LIBRARY 
 
 13T>T-\7r<T^Tri-\T A7 T 
 
 BR 1720 .A9 B34 1859 copy 2 
 Baillie, John, 1816-1890. 
 St. Augustine 
 
ST. AUaUSTI]^E 
 
 ^ §i0girai3ju.cil Pitm0ir. 
 
 BY / 
 
 THE REV. JOHN^AILLTE, 
 
 GONV. AND CAirS COLL., CAMBRIDGE; 
 
 LiridOR OF THE "life op ADELAIDE L. NEWTON," "MEMOIRS 
 OF ilEWITSON," "life STUDIES," ETC, 
 
 " Xo Doctor in tli Church, after the Sacred Scriptures, is to bo 
 compared to Augustiue.'' — Martin Luther. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 
 :No. 530 BROADWAY. 
 
 1859. 
 
EDWARD 0. JENKINS, 
 
 Jpriitter & .Sterfotsper, 
 No. 2G Fkankfokt Strebt. 
 
TO f 
 
 THE HON. AND REV. 
 
 SAMUEL WALDEGRAVE, M. A., 
 
 Hector of Barford St. Martin, anil Canon of Salisbury. 
 
 My Dear Sir.— The illustrious Church-father whose life is 
 recorded in these pages, is not a stranger to you. In your 
 Bampton Lectures, delivered some years ago before the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford, you worthily vindicated those great doc- 
 trines of grace in which St. Augustine gloried, and of which 
 his personal life was so vivid a pattern. And I therefore 
 inscribe thie volume to you, assured that whatever abases 
 the worm in the dust, and exalts and glorifies the God of 
 grace, will meet from you a cordial welcome. Augustine 
 was not perfect; but he was a " true man '" — a meek and 
 humble follower of the Lamb, — and, above all, he was a pas- 
 tor who yearned over souls with a compassion which I know 
 you feel to be the greatest of all wants in the ministry of 
 our day. It is in the humble hope that God may use this 
 book to quicken into new energy and devotedness some 
 earnest souls, that I have sought to popularise the great 
 preacher's life, and now send it forth on its errand. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Tour faithful Brother in our one Lord, 
 
 THE AUTHOR, 
 (iii) 
 
Pectus est quod tlieologum facit." 
 
 Neander. 
 
 (iv) 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The Author lias a few words to say to his 
 readers as to what they are to look for and 
 what they are not to look for in this Memoir. 
 
 Some two years ago, his attention was called 
 to the fact that no attempt had yet been made 
 — at least in this country — either to exhibit 
 the great Church-father in his daily outer and 
 inner life, or to estimate the extraordinary 
 influence which his voluminous writings 
 exercised, for so many centuries, upon the 
 Church of Christ. And lie was asked to 
 make an effort to supply this want. 
 
 After a careful study of the subject he was 
 impressed with the conviction that the first 
 thing to be done was to gather together into a 
 single portraiture the various features of the 
 
 1* [5] 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 MAN, as these were to be found scattered up 
 and down dififerent books and documents, and 
 also were to be detected in his Letters, and 
 especially in his well-known Confessions. 
 
 It has been God's uniform method, in effect- 
 ing any great revival in His Church, to pre- 
 pare the human instrument by a protracted 
 process of discipline. In the desert of Horeb, 
 the future chief of Israel was trained for forty 
 years. In the lonely nights with his "few 
 sheep," the slayer of Goliath had proved, 
 against "the lion and the bear," the virtue of the 
 Divine panoply. He who enquired, "Lord! 
 what wouldst thou have me to c/oF" was shewn 
 "how great things he must suffer.'''' In a later 
 age, the man who gave to Europe a revived 
 theology and a restored Church, lived out the 
 heavenly life in the cell at Erfarth and in the 
 chamber at Coburg and in the lowly home at 
 A¥ittemberg. And, if ever it might be said 
 of a man that the central point of his system 
 of faith had previously been elaborated as the 
 central point of his pergonal life, tliat man was 
 St. Augustine. 
 
