The examination of references, or supposed references, in these books to
the first three Gospels fills above 500 pages, and the remainder (about
220) is occupied with an examination of the claims of the fourth Gospel
to be considered as canonical.

The writer conducts this examination with an avowed dogmatical bias; and
this, as the reader will soon see, influences the manner of his
examination throughout the whole book. For instance, he never fails to
give to the anti-Christian side the benefit of every doubt, or even
suspicion. This leads him to make the most of the smallest discrepancy
between the words of any supposed quotation in any early writer from one
of our Canonical Gospels, and the words as contained in our present
Gospels. If the writer quotes the Evangelist freely, with some
differences, however slight, in the words, he is assumed to quote from a
lost Apocryphal Gospel. If the writer gives the words as we find them in
our Gospels, he attempts to show that the father or heretic need not
have even seen our present Gospels; for, inasmuch as our present Gospels
have many things in common which are derived from an earlier source, the
quoter may have derived the words he quotes from the earlier source. If
the quoter actually mentions the name of the Evangelist whose Gospel he
refers to (say St. Mark), it is roundly asserted that his St. Mark is
not the same as ours. [Endnote 3:1]

The reader may ask, "How is it possible, against such a mode of
argument, to prove the genuineness or authenticity of any book, sacred
or profane?" And, of course, it is not. Such a way of conducting a
controversy seems absurd, but on the author's premises it is a
necessity. He asserts the dogma that the Governor of the world cannot
interfere by way of miracle. He has to meet the fact that the foremost
religion of the world appeals to miracles, especially the miracle of the