the earth to open, which caused the death of many of the persecutors. This rupture of the earth, with the pouring down of a heavy rain from a cloud expressly prepared for the purpose, extinguished the fire, and the virgin was saved. How kind it would have been in God had he interested himself equally in the millions of innocent people who at a later date were burnt at the stake and otherwise tortured to death in the most cruel manner. Chapter VI. describes how Paul and Onesiphorus concealed themselves in a cave, where Thecla found them while engaged in prayer. She wishes to follow Paul, but he advised not, for fear of fornication. Chapter VII. narrates the journey of Paul and Thecla to Antioch. Alexander, a magistrate, falls in love with Thecla; he kisses her by force; she resists him; is carried before the governor, and is condemned to be thrown to wild beasts. Chapter VIII: Thecla is entertained by Trifina. When thrown to the wild. beasts a she-lion licked her feet. In obedience to a vision Trifina adopts Thecla, but she is again taken to the amphitheater. Chapter IX. describes how Thecla was thrown naked to the wild beasts, but they all refuse to attack her. She threw herself into a pit of water where were sea-calves, but they were struck by lightning and killed. Fresh wild beasts were turned loose upon her, but they refused to touch her. She was next fastened by cords to a wild and furious bull, which was rendered more furious by burning him with hot irons. The cords, however, were burned asunder, and Thecla became free. The governor, perceiving she was protected and saved by the power of God, set her at liberty. Chapter X. relates how Thecla visited Paul and her mother, who repulsed her. A bright cloud conducted her to a mountainous wilderness, where she abode many years and was sorely tempted by the devil. Here people flocked to her, and she taught them about Jesus, and performed many miraculous cures. No sooner did they approach the mouth of the cave she occupied than they were instantly cured. Devils were also cast out in the same way. In consequence of the many cures she per formed, the physicians in that locality had nothing to do and therefore wished to destroy the virgin. The final chapter, XL, relates how the devil influenced bad men to go to the cave of the virgin with the purpose of ravishing her, but she escaped in a most miraculous manner by the rock of the cave opening, taking her in, and then closing again, thus shielding her completely from her enemies. Her life was prolonged till she was ninety years of age, when God translated her. This extremely improbable story has nothing to sustain it, but just as much as have the equally improbable stories which make up the Old and New Testament canons. All are probably alike pious inventions written to increase the faith and religious reverence of credulous devotees. CANONS OF CRITICISM. The rules applied by Dr Lardner in judging of the com. parative claims of canonical and uncanonical gospels are stated as follows: 1. Canonical and apocryphal gospels are competitive, i, e., they are reciprocally destructive of each other's pretensions." 2. If the canonical gospels are authentic, the apocryphal gospels are forgeries. 3. If the apocryphal gospels are authentic, the canonical gospels are forgeries. 4. No consideration of the comparative merits or characters of the competitive works can have place in the consideration of their claims to authenticity. 5. Those writings, whichever they be, or whether they be the better or the worse, which can be shown to have been written first have the superior claim to authenticity. 6. It is impossible that those writings which were the first could have been written to disparage or supersede those which were written after. 7. Those writings which have the less appearance of art and contrivance are the first. 8. Those writings which exhibit a more rhetorical construction of language in the detail of the same events, with expli cations, suppressions, and variations, whose evident scope is to render the story more probable, are the later writings. 9. Those writings whose existence is acknowledged by the others, but which themselves acknowledge not those others, are unquestionably the first. 10. There could be no conceivable object or purpose in putting forth writings which were much worse after the world were in possession of such as were much better. 11. If the story were not true in the first way of telling it, no improvement in the way of telling it could render it true 12. If those who were only improvers upon the original history have concealed that fact, and have suffered mankind to understand that the improvements were the originals, they are guilty and wicked forgers, and never could have had any other or better intentions than to mislead and deceive mankind. DATA OF CRITICISM To be applied in judging the comparative claims of the apocryphal and canonical gospels: 1. It is manifest and admitted on all hands that the apocry phal gospels are very silly and artless compositions, "full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders" (Mosheim). 