hree different newspapers written from
America or Germany, we were to read the same incidents told in the same
language, surrounded it might be with much that was unlike, but
nevertheless in themselves identical, and related in words which, down
to unusual and remarkable terms of expression, were exactly the same,
what should we infer?

Suppose, for instance, the description of a battle; if we were to find
but a single paragraph in which two out of three correspondents agreed
verbally, we should regard it as a very strange coincidence. If all
three agreed verbally, we should feel certain it was more than accident.
If throughout their letters there was a recurring series of such
passages, no doubt would be left in the mind of any one that either the
three correspondents had seen each other's letters, or that each had had
before him some common narrative which he had incorporated in his own
account. It might be doubtful which of these two explanations was the
true one; but that one or other of them was true, unless we suppose a
miracle, is as certain as any conclusion in human things can be certain
at all. The sworn testimony of eye-witnesses who had seen the letters so
composed would add nothing to the weight of a proof which without their
evidence would be overwhelming; and were the writers themselves, with
their closest friends and companions, to swear that there had been no
intercommunication, and no story pre-existing of which they had made
use, and that each had written _bona fide_ from his own original
observation, an English jury would sooner believe the whole party
perjured than persuade themselves that so extraordinary a coincidence
would have occurred.

Nor would it be difficult to ascertain from internal evidence which of
the two possible interpretations was the real one. If the writers were
men of evident good faith; if their stories were in parts widely
different; if they made no allusion to each other, nor ever referred to
one another as authorities; finally, if neither of them, in giving a
different account of any matter from that given by his companions,
professed either to be supplying an omission or correcting a mistake,
then we should have little doubt that they had themselves not
communicated with each other, but were supplementing, each of them from
other sources of information, a central narrative which all alike had
before them.

How far may we apply the parallel to the Synoptical Gospels? In on