 It is this great fact which gives to the strug- 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 gles and the victories of liis hidden life an 
 interest and a value so transcendant. Like 
 the author of the "Pilgrim's Progress," he first 
 lived the Christian doctrine — then taught it. 
 "The life," he used to say, '' must precede the 
 conception ; the latter can only come out of 
 the former." 
 
 This, too, invested with such authority the 
 teachings of this great Church-father. It was 
 not a poor, shrivelled, lifeless theology which 
 he taught, but " the things which he had seen 
 and heard." And he had heard them, not at 
 the lips of human teachers, but at the feet of 
 the life-giving Saviour. He knew what it was 
 to sit there as a guilty and helpless yet freely 
 forgiven sinner ; and so (as Neander justly 
 observes) all that Christ taught him was 
 regarded as infallible truth, which required no 
 other confirmation. 
 
 Augustine was not a monk, though he lived 
 in a monkish age. He was a warm-hearted, 
 loving, genial man, — turning his own wheel 
 and the Avheels of others with energy, 
 
 " Guiding souls to God, and multiplying himself for 
 heaven." 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 Hence it comes to pass that the good in all ages 
 have instinctively drawn to him. And hence 
 it is so desirable that a simple photograph of 
 him should be placed within the reach of all. 
 Such is the distinctive and specific aim of this 
 volume; and the Author will feel amply 
 compensated for his labour in preparing it, if 
 it stir in any bosoms — especially among his 
 brethren in the ministry — an intenser longing 
 after holiness and a tenderer yearning over 
 souls. 
 
 A recent commentator* on his writings has 
 caught, with his wonted sagacity, Augustine's 
 leading characteristic — an unquenched and 
 unquenchable thirst for the Word. This was 
 his safeguard in his own dajk age ; and this it 
 is which surrounds with such freshness and 
 such lifelikcness all his words still. If at 
 times his noble mien wear some traces of the 
 cntrmmgcf of his age, they are the spots in the 
 bright luminary, not the luminary itself The 
 light ill which he lived shone too direct from 
 
 '^' Dean Trench. 
 
 f What the Americans, more expressively than elegantly, 
 call "surroundings." 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 above to leave him tlie victim of superstitious 
 mummeries such as claim oftentimes the pro- 
 tection of his name. " To the law and to the 
 testimony ! " was his unfailing appeal ; if any 
 " spoke not according to this Word," it was 
 because there was no life in them." 
 
 "0 Book I infinite sweetness! let my heart 
 Suck every letter ; and a honey gain, 
 Precious for any grief in any part, 
 To clear the breast, to mollify all pain. 
 
 " Thou art all health : health thriving tiU it make 
 A full eternity. 
 
 Heaven lies flat in thee, 
 Subject to every mounter's bended knee. 
 
 " Such are thy secrets ; which my life makes good 
 And comments on thee. 
 Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss; 
 This book of stars lights to eternal bliss." 
 
 Such was Augustine's daily inner life ; and he 
 who appreciates aright the lesson of that life, 
 will go, with a deeper relish and on " bended 
 knee," to the Word which was his daily 
 all. 
 
 Churches live and die, but the Church is 
 
10 TRKFACE. 
 
 eternal. Carthage and Hippo and the whole 
 African Church are gone ; but Augustine's 
 Lord lives on, — and Augustine, "being dead, 
 yet speaketh." 
 
 London, Dec. 15. 1858. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Mother's Tears— The Family of Thegaste — The "Decrep- 
 id Maid " — Monica's First Lesson — " Moulding the 
 Thirst"— The "Wine cellar— " Daily Littles"— "A Wlne- 
 bibber" — The Finger of God — Sovereign Grace — 
 Awakening — Struggles — " The Saving Plank"— The 
 Starting Point—" Not her Gifts, but Thine in her," 
 
