--was furnished with those very Verses which you wish me to
believe that some older MS. still must needs have been without. What else
can be said, then, of your method but that it is frivolous? and of your
charge, but that it is contradicted by the evidence to which you
yourselves appeal?

"But it is illogical; that is, it is unreasonable, besides.

"For it is high time to point out that even if it so happened that the
oldest known MS. was observed to be without these twelve concluding
verses, it would still remain a thing unproved (not to say highly
improbable) that from the autograph of the Evangelist himself they were
also away. Supposing, further, that no Ecclesiastical writer of the iind
or iiird century could be found who quoted them: even so, it would not
follow that there existed no such verses for a primitive Father to quote.
The earliest of the Versions might in addition yield faltering testimony;
but even so, _who_ would be so rash as to raise on such a slender basis
the monstrous hypothesis, that S. Mark's Gospel when it left the hands of
its inspired Author was without the verses which at present conclude it?
How, then, would you have proposed to account for the consistent testimony
of an opposite kind yielded by every other known document in the world?

"But, on the other hand, what are the facts of the case? (1) The earliest
of the Fathers,--(2) the most venerable of the Versions,--(3) the oldest MS.
of which we can obtain any tidings,--_all_ are observed to _recognize these
Verses_. 'Cadit quaestio' therefore. The last shadow of pretext has
vanished for maintaining with Tischendorf that 'Mark the Evangelist knew
nothing of' these verses:--with Tregelles that 'The book of Mark himself
extends no further than {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}:'--with Griesbach that 'the _last
leaf of the original Gospel was probably torn away_.'... It is high time,
I say, that this case were dismissed. But there are also costs to be paid.
Cod. B and Cod. {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} are convicted of being 'two false witnesses,' and must
be held to go forth from this inquiry with an injured reputati