ience on the other, and:--

(_b_) The nature of the difficulties involved in the study of the latter.

It is easy to become a Theosophist. Any person of average intellectual
capacities, and a leaning toward the metaphysical; of pure, unselfish
life, who finds more joy in helping his neighbor than in receiving help
himself; one who is ever ready to sacrifice his own pleasures for the
sake of other people; and who loves Truth, Goodness, and Wisdom for
their own sake, not for the benefit they may confer--is a Theosophist.

But it is quite another matter to put oneself upon the path which leads
to the knowledge of what is good to do, as to the right discrimination
of good from evil; a path which also leads a man to that power through
which he can do the good he desires, often without even apparently
lifting a finger.

Moreover, there is one important fact with which the student should be
made acquainted. Namely, the enormous, almost limitless responsibility
assumed by the teacher for the sake of the pupil. From the Gurus of the
East who teach openly or secretly, down to the few Kabalists in Western
lands who undertake to teach the rudiments of the Sacred Science to
their disciples--those western Hierophants being often themselves
ignorant of the danger they incur--one and all of these "Teachers" are
subject to the same inviolable law. From the moment they begin _really_
to teach, from the instant they confer _any_ power--whether psychic,
mental, or physical--on their pupils, they take upon themselves _all_
the sins of that pupil, in connexion with the Occult Sciences, whether
of omission or commission, until the moment when initiation makes the
pupil a Master and responsible in his turn. There is a weird and mystic
religious law, greatly reverenced and acted upon in the Greek,
half-forgotten in the Roman Catholic, and absolutely extinct in the
Protestant Church. It dates from the earliest days of Christianity and
has its basis in the law just stated, of which it was a symbol and an
expression. This is the dogma of the absolute sacredness of the relation
between the god-parents who stand sponsors for a child.[A]

These tacitly take upon themselves all the sins of the newly baptized
child--(anointed, as at the initiation, a mystery truly!)--until the day
when the child becomes a responsible unit, knowing good and evil. Thus
it is clear why the "Teachers" are so reticent, and why "Chelas" are
required to serve a seven year