onduct themselves in the
business of their workshops, as well as in the devotions of the church,
and explanations of some misunderstood parts of a former letter sent by
the hand of a mutual friend--he formally gives them his signature, for
the purpose of future reference, and comparison of any document which
might purport to come from him, with that specimen of his autograph. He
gives not the name merely, but his apostolic benediction also, in his
own handwriting: _The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand, which is
the token in every epistle: so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with you all. Amen._ It shows the heart of an apostle of
Christ; but what concerns the present question is the remark, which
every business man will in a moment appreciate, how immensely the
addition of these two lines adds to the security against forgery. It is
a very hard thing to forge a signature, but give a business man two
lines of any man's writing besides that, and he is perfectly secure
against imposition.[72]

The churches to which the Epistles were written, and to which the
Gospels were delivered, consisted largely of business men, of merchants
and traders, tent makers and coppersmiths, city chamberlains, and
officers of Caesar's household, and the like. Does any one think such men
could not tell the handwriting of their minister, who had lived among
them for years; or that men who were risking their lives for the
instructions he wrote them, would care less about the genuineness of the
documents, than you do about the genuineness of a ten dollar check? I am
not as long in this city as Paul was in Ephesus, nor one fourth of the
time that John lived there, yet I defy all the advocates of the mythical
theory of Germany, and all their disciples here, to write a myth half as
long as this essay, and impose it on the elders and members of my church
as my writing. Let it only be presented in manuscript to the
congregation--there was no printing in Paul's days--and in five minutes
a dozen members of the church will detect the forgery, even if I should
hold my peace. And were I to leave on a mission to China or India, and
write letters to the church, would any of these business men, who have
seen my writing, have the least hesitation in recognizing it again? Do
you think anybody could forge a letter as from me, and impose it on
them? What an absurdity, then, to suppose that anybody could write a
gospel or epistle, and get all t