"Thou art Christ the Son of God;" or John ix. 35, where "Son of God" has been substituted for "Son of Man."1

But by far the largest number of additions under this head consist of single words put in to remedy halting sentences or obscure construction: "saying," "certain," "yet," "also," "unto them," "unto him," and the like. It is hardly too much to say that one can track the particular editor (as we should say) who made this class of additions almost verse by verse along the pages of the Gospels, and can trace his nervous anxiety lest any of the sacred words he loved so dearly should be misunderstood or perverted for want of his too-careful additions. The pages literally teem with his affectionate touches. In the ninth chapter of Matthew, for instance, there are ten such insertions:

2 and 5, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." 9, "As Jesus passed forth from thence." 10, "Many publicans and sinners came and sat down." 12, "When Jesus heard that, he said unto them." 14, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft ?" 24, "He said unto them, Give place." 27, "Two blind men followed him, crying." 31, "Spread abroad his fame in all that country." 32, "Brought to him a dumb man.' 35, "Teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel."

The four consecutive verses 47 to 50 of Luke viii. contain four additions of this kind, namely: "She declared unto him before all the people." "He said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort." "Saying to him, Thy daughter is dead." "He answered him, saying, Fear not."

So also in Mark i. 40, "Beseeching him and kneeling down to him, and saying." 41, "And touched him, and saith unto him, I will." ii. 5, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." 8, "He said unto them, Why reason ye?"

1 In John xix. 40, the Alexandrine MS. substitutes "God" for "Jesus." so that it is

perhaps by a mere accident that we escaped having in our English Bibles the very inconvenient expression, "Then took they the body of God, and wound it in linen clothes."

But we need not go to the 5th and 6th centuries for examples of this. The italics in our own Bibles-explanatory words added by the translators with the same pious intention as those just spoken of, and as often unnecessary— furnish instances of the very selfsame things.

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2. We now come to words added to complete a quotation, or bring a statement into harmony with a parallel passage. Instances of these are the quotation from Isaiah in Matt. xv. 8, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips;" and the statement in Mark v. 7, "cried with a loud voice and said, "What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou "Son of the most high God?" which is possibly completed from the parallel passages in Luke and Matthew.

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3. Pronouns displaced for the proper name of the person referred to are incessant as Matt. xv. 30, "Cast them down at Jesus' [his] feet;" Mark i. 41, "And Jesus [he], moved with compassion;" Luke x. 21, "In that hour Jesus [he] rejoiced;" John iii. 2, "The same came to Jesus [him] by night;" Acts xi. 25, "Then departed Barnabas [he] to Tarsus;" Luke xxii. 62, “And Peter [he] went out."

4. Additions to explain a name of place or person are also occasionally found as John ix. 2, "Go to the pool of Siloam and wash;" xii. 4, "Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him;" Luke xi. 29, "the sign of Jonas the prophet.”

5. Alterations bearing on the topography of the Holy Land are rare and not very material. The chief one is the substitution of Magdala for Magadan in Matt. xv. 39; Magdala having probably crept into the copies from a desire to connect it with "Mary the Magdalene." In Mark vii. 31 a change of some moment is made by the alteration of "departing through the coasts

of Tyre and Sidon" from "departing from the coasts of Tyre he came through Sidon," showing that the road was the same then as now.

The transition is easy from these small additions to such longer and more important ones as Matt. xxvii. 35, or Mark xv. 28, which may have arisen from the anxiety of a commentator to square the facts of the New Testament with the prophecies of the Old; or Mark ix. 44 and 46, which have probably been inserted to correspond with verse 48 and with Isaiah lxvi. 24; or Luke xvii. 36, added from Matt. xxiv. 40; or Matt. xii. 47, added from Luke viii. 20.

In all the cases of which these are types, there is some motive, more or less obvious, at the bottom of the addition. . But it is more difficult, to explain the presence of other passages, such as Matt. xvi. 2, 3, Luke xxii. 43, 44, or John v. 4, which are not found in either of the most ancient copies, and for which no authority or hint appears in other parts of the Gospels.

Still more remarkable is the next class of additions, which are in all respects truly startling. I mean those which contain some of the most characteristic and "Christian" sentiments in the whole of the New Testament. There are few who, if asked to name the incident which most clearly embodied the justice, mercy, and tenderness of Christ, and supplied us with the most precious traits of His personal manners, would not quote the story of the woman taken in adultery. And yet there can be little doubt that this story-John vii. 53 to viii. 11-did not exist in the original Gospel; in fact, did not make its appearance in any edition before the middle of the 5th century. And there are several other passages, which, though shorter, are hardly less characteristic than is this story. The beautiful narrative in Luke ix. 54-56 loses not only the reference to the act of Elijah, which has always seemed so appropriate to the locality, but it loses what seems to be the very kernel of its teaching, the whole of the words printed in italics being an interpolation in copies made after the middle of

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you, do good to them that hate you, "and pray for them which despitefully use you," which, although they lie at the very foundation of Christian morality, must henceforward be swept away.

