: "To all the
saints in Christ Jesus:" and to whom he sent the greetings of the saints
who then surrounded him: "ALL the SAINTS salute you." [Phil i. 1; iv.
22.]

But before the closing words of this paragraph, whatever be its meaning,
be acknowledged as the genuine and undoubted production of Eusebius, I
would suggest the careful weighing of some considerations, which appear
to me to involve serious difficulties.

1. First, through all the voluminous works of Eusebius, I have found in
no single passage any allusion to the prayers of saints departed, or to
their ministering offices in our behalf, though numberless openings show
themselves for the natural introduction of such a subject.

2. Secondly, among all the various works and treatises of Eusebius, I
have not found one which is closed by any termination of the kind; on
the contrary, they all end with remarkable suddenness and abruptness,
precisely as this comment would end, were the sentence under
consideration removed. Each, indeed, of the books of his Ecclesiastical
History, is followed by a notice of the close of the book, in some cases
too that notice involving a religious sentiment: for example, at the
close of the 10th book we read: "With the help of God, the end of the
tenth book." But that these are appendages made by an editor or scribe
is evident in itself, and moreover {409} in many instances is shown by
such sentences as these, "And this we have found in a certain copy in
the 8th volume:" "This is in some copies, as if omitted from the 8th
book." I find no one instance of Eusebius bringing a chapter or a
treatise to its close by any religious sentiment, or any termination of
the nature here contemplated.

It is also difficult to conceive that any author, having the flow and
connexion of the whole passage present to his mind, would himself have
appended this ejaculation as we now find it. We know that editors and
scribes often attached a sentiment of their own to the closing words of
an author. And it seems far more probable, that a scribe not having the
full drift of the argument mainly before him, but catching the
expression, "heavenly vision," appended such an ejaculation. That the
writer himself should introduce such a sentence by the connecting link
of a relative pronoun feminine, which must of necessity be referred, not
as the grammatical construction would suggest to the feminine noun
preceding it,--not to any word expressed or understood in t