traditional saying 'I care not' (ولا أُبَالِي‬),¹ ascribed to the Creator, shows. Christianity can never sink into the abyss of despair thus opened before men's feet; for the Gospel, which reveals the mystery of the Trinity in Unity, declares God's love in these divine words from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself:—

'God ² so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.'

SECTION III

IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY IN UNITY, IN CONNEXION WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND WITH OBTAINING SALVATION

Having read and considered what we have so far written in this tractate concerning the meaning and proof of the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, perhaps our honoured reader wilt now say in his heart, 'Is it necessary for me to acknowledge and accept this mysterious dogma? What harm will it be if I define and think of the Most Holy, the Almighty God, in one way rather than in another? Is it not enough that I admit His existence, and worship

Him in accordance with my own reason and understanding?'

My brother, do you really think it is all the same thing whether you conceive of God Most High as He has revealed Himself in His own holy word, or only in accordance with your own thoughts and fancies? Assuredly, the man who thinks of God only in that way in which he has pictured Him to himself, according to his fancy, depicting God's nature and attributes just as he pleases in the studio of his own imagination—this man has not known the true God, but on the contrary has mistaken for Him the creature of his own fancy. And since such a man worships the picture which he has painted of God in his imagination, is he not convicted of inward idolatry? Has he not gone astray from the worship of the One True God? Among the Muslims of Egypt at the present day there is current the saying,

Whatever ¹ hath occurred to thy mind
It is thine own condition,
And God is the reverse of that.

This means that it is impossible for a man to form any correct idea about God, and that the image which he forms of God in his own mind is but a reflexion of himself, and, as such is quite different from God. If there is any truth in this saying