I take the opportunity to notice a saying attributed to Christ, which though it has escaped being inserted in the received text of the Testament, and is therefore not in our English Bibles, -and rightly, since as it is not found in any of the three manuscripts which form the basis of our examination, it can hardly have been written by the Evangelist-is yet so full of wisdom and goodness, and so appropriate to some of the questions of our day, that we can as ill afford to lose it as any of those just quoted. It occurs as an interpolation in Luke vi. 4, and is as follows:-" On the "same day he saw a certain man work

'ing on the Sabbath, and he said unto "him, Man, if indeed thou knowest what "thou doest, blessed art thou; but if "thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and "a transgressor of the law."

What shall we say of such sentences

as these? They cannot surely be the invention of those who inserted them in the later MSS. There is something about them which forbids us to question their authenticity, or to ascribe them to any one but Jesus Himself. On the other hand, the fact of their omission in the oldest copies seems to show that they did not form part of the original Gospels. They must belong to the same category with those "words of the Lord Jesus" which are preserved in the Acts of the Apostles," It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts xx. 35), and with those countless " things" that might have filled the "world itself," the recollection of which, so many years after, at the close of a long life, forced St. John to speak of his own Gospel as a mere skeleton sketch of the life of his Master.

Certainly, if in many respects we have lost by the inaccurate and redundant edition of Erasmus and Stephens, in other respects we have gained; for a Testament without the story of the woman taken in adultery, and without the other gracious words just quoted, would be robbed of some of its most precious gems, even though it be the fact that those gems did not form a part of the Gospels as they left the hands of their authors.

The longest of the interpolations in the Gospels, and the only one which remains to be noticed, is the conclusion of St. Mark, in which the verses from verse 9 to the end of the chapter, though a very ancient addition, are not found in the oldest copies, and therefore cannot be accepted as from the hand of the Evangelist. But this passage is of a very different nature from those just noticed, and of secondary interest; and its loss would be of far less moment than theirs since while in one portion it is a mere résumé of the narratives of the other Gospels, in another it breathes a far less Christian spirit than that which distinguishes them.

My examination, which I now bring to a conclusion, has been done only in the roughest and most imperfect manner,

and must be taken as the work of a mere layman, anxious only to excite others to acquaintance with that which he has himself found so attractive and useful. I have confined myself to the Gospels; but the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation, though perhaps less exquisitely interesting, will be found hardly less fruitful than the Gospels. And in the Gospels I have dealt with the redundances only. The questions of the age and authority of the three copies adduced are so fully and authoritatively treated in the clear and interesting preface which Professor Tischendorf has prefixed to the volume, as to render any further remarks on these heads unnecessary.

Any one who will take this Testament of Baron Tauchnitz's, and will mark out with a pencil the passages specified in the notes as omitted in the three MSS. or in two of them, will be astonished at the alterations in the face of those familiar pages. And if at first the phrases often seem balder and the sentences less fluent and abrupter than before, he will find these deficiencies made up for by greater life and greater reality, and will have the satisfaction of knowing that he has come much closer to the original condition of a document which all must desire to possess as nearly as possible in its original form, and has caught a trifle less faintly the echoes of that divine voice, for the tones of which men were never more eagerly listening than they are now.

The only suggestion that occurs to me for the improvement of this pretty little volume is that some means should be taken of showing in the verses themselves the alterations indicated in the notes. Without this it will never produce its full effect. But when so done -as any one may try for himself with a pencil-the effect is most unexpected.

The redundances might be shown without difficulty, and the other kinds of alteration might be indicated, at least where they are of material importance. G. GROVE.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN WHICH THERE IS NO LOVE LOST.

SIR LOUIS had gone to his mother the morning after the dinner-party, as she sat with her book in the drawing-room, and had briefly informed her of his engagement to Miss Julia Maurice. Even as he spoke the words, a pang shot through his beart at the remembrance of the time, so near and yet so infinitely far away, when he had waited, counting the days, till he could tell his mother of his love for Estelle Russell, and ask that she would take her to her heart and give the tenderness and sympathy denied them by Estelle's own mother. But he put that remembrance sternly away from him. Since yesterday a new claim had arisen-strangely enough, unexpectedly enough-a claim that most men, perhaps, would have shaken off more or less rudely; but a claim that, once admitted, brought with it a very clear duty. Sir Louis, ignorant of women's ways-of their little hates, their little loves, their little trickeriesjudging them all by that embodiment of his ideal, Estelle, and remembering her maidenly, shrinking delicacy, felt only the profoundest pity for Julia in her self-abandonment.

"How terribly she must have suffered before she could speak as she did!" was his thought, as he recalled the scene in the billiard-room the night before.