 Pp. 23—27 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 Bad Husbands and Good Wives— the Young Freeman — 
 " Choleric" — Unequal Yoke — "A Blessing above 
 Riches" — The Honeymoon — Revels — Patience and 
 Prayer — The Wife-beater —An " Indenture " — '• Med- 
 dhng Tongues" — "Preaching Thee"— A Peacemaker — 
 "School of the Heart''— The Infant, . Pp. 28— 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Wheel of Providence— A Parallel — Goliath and David — 
 The Training — Infant Experiences— Poetic Fancy and 
 Sober Truth — "Flung About" —" Indignant at my El- 
 
 [11] 
 
12 CONTEXTS. 
 
 ders"'- Sins of lufancy— Evil Tempers — Xew Lessons 
 — Who made sin?— The "Speaking Boy" — ITow ho 
 Learned to Speak— " Current Signs' ' — Monica— Secret 
 Breathings - the Boy's First Terror — "Like near Death,' 
 
 Pp. .34-39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Fireside-seeue — A Colloquy — "To School'' — ''Make a Fig- 
 ure' ' — " Tongue-science ' ' — A Longing — School-mise- 
 ries — A "Custom" — The Birch — "Mocked my Stripes''* 
 — First Prayer — "Not Heard" — Idleness and Business 
 — Boys and Men — A Contrast — The Shows — '• Wild 
 Oats"— The Spectre— Boy Torments, . Pp. 40—45 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 An Aspiration — "Repose on Thee" — School-Life — The 
 Hacked Bench — '• Hates Greek" — -^neas — Dido — 
 Tears — No Penitence — The Idol — A Task — '• Smoke and 
 Wind" — Classic IMythology — Crimes no longer Crimes — 
 Kindred Spark — " A Hopeful Boy" — New Studies — 
 " Corruptions"— Seared Conscience — "Clanks of tho 
 Chain" — Father's Conversion— Year at Home— Harden- 
 ing — Coral Island — Monica — " Womanish Advices" — 
 " God in Her"—" Barren Land," . . Pp. 46-53 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A Scene in Carthage— The Corso— The Theatre — The School 
 Tilting — " Cauldron of Unholy Loves" — Stage-Plays — 
 First Arrow — Hortensius — " An Immortality of Wis- 
 dom"— The Check— "Name of Christ"— Secret Sighing 
 — Father's Death— Stroke "not Inopportune" — IMonica 
 — Bible and TuUy — " A Little One" — Haven in Sight- 
 Not yet, Pp. 54 - 59 
 
CONTEXTS. 13 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Imposter—Manicheism— Spirit aud Matter— The Student 
 of Carthage — " Glittering Phantasies" — "Truth ! 
 Truth!"— Lime and tlie Spring— Monica — A Vision — 
 Tlie "Wooden Rule"— The Interpretation — " My Wak- 
 ing Mother" — " Him Only" — Monica and the Bishop — 
 The "Care-worn Cheek" — "AVait and Pray"— The 
 Ruling Passion —A Wizard — Another Snare, 
 
 Pp. 60-67 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Waif— New Imposture— Nativity-Casters— Scenes in the 
 Circus— "Agonistic Garland''— Roman Proconsul — 
 The Colloquy — 'Dupe of Lies" — Another Delusion — 
 The ''Ten Predicaments"' — A Town Celebrity — Blind- 
 ing Spell— New Experiment— Liberal Arts— Gilded 
 Cheat— Back to the Light— "Vile Slave" — "Every- 
 where Vain," Pp. 68—14 
 
 CHAITER IX. 
 
 The Two Friends -Double Solitude--' Out of Two, One"— 
 "Erred in Mind"— "Sore Fever"— "Death-sweat"— The 
 Recovery — Rebuke— New Attack— Death— Aurelius in 
 Tears — Other Self— Torn Heart — No Repose — " One 
 Soul in Two Bodies" — "Not Live Halved" — God a 
 Phantom — "Mere Brightness" — Refuge— Other Friends 
 —Bitter Discipline, . . . . Pp 75—81 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Pride— Death-blow— " An Almsman of God"— Lowest Pit 
 
