all
the affection and all the equality which I would have wished myself
to maintain, had the case been inverted. I was, however, sometimes
uneasy, when the thought crossed my mind,--"What if we, like Henry
Martyn, were charged with Polytheism by Mohammedans, and were forced
to defend ourselves by explaining in detail our doctrine of the
Trinity? _Perhaps_ no two of us would explain it alike, and this would
expose Christian doctrine to contempt." Then farther it came
across me; How very remarkable it is, that the Jews, those strict
Monotheists, never seem to have attacked the apostles for polytheism!
It would have been so plausible an imputation, one that the instinct
of party would so readily suggest, if there had been any external
form of doctrine to countenance it. Surely it is transparent that the
Apostles did not teach as Dr. Waterland. I had always felt a great
repugnance to the argumentations concerning the _Personality_ of the
Holy Spirit; no doubt from an inward sense, however dimly confessed,
that they were all words without meaning. For the disputant who
maintains this dogma, tells us in the very next breath that _Person_
has not in this connexion its common signification; so that he is
elaborately enforcing upon us we know not what. That the Spirit of God
meant in the New Testament _God in the heart_, had long been to me a
sufficient explanation: and who by logic or metaphysics will carry us
beyond this?

While we were at Aleppo, I one day got into religious discourse with
a Mohammedan carpenter, which left on me a lasting impression. Among
other matters, I was peculiarly desirous of disabusing him of the
current notion of his people, that our gospels are spurious narratives
of late date. I found great difficulty of expression; but the man
listened to me with much attention, and I was encouraged to exert
myself. He waited patiently till I had done, and then spoke to the
following effect: "I will tell you, sir, how the case stands. God has
given to you English a great many good gifts. You make fine ships, and
sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons; and you have rich nobles
and brave soldiers; and you write and print many learned books:
(dictionaries and grammars:) all this is of God. But there is one
thing that God has withheld from you, and has revealed to us; and that
is, the knowledge of the true religion, by which one may be
saved." When he thus ignored my argument, (which was probably quite
unintel