This was how Mrs. Vivian had taken the news: 66 'Any one that you love will be welcome to me, my son," she said, after a pause; during which Sir Louis had twice walked the length of the drawing-room, wishing that the silence would break.

"Thank you, mother." He could not say that he loved Julia; not yet. He said, "You may be quite sure that she loves me. I am very sure of that

myself, else" and then he walked up and down again.

Mrs. Vivian bent her head over her book, and tried to read from where she had left off; a hard matter, poor woman, with the words dancing up and down the page. She could think of nothing except Julia's unsuitability and her son's rashness. He, even he, the wise man, had been led away by a pretty face. "Just as bad as King Solomon, every bit," she thought, sighing bitterly. Well, this was one of the mysterious ways of Providence, and she must bow to it; and only venture to pray that, if it were not the right thing, it might yet be averted.

"I am sorry you don't like it, dear mother," said he, stopping in his walk.

"My dear, it has taken me by surprise, and that is the truth. But as long as your happiness is secured, you know, Louis, that nothing can be wanting to mine. Now you have told me of this-this engagement, I had better say what I always intended to say as soon as I knew you were going to marry. I should like to go back to Dorking to live, and-"

"Mother!" He knelt down before her, and took her hands in his. "Mother! after all that has come and gone, to talk of leaving me! No! May I never enjoy a day in this house if it ceases to shelter you!"

"Dear, I know you mean what you say; but you will find-or your bride will find-me in the way when she comes home. And-who knows?-she may be jealous of our love for each other. Nay, it is best as I said, my son."

"I will not have it!" he exclaimed. "No wife of mine shall turn my mother out. If you don't want t make me utterly miserable, you will never allude to this again"

"I will not, she said, feeling to her

very heart's core that she had the chief place in his yet, in spite of the white and pink beauty at the Hall.

The Duchess Dowager's Christmas receptions were not enlivened by Sir Louis's presence. Mrs. Vivian had

hoped much from this visit, and her mortification was extreme when she found that Julia's entreaties had won on her son to stay over Christmas at Vivian Court instead. She took care not to hint to her Grace that he was engaged, but laid great stress on her own disappointment at not seeing Lady Florence. For there was no knowing what might happen yet. She had spied Julia looking daggers at the handsome. soldier cousin who seemed so completely at home at the Hall. She was sure there was an understanding of some sort between them, and she felt incensed at Louis's blindness, while at the same time she wished anything might happen to prevent his marrying Julia.

She had heard of young ladies changing their minds at the last moment; but she was forced to confess-when she examined the magnificent Brussels veil and dress, and the white Cashmere shawl, which, at her son's request, she had ordered as a present from herself to the bride that it was scarcely probable any woman with eyes in her head would exchange these and their accessories for the modest attire becoming the bride of a poor military man.

Meanwhile, Louis redoubled his usual kindness for her. Scarcely a day passed without his testifying in some silent way that she was not to be put aside to make way for the new-comer. He had said most plainly to Julia that his mother's home would always be at the Court. Julia had acquiesced-very sweetly and gracefully, she thought; but not so Mrs. Vivian. Had she had more spirit or more means she might possibly have made herself a home elsewhere; as it was, she only insisted on changing her rooms to a corner of the house where she need not interfere, either in her comings in or goings out, with the new mistress. There was a door of communication, in case Louis wished to

make her a visit; and thus they would be quite independent, and in no danger of giving annoyance on either side. Her son looked gloomy and doubtful when this arrangement was first discussed, and was only reassured by her insisting that she was consulting her own comfort entirely. But not all Julia's selfcontrol could keep her disapprobation from showing itself in her face when the Baronet told her of his mother's intention. Mrs. Vivian had chosen the room Julia liked best in all the housethe little breakfast-room, with the fernery for her drawing-room, and Sir Louis was going to have it fitted up anew for her.

"Your mother does not like me; she wants to keep out of my way," she exclaimed hastily.

"My dear child!" he returned, taking her hand, very gravely, "I trust you will never say that again. It would

give me the deepest pain to think that there were any feeling besides love and respect between you and my mother."

She was subdued for a moment by his gravity. He was really hurt by her speech, and showed it by his look and manner. It would not do, she felt, to repeat the experiment. She must waive a great deal till her one point was gained. Afterwards, let Mrs. Vivian look to it. She did not know which was most galling, the Baronet's absurd devotion to his mother, which he expected her to share and understand, or his demeanour towards herself-respectful, protecting; anything but lover-like.

If he had

His

only condescended to talk nonsense once in a way, it would have been bearable. But his conversation was crammed full of common sense in one shape or another; hard, dry, uninteresting facts-philological, geological, or otherwise. very poetry, if poetry it could be called, was harder of digestion than brick bats. He told her that Byron was only fit for girls and boys, and brought her little books, red and green, containing poems by a man of the present day; fragments whose very titles were beyond her understanding, not to speak of the subject-matter, on which there was not