angry and says, “Thou also shalt wither like a tree;” and “suddenly the boy withered altogether” (Ap.  Gos., p. 131).  This seems in thorough unity with the spirit Jesus showed in later life, when he cursed the fig-tree, because it did not bear fruit in the wrong season, and “presently the fig-tree withered away” (Matt. xxi. 19).  Or a child, running against him purposely, falls dead; or a master lifting his hand against him, has the arm withered which essays to strike.  Later, of Judas, who betrays him, we read that, “falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts i. 18); while, in the Old Testament, which speaks of Christ, we are told, in figures, we learn that, when Jeroboam tried to seize a prophet, “his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him” (1 Kings xiii. 4).  If destructiveness be thought injurious when related of Jesus, what shall we say to the wanton destruction of the herd of swine which Jesus filled with devils, and sent racing into the sea? (Matt. viii. 28-34.) The miracle the child works to rectify a mistake of his father’s in his carpenter’s business, taking hold of some wood which has been cut too short and lengthening it, is certainly not more silly than the miracle worked by the man when money is short, and he (Matt. xvii. 24-27) sends Peter to catch a fish with money in its mouth (why not, by the way, have fished directly for the coin? it would be quite as possible for a coin to transfix itself on a hook, as for a fish, with a piece of money in its mouth, to swallow a hook).  Other miracles recorded in the apocryphal gospels, of healing and of raising the dead, are identical in spirit with those told of him in the canonical.  We may also remark that, unless there were some received traditions of miracles worked by Jesus in his household, there is no reason for the evident expectation of some help which is said to have been shown by Mary when the guests want wine at the wedding (John ii. 3-5).  That verse 11 states that this was his first miracle is only one of the many inconsistencies of the gospel stories.  Passing from these gospels of the infancy to those which tell of the sufferings of Jesus, we shall find in the “Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acts of Pilate,” much that shows their full accordance with the received writings of the New Testament.  This point is so important, as equalising the canonical and uncanonical gospels, that no excuse is needed for proving it by somewhat extensive extracts.  The gospel opens as follows:  “I, Ananias, a provincial warden, being a disciple of the law, from the divine Scriptures recognised our Lord Jesus Christ, and came to him by faith; and was also accounted worthy of holy baptism.  Now, when searching the records of what was wrought in the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Jews laid up under Pontius Pilate, I found that these Acts were written in Hebrew, and by the good pleasure of God I translated them into