 — The Fair and the Fit—" Corporeal Fictions"— Author 
 
 — Dedication — Roman Orator — Broken Reed— God is 
 
 Light — " Resisteth the Proud" — New Delusion — Long- 
 
 o 
 
1-i CONTENTS. 
 
 ings — Wit and Godlinoss— An Arrival — "Snare of the 
 Devil" — Manicliean Bishop— The Good Part— '• Eepose 
 in Thee"— Heretic Unmasked—'- So Great Madness" — 
 Extremity— The Holdfast— A Brighter Day at Hand, 
 
 Pp. 82—91 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Two Travellers —The Struggle— Midnight-Prayers— The 
 Setting-out— Monica Alone — " Frantic with Sorrow" — 
 Scene in Rome — Augustine on a Sick-bed — " Going 
 down into Hell" — The Manichee— "The Cross a Phan- 
 tom" — Ferebodings — Crisis — Recovery — " New Phren- 
 zy" — Dark Cloud— Silver Lining — Monica's Weeping 
 Prayers — Rhetoric Class — New Vexation— Scholars — 
 "Breakers of Faith" — Evil Sect — One Refuge — The 
 Cross— Beck onings— Life and " the Limbo of Death " — 
 Night-Musings — The "Academics" — Despair — The 
 Bethel-Ladder. Pp. 92—101 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Scene at Milan— The Governor — "A Father" — Clerical 
 Wranglings — Popular Uproar — Dead Silence — Infant 
 Voice — "Ambrose is Bishop" — "Wholly to these 
 Things"- -Holy Walk— Care for Souls— Fidelity— Au- 
 gustine "Led to his Feet" — Rhetoric Reader — Wel- 
 come— The Secret Corner — "Idols of tlie Cave"— Sick 
 Soul — "Gross-hearted'' — "Filmy Darkness" — What 
 and How— The "Eloquent" and the " True"— Pros- 
 pects, Pp. 102—110 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 The Praying One at Thcgaste—" These Tears"— "Child of 
 Weakness " — " King's Remembrancer" — Hidden Uses 
 
CONTEXTS. 15 
 
 — Setting Out — The Voyage — Monica and tlie Mariners 
 — Harbour of Genoa— Landscape— "One Object" — The 
 Lost One— A Parallel— Gaol at Milan— Silvio Pellico — 
 Neglected Bible—" Foolish Pleasantries "— " That Vil- 
 lain of a Book " — The Babe-Keprover — "A Force-put " 
 —The Weeping —" Himself Again '' — Monica's Mission 
 —Arrival, Pp. 111—116 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Meeting — "Rescued from Falsehood" — "No Way to 
 God "—Monica's Faith— "The Bier of Her Thoughts " 
 —The Cathedral— "An Angel of God "—The Two Hear- 
 ers— " Bird-hme of Death"— The Jolly Beggar— " The 
 Staff of Thy Correction "—The Propliet's Chamber— The 
 Radiant Smile— The Two Visitors— The Interview — 
 "Such a Mother"— "The Wor.-^e Killed "—New Expe- 
 dient — Alypius— "The Word in Season" — "Manichean 
 Meshes "—Scene in the Amphitheatre — "Drinking in 
 Phreuzy " — Youthful Lawyer— Nebridius— The Utopia 
 — A Warning— The "Philosophical Union"— The Col- 
 lapse, Pp. 117—137 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Monica and the Maiden— New Pollutions — Conscience — 
 "Thou alone Rest "—Another Vanity— Scepticism — 
 "Whence is Evil?" — Heart-pangs— New Snare— The 
 " Platonists "— " Not Skilled but Killed "—The Stum- 
 blingblock— "No Way," . , . Pp. 132— 139 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Roman Rhetorician— Idol Worshipper — "Already a 
 Christian" — Lingering — The Good Confession — "Vic- 
 
16 CONTEXTS. 
 
 torinus! Yictorinus! "—Milan — "On Fire to Imitate" 
 — " "Wordy School "— " Thy Word "—"Thee Only "— 
 "Not Another's Irons"— "My Own Iron Will "—The 
 "Warring "— " Necessity "—"Two Wills"—" Baggage 
 of this Present World "—Incident— Besetting Sin — 
 "Anon, Anon!" — Lethargy— "Presently, Presently" — 
 "No Present "— Day-Star— " Thy Full-Eyed Love," 
 
 Pp. 140—146 
 
 CHAPTER XYTT. 
 