2. It is manifest and admitted on all hands that the canonical gospels exhibit a more rhetorical construction of language than the apocryphal, and have a highly-wrought sublimity and grandeur, the like of which is nowhere to be found in any of the apocryphal gospels. [This, probably, is not so apparent to an unprejudiced observer.] 3. The canonical gospels, but more especially the canonical epistles, which are admitted to have been written before the gospels, do in very many places acknowledge the existence and prevalence of those writings which are now called apocry phal. 4. The apocryphal gospels, so far as we have any traces of them left, do nowhere recognize or acknowledge the writings which we now call canonical. 5. The apocryphal gospels are quoted by the very earliest Fathers, orthodox as well as heretical, as reverentially as those which are now called canonical. 6. The apocryphal gospels are admitted in the New Testa ment itself to have been universally received, and to have been the guide and rule of faith to the whole Christian world before any one of our present canonical gospels was in exist ence. COROLLARIES.-1. Indications of time, discovered in those gospels which were written first, will indicate time relatively to those which were written afterward-exempli gratiâ. It being proved that the legend A was written before the legend C, there will be proof that events which were contemporary or antecedent to the writing of A, were antecedent, a fortiori, to the writing of C. 2. Indications of a prevalence of a state of things existing when the earlier gospels were written will indicate relatively the state of things when the later gospels were writtenexempli gratia. It being proved that the earlier gospels were written under the universal prevalence of notions and doctrines of monkery, there will be proof of the monkish character necessarily derived to the gospels, derived from those gospels. In connection with all this the reader is requested to bear in mind that, as abundantly proved by Prof. Newman in "Supernatural Religion," and by R. W. Greg in the "Creed of Christendom," neither of the four gospels in the New Testament canon were known to have an existence till the year 170, or one hundred years after the time Jesus was said to have left the world, while some of the so-called apocryphal gospels were in use in the churches before that time. In connection, also, with this subject, it is well to call to mind the admissions made by some of the early Christians of distinction. Bishop Faustus, in the fourth century, was a learned man, and stood high, authoritatively, in the sect of Manicheans, to which he belonged. In a doctrinal controvery with Augustine he boldly pressed upon the saint this challenge: "It is certain that the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them by some unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with, affixed to their works the names of apostles, or of such as were supposed to have been their companions, asserting that what they had written themselves was written according to those persons to whom they ascribed it." This eminent Christian in the foregoing remarks gave utterance to an importaut, though damaging, truth, and which Important applies with equal force to each of the four gospels in the New Testament canon. They were compiled from fragment. ary legends by persons wholly unknown to the world; and to give them character, and to insure their recognition and acceptance by the credulous, the name of a distinguished, apostle or some companion of an apostle was given them. This is the great truth about the four gospels. Examine the evidence as much as we will, no other conclusion can be honestly arrived at. FACTS WORTH REMEMBERING. 1. When Bishop Faustus wrote those words no canon of the New Testament gospels and epistles had yet been agreed upon. Over two hundred gospels and epistles stood on about an equal footing. 2. "No manuscript of these writings [the canonical gospels] now in existence is prior to the sixth century; and various readings which, as it appears from the quotations of the Fathers, were in the text of the Greek Testament are to be found in none of the manuscripts which are at present remaining" (Michaelis, vol. ii., p. 160). 3. Many passages which are now found in these scriptures were not contained in any ancient copies whatever. 4. "In our common editions of the Greek Testament are many readings which exist not in a single manuscript, but are founded on mere conjecture" (Marsh's Michaelis, vol. ii, p. 496.) 5. "It is notorious that the orthodox charge the heretics with corrupting the text, and that the heretics recriminate upon the orthodox." [Both were correct.] (Unitarian New Version.) 6. "It is an undoubted fact that heretics were in the right in many points of criticism, when the Fathers accused them of wilful corruption " (Bp. Marsh, vol. ii, p. 362). 7. "It is notorious that forged writings under the names of the apostles were in circulation almost from the apostolic age." (See 2 Thess. ii, 2, quoted in Unitarian New Version.) 8. "Not long after Christ's ascension into heaven, several histories of his life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and |