THE LAW OF REBIRTH 27

one's own turn one replied, (' That God then I
cannot serve ". These questions must come to
all of us, and in talking of God's things and His
plan we want to know a little more of how
these things work out and what Theosophy says
with reference to them.

One of the usual questions with reference to
rebirth is: " If I have lived before, why do I
not remember ? " This appears at first sight a
reasonable question, but in reality it is not so.
I must answer by putting another question to
you. Have you ever sat down and gone through
every detail of the previous day to see how much
you remember, or every detail of a week ago, or a
month ago, a year ago, five, ten, fifteen years
how much do you remember ? Our childhood is
almost forgotten, even great events, like illness
which has left a scar or a fall that has made a
cripple, are not clearly remembered; yet if we
go deeper into this, we find that we have in our
inner consciousness remembered much. We
have learned not to run into the river, for
instance, and not to put our hand into the fire.
We have certain memories of fear, of love, and
of hatred, this varies in different people. I
know of someone who had a great dread of the
smell of wine and of taking any drug whatso-
ever, an incomprehensible fear that someone