 The Three Friends— Night-Colloquies— The Stranger— " This 
 Book" — A Story of Grace— The Cottage— Object of 
 Life — Friend of God— Turning Point — "Changed In- 
 wardly " — Purpose Settled — Augustine Arrested — Set 
 Over Against Himself—" Only not Yet "—The Delay — 
 "A Mute Shrinking " — The Suspense — " What Ails 
 Us?"— The Little Garden— " Dying to Live "-Scene 
 under the Tree— Bodily Contortions— Lessons — "Up- 
 borne and Down-borne," . . . Pp. 147 — 159 
 
 CHAPTER XYIIL 
 
 Final Gropings — "A Severe Mercy" — The '-Flatterer" — "A 
 Deadly Twitch " — The Fleshly Garment — Continency — 
 The Blush— The Retreat— Choked with Weeping— 
 The Fig-Tree— " Why not Now?"— Garden at Milan— 
 Night-Scene— The Voice— "Tolle, Lege I "— Command 
 from Heaven — "Live" — Perfect Peace — Pilgrim at the 
 Cross — Burden Gone — " Redeemed with Thy Love" — 
 Dawning Day—" Behold, I See," . Pp. 160—168 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A Parallel — Alfred and the Bible — Villa at Milan — Longings 
 —"AH for Christ "—Monica—" Sow in Tears "— " Reap 
 
CONTEXTS. 17 
 
 ia Joy " — Detaching and Attacliing — Xew aftectiou — 
 "Expulsive Power" — ''Marts of Lip-labour"' — The 
 Interval— Retreat— The Host -Barbed Arrow— The 
 Healer — Augustine's Wart burg — ' ' Inward Goads " — 
 Missionary Yearnings— Divine Lessons— Parallel — Bun- 
 yan — Sensations — " The Power of Thy Nod " — Vintage- 
 vacation— Ambrose— Counsels, . Pp. 169—183 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Scenes in Milan Cathedral — Persecution— The Watch — Mon- 
 ica—" Lived for Prayer "—Street Psalmody — Augustine 
 — Weeping in Canticles— "Breathmg in Thee " — Milan 
 Brotherhood — Alypius— " Valiant Tamer " — Euodius — 
 Adeodatus — Xebridius — " My Sweet Friend " — " End- 
 lessly Happy "— Journey to Africa— Scene at Ostia — 
 Monica — Heavenly " Gaspings " — Delectable Mountains 
 — Illness — Translation — " StLU savouring such Things " 
 — The Weeping Circle— The Burial— "Slavery for Me " 
 — " Life Rent Asunder " — Double Sorrow — Retrospect, 
 
 Pp. 183-200 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 Road from Ostia -Mourning Travellers— Sore Grief— Gleam 
 of Sunshine — Augustine at Rome — " Living among 
 the Dead "—Voyage — Th.egaste — Retreat — Desert- 
 Teachings— Inner Life— Breathings— " Universal The- 
 ophany"— Its Emptiness- "Odour of Thy Ointments " 
 — Childhke Faith— "High Tower of Hope "—Medita- 
 tions— Christ Only— Yearnings, . Pp. 201 — 209 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A Parallel — Aspirations — Christ- Attachment — "All Over 
 Love "— Vinet— The " Single Word " — Christ an " Idea " 
 
