,--How is it that those who would reject the narrative are not
struck by the essential foolishness of supposing that twelve fabricated
verses, purporting to