The Ending of Mark

QUESTION: Did Mark write 16:9-20, the last fourteen verses of his Gospel?

ANSWER: No, they are not found in the two oldest manuscripts, and the 8th verse ends in Greek with gar 'for,' an ending as absurd as "and" in English. It seems that the original ending was torn off and some one has supplied an ending containing twenty-one words and expressions — some  of  them repeated — which are never elsewhere used by Mark. Its omission is a great relief to our missionaries in India, who are often challenged to prove their doctrine true by handling cobras and rattlesnakes and drinking deadly poisons. The different ending referred to in the R V. margin is this: "They concisely announced to Peter and his company all things that were commanded." After these things Jesus himself also through them sent forth, from the rising of the sun to its going down, the sacred and incorruptible proclamation of the eternal salvation."

— Steele's Answers p. 244.