18 CONTENTS. 
 
 — Neander --What Makes the Divme - " Dehghtful Dif- 
 ficulty" — "His Sweetness" — Luther — The Couscience — 
 The Blood — The Righteousness —Holy Living — Right 
 Man in Right Place -Divine Teachings, Pp. 210—219 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 Call to Hippo— Awakening— Welcome— Breathings — " Dart 
 of Thy Love" — Bible-study — World Behind His Back — 
 '• Some Loose " — " Our Rough Storm " — Bishop Valerius 
 ■ — Appeal to the People -Augustine Chosen — Flood of 
 Tears— Ordained a Presbyter, . . Pp. 220—226 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Pastor— Pulpit— " Joy and Throne "— " Holy "— A'ale- 
 rius — Unsellish— Fervent Appeals — " Heart-deep " — 
 "Beseeching" — "Eyes lifted up to Heaven" — Secret 
 Whispering— Win Souls— Christ Only —" Triumph in 
 Christ "—Conversation— A Soul Saved — Believe and 
 Live, Pp. 227—237 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Episcopate — Call — "So Great a Treasure "-Priestly 
 Pretension—" Throne "—Valerius — Installed— Augus- 
 tine in His See—" My only Claim '" — Preaching — Rul- 
 ing Passion - Scene in Church at Hippo—" First Weep- 
 ing over Them " — "Amendment "—Scene at C;esarea — 
 Acclamations — Tears — Reformation — A Parallel — 
 Whiteheld— " Rainbow round His Head " — " Ornamen- 
 tal Eloquence "— " The Sublime "— " His Great Excel- 
 lence "—The " Common People"— Cold Critics— "One 
 Business"— Domestic Life— Hospitality— Simplicity— 
 " Moderation "—Not a Monk— Sunny Spot -Con versa- 
 
CONTENTS. 19 
 
 tion — " Seasoned with Salt " — A Distich — Table — Inci- 
 dent — Peace-maker — " God's Pauper " — "A Beggar for 
 Beggars," Pp. 238—248 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Heresies — " Spirit Stirred in Him " — Pelagius — His Errors 
 — Denial of Depravity— Relation to Manicheism — Ori- 
 gen — Pelagianism — Luther and Justification — Augustine 
 and the New Birth— Gentleness — "Grace" — Council 
 — " Christian Brother " — Augustine's Remonstrance — 
 A Wanderer — Tender Appeal — " Forget He is a Chris- 
 tian "— " Not ray Fault "— " Evil Heart is Sin " — " Not 
 Steal Thy Glory "—" Infinite Hazards "—" Lord Our 
 Help "—New Heresies— Attempt on His Life— Schism 
 — Donatists — Circumcelliones — Banditti— Persecution, 
 
 Pp. 249—263 
 
 CHAPTER XXYIL 
 
 A Superstition— Church Declining — L^pas Tree — Augustine's 
 Preservative — Sacramentarianism — The Death-clothes 
 not the Living Man — Weeds and Cedars — A Soul-seek- 
 ing Minister — " Servile Usages " — " Chaft" and Tares " — 
 Baptism — " Starve in Midst of Plenty " — " Lurking Ven- 
 om " — Breathings— A Parallel — Christ All — Massive 
 Theology — The Two Adams — The Scriptures — Deepen- 
 ing Relish— Neander — Dean Trench — "Rapturous De- 
 light " — " Wells of Salvation " — " Drawing Dry " — " No 
 Time for Bible " — " Confessional " — "Ad ipsum Domi- 
 num " — The Side-chamber and the Word — "In Heart 
 an Infant"— "I am a Little Child "—Not a Stoic— 
 " Kindle Me," . ... Pp. 264— 2^73 
 
