Lord Hales and the New Testament.
"I was dining," said Dr. Buchanan, "some time ago, with a literary party at old Mr. Abercrombie's, of Tillibody, (the father of Mr. Ralph Abercrombie who was slain in Egypt,) and we spent the evening together. A gentleman present put a question which puzzled the whole company. It was this: Suppose all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of three centuries? The question was novel to all, and no one even hazarded a guess in answer to the inquiry. About two months after this morning, I received an invitation to breakfast with Lord Hales (Sir David Dalrymple) next morning. He had been one of the party. During breakfast, he asked me if I recollected the curious question about the possibility of recovering the contents of the New Testament from the writings of the first three centuries. 'I remember it well, and have thought of it often, without being able to form an opinion on the subject.' 'Well,' said Lord Hales, 'that question quite accorded with the taste of my antiquarian mind. On returning home, as I knew I had all the writers of those centuries, I began immediately to collect them, that I might set at work on the arduous task as soon as possible.' Pointing to a table covered with papers, he said, 'There I have been busy these two months, searching for chapters, half chapters, and sentences of the New Testament, and have marked down what I found and where I found it so that any person may examine and see for himself. I have actually discovered the whole New Testament, except seven or eleven verses, (I forgot which) which satisfies me that I could discover them also. God concealed or hid the treasures of his Word, where Julian, the apostate emperor, and the other enemies of Christ, who wished to extirpate the gospel from the world, never would have thought of, and though they had they never could have effected their destruction!'—Haldane's Memoir.