lve verses of the Gospel has enjoyed a certain amount of
popularity? At the two different periods, (I answer,) for widely different
reasons.

(1.) In the ancient days, when it was the universal belief of Christendom
that the Word of GOD must needs be consistent with itself in every part,
and prove in every part (like its Divine Author) perfectly "faithful and
true," the difficulty (which was deemed all but insuperable) of bringing
certain statements in S. Mark's last Twelve Verses into harmony with
certain statements of the other Evangelists, is discovered to have
troubled Divines exceedingly. "In fact," (says Mr. Scrivener,) "it brought
suspicion upon these verses, and caused their omission in some copies seen
by Eusebius." That the maiming process is indeed attributable to this
cause and came about in this particular way, I am unable to persuade
myself; but, if the desire to provide an escape from a serious critical
difficulty did not actually _occasion_ that copies of S. Mark's Gospel
were mutilated, it certainly was the reason why, in very early times, such
mutilated copies were viewed without displeasure by some, and appealed to
with complacency by others.

(2.) But times are changed. We have recently been assured on high
authority that the Church has reversed her ancient convictions in this
respect: that _now_, "most sound theologians have no dread whatever of
acknowledging minute points of disagreement" (i.e. minute _errors_) "in
the fourfold narrative even of the life of the Redeemer."(1) There has
arisen in these last days a singular impatience of Dogmatic Truth,
(especially Dogma of an unpalatable kind,) which has even rendered popular
the pretext afforded by these same mutilated copies for the grave
resuscitation of doubts, never as it would seem seriously entertained by
any of the ancients; and which, at all events for 1300 years and upwards,
have deservedly sunk into oblivion.

Whilst I write, _that_ "most divine explication of the chiefest articles
of our Christian belief," the Athanasian Creed,(2) is made the object of
incessant assaults.(3) But then it is remembered that statements quite as
"uncharitable" as any which this Creed contains are found in the 16th
verse of S. Mark's concluding chapter; are in fact the words of Him whose
very Name is Love. The precious _warning clause_, I say, (miscalled
"damnatory,"(4)) which an impertinent officiousness is for glossing with a
rubric and weakening with an a