Illustration of the Augustinian Theory. The following illustrates the case, though but very imperfectly, inasmuch as any finite temporal evils are as nothing compared to the eternal torments to which are assigned all of our race, whose ruined nature is not regenerated before death. A father places a poison in the way of his wife, forbids her to taste it, but knows she will do so and that the consequence will be that all his children will be born blind. Then he places the children thus deprived of sight, in a dreadful morass filled with savage beasts and awful pitfalls, with a narrow and difficult path of escape, which it is certain no one will ever find without sight. The consequence is, that a large part of his children sink into the pitfalls and perish. Then he justifies himself in these ways. To some he says, I have a right to treat my children as I please, and I allow no one to question me on the matter. All that I do is right and benevolent, and you must not inquire how or why. To all the rest he says, I am not the author of this evil, it is _the mother_ of the children who took the poison when I forbade her to do so. She either made herself blind by taking the poison, and then transmitted the evil to her children as a hereditary boon, or she had “a common nature” with her children and ruined all together, or they all “sinned in her” and became blind before they were born. And so I am not “the author of sin” in this matter. To intelligent persons not educated in the belief of the above theory of Augustine, and of these modes of explaining the difficulties connected with it, this account of the matter will seem so incredible and monstrous that they will demand evidence that the preceding statements are true. In the next chapters this evidence will be presented. CHAPTER V. THE AUGUSTINIAN THEORY IN CREEDS. The preceding chapters have presented the Augustinian theory of “the origin of evil,” and certain questions connected with it which have been debated by theologians; also the difficulties involved in the theory, and the modes of meeting these difficulties. The next aim will be to verify these statements by extracts from the creeds and theologians of the great Christian sects. Creed of the Catholic Church. It is well known that the Catholic organization preceded that of the Protestant sects. It is also well known that this church maintains that the decisions of her pope and councils are _infallible_. The following extracts, then, from the decisions of the celebrated Councils of Trent at the period of the Reformation, exhibit the theory of Augustine incorporated as a part of the Roman Catholic creed: _Extract from a decree of the Council of Trent._ “Infants derive from Adam that original guilt which must be expiated in the laver of regeneration in order to obtain eternal life. Adam lost the purity and righteousness which he received from God, not for himself only but also for us.”