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"Wait, Robin," said she, and deftly began plucking away the sprigs of heather from his hat; "wait, me son, till I fix the band on that ould hat o' yours—sure it's all crooked, an' up an' down. There, now it's better; an' may God forgive me this day!"

"Forgive ye for what, child?" asked Robin.

"Aw, for me sins," cried Lizzie; "an' may God be good to you. But aisy, now, till I fix ye up a bit. Aisy now," said she, and knotted his scarf; then buttoned his waistcoat; then stooped and laced up his boots; last of all took the old man by the hand. "An', now, come away wi' me," said she, "till I help ye catch the ass, an' get the scraws for the fire. Come away."

"I will," said Robin. "Good-by, Anne, ye girl, ye—an' James—an' all. God keep ye."

"Aw, good-by, Robin," said Anne Daly, and spoke for the rest. "Good-by, me son, an' may the angels keep ye and comfort ye."

So, hand in hand, Robin and Lizzie started; and just as they set foot on the heather, Lizzie turned her head and flashed a look at James Daly as he sat staring hard into the fire.

"An' now, James Daly," cried she; "now what have ye got to say for yourself?"

THE OLDEST RECORD OF CHRIST'S LIFE.

THE FIRST COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF THE RECENT FINDING OF THE "SAYINGS OF OUR LORD."

By Bernard P. Grenfell, M.A.,

One of the two discoverers of the manuscript.

WITH INTRODUCTION BY F. G. KENYON, M.A.

IN the following article Mr. Grenfell describes the discovery of one of the most interesting documents that has come to light of recent years. It is not much to look at: a single small page, measuring less than six inches by four, of the ancient writing material known as papyrus, containing on each side some twenty lines of Greek writing; a rubbed, tattered, mutilated waif from a rubbish heap in one of the many lost and buried cities of Egypt. Yet what is it? The earliest, and far the earliest, record of the words spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ upon earth; the oldest document, by more than a century, in which the name of Jesus is written.

Hitherto the oldest documents containing the record of our Lord's life have been the famous Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts of the New Testament, the former being at Rome, the latter at St. Petersburg. These are believed to have been written in the fourth century—say, somewhere about a.d. 350. The Alexandrian manuscript, in the British Museum, is perhaps seventy-five years later than these. But this scrap of papyrus, dug up last winter in Egypt by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund, is declared by experts to have been written at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century—say, somewhere about a.d. 200. Thus a space of 150 years is wiped away by this discovery. Hitherto an interval of 300 years separated the life of Christ from the earliest extant copy of any record of it; now that interval is reduced by one-half, and any day the spade of the explorer may cut off another fifty or a hundred years from the interval that still remains.

Seventeen hundred years ago some humble Egyptian Christian was carrying about a little pocket volume in which were inscribed some of the words spoken by Christ upon earth. It was not a handsome volume, such as would have suited the library of

Editor's Note.—Mr. Bernard P. Grenfell and his associate in the discovery of the "Sayings of Our Lord," Mr. Arthur S. Hunt, Fellows of Oxford University, England, were particularly well equipped, in point of scholarship, for the exploration they undertook and for interpreting the important discovery which it fell to them to make. They have just published the manuscript in facsimile, and a translation of it, with a commentary, in a small pamphlet, through Henry Frowde, London and New York. It is by the kind permission of Mr. Frowde that we reproduce a page of the manuscript in facsimile here.