"Very well,--I do not dispute it. There still remain one or two
difficulties on which I should like to have your judgment towards
forming an opinion: and they are on the very threshold of the subject.
And, first, I suppose you do not mean to restrict your term of a
'book-revelation' to that only which is literally consigned to a
book in our modern sense. You mean an external revelation?"

"Certainly."

"If, for example, you could recover a genuine manuscript of Isaiah
or Paul, you would not think it entitled to any more respect, as
authority, than a modern translation in a printed book,--though it
might be free from some errors?"

"I should not."

"You would not allow that parchment, however ancient, has any
advantage in this respect over paper, however modern?"

"Certainly not."

"Nor Hebrew or Greek over English or German?

"No."

"All such matters are in very deed but 'leather and prunella'?"

"Nothing more."