, with
incredible blindness, also accepted it; and, sad to relate, his reason
did not feel called upon to furnish an explanation which would justify
Providence, as was the case with Saint Augustine. He rejected
"translation," and discovered nothing with which to veil the
blasphemy.

On this point the following is a faithful _resume_ of his letter to
Pope Innocent XII.:

The damnation of children who have died without being
baptised must be firmly believed by the Church. They are
guilty because they are born under the wrath of God and in
the power of Darkness. Children of wrath by nature, objects
of hatred and aversion, hurled into Hell with the rest of
the damned, they will remain there for all eternity punished
by the horrible vengeance of the Demon.

Such also are the decisions of the learned Denis Petau, the
most eminent Bellarmin, the Councils of Lyons, of Florence,
and of Trent; for these things are not decided by human
considerations, but by the authority of tradition and of the
Scriptures.

Such logic makes one really doubt human reason, and reminds one of the
spirit with which the courts of the Holy Inquisition were inspired.
Where in Nature can there be found such lack of proportion between
cause and effect, crime and punishment? Have such arguments ever been
justified by the voice of conscience?

Official Christianity remains powerless to explain suffering. Let us
see what we can learn from the philosophies and religions of the past
and the greatest of modern philosophers, as well as from the admirable
_resumes_ of Teachers of theosophy.

The problem of suffering is one with that of life, _i.e._, with that
of evolution in general. The object of the successive worlds is the
creation of millions of centres of consciousness in the germinal state
(_souls_) and the transformation of these germs into divinities
similar to their father, God. This is the divine multiplication,
creating innumerable "gods," in God.

To produce divine germs, homogeneous Unity must limit its immensity
and create within itself the diversity of matter, of form. This can
be obtained by the creation of "multiplicity" and by the "limitation"
of what might be called a portion of Divinity. Now, limitation implies
imperfection, both general and individual, _i.e._, suffering; and
multiplicity implies diversity of needs and interests, forced
submission to the general law _i.e._,