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recover the original narrative in despair. There is nothing 
of the kind in our present copies of the New Testament. 
In the two cases which have been advanced — I may safely 
neglect the third — there are extremely probable, if not 
absolutely certain, reasons to be given for the omission 
of the passages referred to. Again, there is the argument 
from undesigned coincidences, so ably handled by Paley and 
Blunt, which makes it absolutely certain that we have the 
Gospels and Acts as they were originally written. 
19. And there is another consideration of no slight import- 
ance which has been overlooked. There is a natural and abso- 
lutely insatiable curiosity for accurate details concerning men 
who have made a figure in the world’s history. Putting aside 
the question of Revelation for a moment, it will hardly be denied 
that one of the most remarkable characters in history is Jesus 
Christ. Is it credible, that with the biographies and authentic 
accounts, published by their disciples, or, at least, compiled soon 
after their death, which have come down to us of Socrates, of 
Mohammed, of Dominic, of Francis of Assisi, of Luther, of 
Calvin, of John Wesley, of Edward Ixwing, that the thirst 
of Christians for biographies of their Master would have 
allowed them to wait nearly a whole century, and would 
then have been slaked by a clumsy rifacciamento of old 
stories and new legends, a working up of authentic histories 
which were unaccountably allowed to perish, with later and 
invented details which, to the certain knowledge of most of 
the older disciples of Christ, were untrue ? Yerily, this is a 
remarkable deviation from the ordinary conduct of mankind ! 
and a singular foundation for the success of a religion, one of 
whose chief boasts it was, that it proclaimed the truth, nay that 
He Whom it proclaimed was Himself the Truth ! 
20. I have but one remark to add concerning the genuineness 
of the Gospel history. If we compare the evidence for the 
authenticity of the Gospels with that for any other books, it is 
simply overwhelming. Schlegel is content to base his belief 
in the genuineness of one of Sophocles’ plays on the fact, 
that it is quoted as his, nearly four centuries later, by 
Cicero. * Compare this slender evidence with the immense 
mass of testimony collected within two centuries in favour of 
the Gospels, and ask whether, on such principles, it were not 
utterly useless to attempt to write history at all, and whether 
it is not the determination to overthrow the strong array of 
witnesses in favour of Christian truth, and Christian dogma, 
* Lectures on Dramatic Literature, Bohn’s Translation, p. 109. 
TT 2 
