But in no case, of any crime whatever, may a bill of information be received without being signed by him who presents it, for that would be a dangerous precedent, and unworthy of my government." I must request my reader now to procure a New Testament, and read, at one reading, the First General Epistle of Peter, the First General Epistle of John, and the Seven Epistles to the Churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea--only about as much matter as four pages of _Harper's Magazine_, or half a page of the _Commercial_--that he may be able to do the same justice to the apostles as to the governor.

He will thus be able to see the force of the various allusions to the numbers, doctrines, morals, persecutions, and perseverance of the Christians, contained in those letters; the object which I have in view being, to establish their authenticity by proving the truthfulness of their allusions to these things.

If you think this too much trouble, please lay down the book, and dismiss the consideration of religion from your thoughts.

If the letters of the apostles are not worth a careful reading, it is of no consequence whether they are true or false.
1.

These letters take for granted, that the fact of the existence of large numbers of Christians, organized into churches, and meeting regularly for religious worship, at the close of the first century, is a matter of public notoriety to the world.