"What are those difficulties?" replied the doctor. "If the subject is important, why delay its explanation? You have time; reason upon it; reflect. You have the means of disposing of the difficulty at your command." "True," answered Byron, "but I am the slave of circumstances, and the sphere in which I live is not likely to make me consider the subject." As the doctor became more urgent, Byron said---- "How will you have me begin?" "Begin this very night to pray God that he may forgive you your sins, and may grant you grace to know the truth. If you pray, and read your Bible with purity of intention, the result must be that which we so ardently wish for." "Well, yes," replied Byron, "I will certainly study these matters with attention." "But your lordship must bear in mind, that you should not be discouraged, even were your doubts and difficulties to increase; for nothing can be understood without sufficient time and pains. You must weigh conscientiously each argument, and continue to pray to God, in whom at least you believe, to give you the necessary understanding." "Why then," asked Byron, "increase the difficulties, when they are already so great?" The doctor then took the mystery of the Trinity as an example, and spoke of it as a man who has faith and accepts the mystery as a revealed dogma. "It is not the province of man," said he, "to comprehend or analyze the nature of an existence which is entirely spiritual, such as that of the Divinity; but we must accept it, and believe in it, because it has been revealed to us, being fully convinced that man in his present state will never be able to fathom such mysteries." He not only blamed those who wish to explain all things, but likewise the presumption of certain theologians in mixing up their own arguments with the revelations of Scripture in order to prove the unity in the Trinity, and who speculate upon the attributes of the Deity to ascertain the relative mode of existence of each of the three persons who compose the Trinity. "They must fall," he added, "or lead others to a similar end." Hence he concluded that mysteries should be believed in implicitly, as children believe fully what their parents tell them. "I therefore advise your lordship," said he, "to put aside all difficult subjects,--such as the origin of sin, the fall of man, the nature of the Trinity, the mystery of predestination, etc.,--and to study Christianity not in books of theology, which, even the best, are all more or less imperfect, but in the careful examination of the Scriptures. By comparing each part of it, you will at last find a harmony so great in all its constituent parts, and so much wisdom in its entire whole, that you will no longer be able to doubt its divine origin, and hence that it contains the only means of salvation." To so firm and enviable a faith, Byron replied as follows:--