20 CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Toiling in Rowing" — Trials— Hard Hearts— "Not Saved 
 without You " — His One Business — " Preach unto 
 Christ"— "His Passion "— Secret of Pulpit-Power— 
 "Pray before you Speak" — Another Trial — Empire 
 Reeling— The Goths— A Pagan Calumny— Apology— 
 '• City of God " — Decline and Fall — Real Cause— 
 "Seeds of Dissolution"- Christians Spared— Heavenly 
 Fervour—" Great Things not Here " — A Symbol— Alar- 
 ic's Ravages— Capitol — "City which hath Foundations" 
 — " Baggage of Virtue " — Free-will Offerings— Legacies 
 — Care of Flock -Catechising— "Speak Cheerfully" — 
 " In God's Hands " — A Spiritual Automaton— Safe- 
 guard — " Love in Heart "—Longings—" His own Flesh '' 
 — " Our own Blood in His Veins " — Acceptance in 
 Heaven, and Rejection on Earth— Rejoicing in the Lord 
 — Rejoicing in the World — Breathings — "Spouse of 
 Christ"— The Glory— A^eteran Preachers— Fresh Les- 
 sons — Waiting on God — " In that Hour "—Not a Fanat- 
 ic — Labour — " Prayer and. Study " — Mellowed Light — 
 "Will of God"— "Whole"— "Sick"— A Glimpse — 
 " Immanuel's Land "— " Face to Face," Pp. 2U— 288 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 LAST DAYS. 
 
 Approaching f)nd— The Vandals— Invasion — "Beasts of 
 Prey " — Last Stronghold — Hippo —True Shepherd — 
 " Nether Springs" and "Upper Springs " — A Parallel — 
 "Apostle to Indians"— Preaching— "Too Late did I 
 Love Thee " — Table-talk — Heavenly Longings — Vesti- 
 bule of Glory — Carnage — Prophetic Glow — Fever — 
 
CONTENTS. 21 
 
 Sick-chamber — Horaeward-Bound — Aspirations — 
 Watching for Souls— Roman General— Bed-side Appeal 
 — A Parallel — " Oh, I am Naked!" — Penitential 
 Psalms— Tears — " Sick of Love " — " Can only Burn " — 
 " Pleasant Nutriment " — Bequest — " Pauper Dei " — 
 Growing Weakness— Patience —Siege— Scenes of Blood 
 — Brighter Fellowship — '• Lamentable Joys " — " Joyous 
 Sorrows " — Deathbed Triumphs— Chamber at Hippo — 
 Last Moments -" Inextinguishable Burning of Vehe- 
 ment Longing " — " Flames of Love " — Fire chariot — 
 Translation— Sequel— Hippo Taken — Church Scattered 
 — Augustine " Lived on " — Mission — " In the Dust " — 
 Divine Grace — A Parallel — "An Inch Deeper" — " Grace 
 of Christ only," .... Pp. 289—305 
 
' Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, 
 We love the play-place of our early days ; 
 The scene is touching, — and the heart is stone 
 That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.' 
 
 " Go thy ways, and God bless tliee ; for it is 
 not possible that the son of these tears should 
 perish." So spoke, one evening, a holy man 
 in North Africa to a weeping mother who 
 had begged his friendly offices in behalf of her 
 erring son. The answer she "took as if it had 
 sounded from heaven." The prodigal was the 
 future Augustine — the weepiog mother was 
 Monica. 
 
 In the little town of Thegaste, not far from 
 Carthage, there lived in those daj^s a family in 
 middle life, known among the pagan neigh- 
 bors as "a Christian house." The soul of the 
 household was "a certain decrepid maid," who, 
 
 [23] 
 
24 MEMOIE OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 having "carried the father when a child, as 
 little ones were wont to be carried at the back 
 of elder girls," and being now " of great age 
 and of excellent convei'sation," was "well re- 
 spected by the house." To her, as to a second 
 mother, the daughters of the family were en- 
 trusted; and "diligent heed she gave unto 
 her charge," " restraining them earnestly, when 
 needful, with a holy severity," and " teaching 
 them with a grave discretion." 
 
 One lesson of this Mentor betrayed her 
 peculiar bent. Except at the regular meals, 
 the girls were "not suffered, tbougb parched 
 w^ith tliirst, to drink even water." And this 
 "wholesome advice" was added — "Ye drink 
 water now, because ye have not wine in your 
 power ; but, when you come to be married, and 
 be made mistresses of cellars and cupboards, 
 you will scorn water, but the custom of drink- 
 ing will abide." " By this method of instruc- 
 tion," says Augustine,^* "and by the authority 
 she had, she resti*ained the greediness of child- 
 hood, and moulded their very thirst to such an 
 
 * The quotations are from the " Confessions " and other 
 ■writinf'S of Aujiustine. 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 25 
 
 excellent moderation, that what they should 
 not, that they would not." 
 
