_March 22._--These two days I have been thinking from morning to night about the Incarnation; considering if I could represent it in such a way as to obviate in any degree the prejudices of the Mohammedans; not that I wished to make it appear altogether agreeable to reason, but I wanted to give a consistent account of the nature and uses of this doctrine, as they are found in the different parts of the Holy Scriptures. One thing implied another to such an extent that I thought necessarily of the nature of life, death, spirit, soul, animal nature, state of separate spirits, personality, the person of Christ, etc., that I was quite worn out with fruitless thought. Towards evening Carapiet with another Armenian came and conversed on several points of theology, such as whether the fire of hell were literally fire or only remorse, whether the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, or from the Father only, and how we are to reconcile those two texts, that 'for every idle word that men shall speak,' etc., with the promises of salvation through faith? Happening to speak in praise of some person who practised needless austerities, I tried to make him understand that this was not the way of the Gospel. He urged these texts--'Blessed are they that mourn,' 'Blessed are ye that weep now,' etc. While we were discussing this point, Mohammed Jaffir, who on a former occasion had conversed with me a good deal about the Gospel, came in. I told him the question before us was an important one, namely, how the love of sin was to be got out of the heart. The Armenian proceeded, 'If I wish to go to a dancing or drinking, I must deny myself.' Whether he meant to say that this was sufficient I do not know, but the Mohammedan understanding him so, replied that he had read yesterday in the Gospel, 'that whosoever looketh upon a woman,' etc., from which he inferred that obedience of the heart was requisite. This he expressed with such propriety and gracefulness, that, added to the circumstance of his having been reading the Gospel, I was quite delighted, and thought with pleasure of the day when the Gospel should be preached by Persians. After the Armenians were gone we considered the doctrines of the Soofis a little. Finding me not much averse to what he thought some of their most exceptionable tenets, such as union with God, he brought this argument: 'You will allow that God cannot bind, compel, command Himself.' 'No, He cannot.' 'Well, if we are one with God, we cannot be subject to any of His laws.' I replied: 'Our union with God is such an union as exists between the members of a body. Notwithstanding the union of the hand with the heart and head, it is still subject to the influence and control of the ruling power in the person.' We had a great deal of conversation afterwards on the