It was the recollection of my short encounter with the Socinian that satisfied me respecting the Athanasian creed. I felt that had I taken up its bold assertions and established every one of them, as now I did, by scripture, no sophistry could have staggered my faith, though it had been but a reasoning, not a saving faith, in that high doctrine of the coexistent, coequal Trinity. I did not then know--for of all church history I was ignorant--that its original object was not so much to establish a truth, as to detect and defeat a falsehood. The damnatory clauses, as they are called, did not startle me. I saw clearly the fact that God had made a revelation of himself to man, which revelation man was not at liberty to receive or to reject, and as without faith it is impossible to please God, and that alone is faith which implicitly believes the record that he hath given of his Son, the deductions in question were perfectly fair and orthodox. I frequently wondered, when subsequently brought into the arena of various controversies, at the ease with which, aided by the Bible alone, I settled so many disputed points; and as it really was by the Bible I settled them, man's teaching has never yet on any subject altered my views. * * * Whether it be regarded as presumptuous or not, I must thankfully avow that during the weeks when I was left alone with my Bible, I obtained a view of the whole scheme of redemption and God's dealings with man, which to this hour I have never found reason to alter in any one respect, save as greater light has continually broken in on each branch of the subject, strengthening, not changing those views. You will see in the progress of my sketch, how complete a bulwark against error in numberless shapes I have found in this simple adherence to the plain word of truth--this habit of bringing every proposition "to the law and to the testimony;" fully persuaded that "if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." I now proceed to an interesting epoch in my life: the commencement of my literary labors in the Lord's cause. It marks very strongly the overruling hand of Him who was working all things after the counsel of his own will; and I will give it you without curtailment, together with my introduction, through it to the Christian community of the land.