his end, the only exception being those few persons who
are rescued by election of grace, from what motive one does not know.

Putting these aside, it looks as if the Blessed Lord had created the
world for the benefit of the devil! it would have been so much better
not to have made it at all. So much, then, for a dogma taken _sensu
proprio_. But look at it _sensu allegorico_, and the whole matter
becomes capable of a satisfactory interpretation. What is absurd and
revolting in this dogma is, in the main, as I said, the simple outcome
of Jewish theism, with its "creation out of nothing," and really foolish
and paradoxical denial of the doctrine of metempsychosis which is
involved in that idea, a doctrine which is natural, to a certain extent
self-evident, and, with the exception of the Jews, accepted by nearly
the whole human race at all times. To remove the enormous evil arising
from Augustine's dogma, and to modify its revolting nature, Pope Gregory
I., in the sixth century, very prudently matured the doctrine of
_Purgatory_, the essence of which already existed in Origen (cf. Bayle's
article on Origen, note B.). The doctrine was regularly incorporated
into the faith of the Church, so that the original view was much
modified, and a certain substitute provided for the doctrine of
metempsychosis; for both the one and the other admit a process of
purification. To the same end, the doctrine of "the Restoration of all
things" [Greek: apokatastasis] was established, according to which, in
the last act of the Human Comedy, the sinners one and all will be
reinstated _in integrum_. It is only Protestants, with their obstinate
belief in the Bible, who cannot be induced to give up eternal punishment
in hell. If one were spiteful, one might say, "much good may it do
them," but it is consoling to think that they really do not believe the
doctrine; they leave it alone, thinking in their hearts, "It can't be so
bad as all that."

The rigid and systematic character of his mind led Augustine, in his
austere dogmatism and his resolute definition of doctrines only just
indicated in the Bible and, as a matter of fact, resting on very vague
grounds, to give hard outlines to these doctrines and to put a harsh
construction on Christianity: the result of which is that his views
offend us, and just as in his day Pelagianism arose to combat them, so
now in our day Rationalism does the same. Take, for example, the case as
he states it generally