should have known, when he asserted that the uncanonical writings were not alleged as of authority, that the heretics did appeal to gospels other than the canonical.  Marcion, for instance, maintained a Gospel varying from the recognised one, while the Ebionites contended that their Hebrew Gospel was the only true one.  Eusebius further tells us of books “adduced by the heretics under the name of the Apostles, such, viz., as compose the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthew, and others beside them, or such as contain the Acts of the Apostles, by Andrew and John, and others” ("Eccles.  Hist,” bk. iii., ch. 25.  See also ante p. 246).  It is hard to believe that Paley was so grossly ignorant as to know nothing of these facts; did he then deliberately state what he knew to be utterly untrue?  His last “mark” does not touch our position, as the commentaries, etc., are too late to be valuable as evidence for the alleged superiority of the canonical writings during the first two centuries.  The other section of Paley’s argument, that “when the Scriptures [a very vague word] are quoted, or alluded to, they are quoted with peculiar respect, as books sui generis” is met by the details given above as to the fashion in which the Fathers referred to the writings now called uncanonical, and by the evidence adduced in this section we may fairly claim to have proved that, so far as external testimony goes, there is nothing to distinguish the canonical from the apocryphal writings.

But there is another class of evidence relied upon by Christians, wherewith they seek to build up an impassable barrier between their sacred books and the dangerous uncanonical Scriptures, namely, the intrinsic difference between them, the dignity of the one, and the puerility of the other.  Of the uncanonical Gospels Dr. Ellicott writes:  “Their real demerits, their mendacities, their absurdities, their coarseness, the barbarities of their style, and the inconsequence of their narratives, have never been excused or condoned” ("Cambridge Essays,” for 1856, p. 153, as quoted in introduction of “The Apocryphal Gospels,” by B.H.  Cowper, p. x.  Ed. 1867).  “We know before we read them that they are weak, silly, and profitless—­that they are despicable monuments even of religious fiction” (Ibid, p. xlvii).  How far are such harsh expressions consonant with fact?  It is true that many of the tales related are absurd, but are they more absurd than the tales related in the canonical Gospels?  One story, repeated with variations, runs as follows:  “This child Jesus, being five years old, was playing at the crossing of a stream, and he collected the running waters into pools, and immediately made them pure, and by his word alone he commanded them.  And having made some soft clay, he fashioned out of it twelve sparrows; and it was the Sabbath when he did these things.  And there were also many other children playing with him.  And a certain Jew, seeing what Jesus did, playing on the Sabbath, went