The existence of this same tradition in China is conveyed to us through another channel. “It was the leading feature in _Lao-Kiun’s_ system of philosophical theology, and a sentence which he continually repeated as the foundation of all true wisdom, that TAO, the eternal reason, produced ONE; _one_ produced TWO; _two_ produced THREE; and THREE produced all things.” _Le Compt’s Memoirs of China_. Traditions of this doctrine are found also in Chaldea and Persia indeed throughout the East; from whence all agree they were imported, through Phœnicia, into Egypt, and thence into Greece. The great and original sources of information being in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, where the _first post-diluvian_ families resided; and the mighty intellects which were to influence the world, by the materials which were drawn from thence, being in Greece, the consequence was, we find the Grecian philosophers travelling _up_ the streams of knowledge to the fountains, and thence returning to enlighten the world by the results of their researches. For example: Pythagoras, Plato, and others visited Egypt first, thence to Phœnicia, and thence to Chaldea, and the East, from whence they undoubtedly drew their theology. (Nor should it be forgotten that _their_ philosophy was _theological_.) The concurrent testimony of history establishes this fact. The consequence of all this is, the doctrine of the Trinity was known to the Greek philosophers, who preserved it to the world in their incomparable writings, a collateral testimony of the authenticity of the Scripture doctrine. For this opinion we have the highest authority in the republic of letters. “It is said that the first Christians borrowed their notion of a Triune God from the later Platonists; and that we hear not of a Trinity in the church till converts were made from the school of Alexandria. But if this be the case we may properly ask, _Whence had those Platonists the doctrine?_