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DEDICATION: TO SIR ROUNDELL PALMER, Q.C., M.P.

DEAR SIR ROUNDELL,

I do myself the honour of inscribing this volume to you. Permit me to
explain the reason why.

It is not merely that I may give expression to a sentiment of private
friendship which dates back from the pleasant time when I was Curate to
your Father,--whose memory I never recall without love and veneration;--nor
even in order to afford myself the opportunity of testifying how much I
honour you for the noble example of conscientious uprightness and
integrity which you set us on a recent public occasion. It is for no such
reason that I dedicate to you this vindication of the last Twelve Verses
of the Gospel according to S. Mark.

It is because I desire supremely to submit the argument contained in the
ensuing pages to a practised judicial intellect of the loftiest stamp.
Recent Editors of the New Testament insist that these "last Twelve Verses"
are not genuine. The Critics, almost to a man, avow themselves of the same
opinion. Popular Prejudice has been for a long time past warmly enlisted
on the same side. I am as convinced as I am of my life, that the reverse
is the truth. It is not even with me as it is with certain learned friends
of mine, who, admitting the adversary's premisses, content themselves with
denying the validity of his inference. However true it may be,--and it is
true,--that from those premisses the proposed conclusion does not follow, I
yet venture to deny the correctness of those premisses altogether. I
insist, on the contrary, that the Evidence relied on is
untrustworthy,--untrustworthy in every particular.

How, in the meantime, can such an one as I am hope to persuade the world
that it is as I say, while the most illustrious Biblical Critics at home
and abroad are agreed, and against me? Clearly, the first thing to be done
is to secure for myself a full and patient hearing. With this view, I have
written a book. But next, instead of waiting for the slow verdict of
Public Opinion, (which yet, I know, must come after many days,) I
desiderate for the Evidence I have collected, a competent and an impartial
Judge. And _that_ is why I dedicate my b