The Athanasian creed brought to my recollection a circumstance that had occurred a few years before, the importance of which had never been known to me until I was brought acquainted with the saving truths of the gospel. I now looked back upon it with trembling joy and gratitude to him who had preserved me from a snare into which the pride of intellect, joined to spiritual ignorance, would have been sure to lead me, but for the watchful care of my heavenly Father, still working by means of my blind but sincere reverence for his word. In my native town, Socinianism flourished to a fearful extent; it has long been a very hotbed of that fatal heresy, the holders of which are found among many leading characters of wealth, influence, and high attainments. I knew no more of it than that it was one of the many forms of dissent with which I had nothing to do. I was acquainted with several of its disciples; but as religion formed no part of our social intercourse, its peculiarities were wholly unknown to me. Not long before my trip to America I had been staying in Norwich, in the same house with a most clever, intelligent, and amiable woman, of whom I was very fond. I knew her to be a dissenter, and that was all. One evening she drew me into a conversation, the commencement of which I forget, but it soon arrived at a denial, on her part, of the Godhead of Christ, which exceedingly astonished me, for I never supposed that could be called in question. I ran for the Bible, saying, I would soon show her it was not to be disputed; and she in return asserted that I could not prove it out of the _inspired scriptures_. After pondering for a while, I recollected the first chapter of Revelation, which, for its sublimity, I ranked among the highest of my poetical gems, and that it unequivocally proclaimed the divinity of our glorious Lord. I opened at it, on which she burst into a laugh, saying, "You are not so weak as to fancy that book of riddles any part of God's word!" "Why it is in the Bible, you see," replied I, half indignantly. "And who put it there? Come, you are a person of too much sense to believe that the binding up of certain leaves between the two covers of the Bible makes them a part of it. You must exercise the reason that God has given you, and in so doing you will discover so many interpolations and deceptions in that version of yours, that you will be glad to find a more accurate one."