But, what! could St. Augustine find rest in his own views,—in his own logic? Did he really banish all non-elect infants into the region of penal fire and everlasting woe? If he adhered to the literal meaning of the words of revelation, as he understood them, he was certainly bound to do so; but did he really and consistently do it? Did he really bind the “poor little” reprobate, because it had sinned in Adam, in chains of adamant, and leave it to writhe beneath the fierce inquisitorial fury of the everlasting flames? Did he really extract the vials of such exquisite and unprovoked wrath from the essence of infinite goodness itself? No: this was reserved for the superior logic and the sterner consistency of an iron age. But since it has been extracted, we may devoutly thank Almighty God, that it is now excluded from the hearts of men calling themselves Christians, and kept safely bottled up in their creeds and confessions. St. Augustine could not endure the insufferable consequences of his own doctrine. Hence, in writing to his great friend, St. Jerome, he said, “in all sincerity: when I come to treat of the punishment of infants, believe _that I find myself in great embarrassment, and I absolutely know not what to reply_.” Writing against Julian, he adds: “_I do not say that those who die without baptism will be punished with a torment such that it would be better for them if they had never been born._” And again: “Those who, besides original sin which they have contracted, have not committed any other, will be subjected to a pain the most mild of all.”(186) Thus by adopting a wrong interpretation, the principles of which were but little understood in his time, St. Augustine banished all unbaptized infants from the kingdom of light; but yet he could hardly find it in his heart to condemn them to the outer darkness. He had too great a regard for the word of God, as he understood it, to permit non-elect infants to reign with Christ in heaven; and, on the other hand, he was too severely pressed by the generous impulses of his nature, nay, by the eternal dictates of truth and goodness, to permit him to consign them really to the “fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Hence, although Christ knew of “but two places,” he fitted up a third, to see them in which, was, as Edwards would say, “more agreeable to his imagination.”