 The lesson, however, had not told on all. 
 One of the ch'clc by and by began to "feel 
 creeping upon her a love of wine." The cus- 
 tom of the house was for some member of the 
 family to draw wine out of the hogshead into 
 a flagon, for daily use. For this office Monica 
 was usually selected, "as though a sober 
 maiden;" and, one day, as she was passing 
 the wine from the vessel to the flagon, she 
 "sipped a little wdth the tip of her lips," for 
 " more her instinctive feelings refused." Habits 
 are formed out of single acts, as a cable out of 
 single threads. That day, in the cellar, the 
 first thread had been woven. "This I did," 
 says Monica, " not out of any desire of drink, 
 but out of the exuberance of youth, whereby 
 it boils over in mirthful freaks. And thus, by 
 adding to that little daily littles, (for, ' w^hoso 
 despiseth little things shall fall by little and 
 little,') I fell into such a habit as greedily to 
 drink off my little cup, brim-full almost of 
 wine." 
 
 But God had a purpose of grace towards 
 
26 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 that maiden; and strangely did He work it 
 out. 
 
 One day, a domestic, who bad been in tlie 
 liabit of going to the cellar with her^ " fell to 
 words with her little mistress;" and, in the 
 outburst of passion, she "taunted her with 
 most bitter insult, calling her a wine-bibber.'" 
 Stung to the quick, Monica " saw the foulness 
 of her fault, instantly condemning and forsak- 
 ing it." It was, in truth, the finger of God. 
 " Would aught," said Augustine, many years 
 afterwards, " avail against a secret disease, if 
 Thy healing hand, O Lord, watched not over 
 us? Father, mother, and governors absent; 
 Thou present, who createdst, who callest, who 
 also, by those set over us, workest something 
 towards the salvation of our souls; — what 
 didst thou then, O my God? How didst thou 
 cure her? How heal her? Didst thou not, 
 out of another soul, bring forth a hard and a 
 sharp taunt, like a lancet out of thy secret store, 
 and with one touch remove all that foul stuff? '* 
 
 It was one of the earliest readings of God's 
 " sovereign grace," which had met the eye of 
 the future champion of the faith. *' Thou, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 27 
 
 Lord," lie wrote again, alluding to the scene, 
 "Governor of all in heaven, and earth, who 
 turnest to thy purposes the deepest currents 
 and the ruled turbulence of the tide of times, 
 didst, by the very unhealthiness of one soul, 
 heal another ; for she in anger sought to vex 
 her young mistress, not to amend her: and 
 this, lest any, wishing to reform another, and 
 finding him reformed through words of his, 
 should ascribe it to his own power." 
 
 Awakened to a piercing sense of sin, she 
 trembled for the wrath to come. Many a 
 struggle followed ; until, at length, one morn- 
 ing, like a shipwrecked mariner, she grasped 
 " the saving plank," and got safe to land. And, 
 her sins now forgiven, she, from the depths of 
 her broken heart, was to pour forth a fragrance 
 more sweet than that of myrrh, and aloes, and 
 cassia. " Not her gifts," wrote Augustine, long 
 afterwards, " but Thine in her, would I speak 
 of; for neither did she make nor educate her- 
 self. Thou createdst her ; and the sceptre of 
 Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, 
 in a Christian house, a good member of Thy 
 Church educated her in Thy fear." 
 
II. 
 
 " In thy flesh there hath been planted, by the foe, a pricking thorn ; 
 And, as hour by hour it rankleth, thou art weary, foint, and worn." 
 
 " It is often seen," says Lord Bacon, " that bad 
 husbands have very good wives." Monica was 
 to find in her future husband her first heavenly 
 discipline. 
 
 In Thegaste, a young freeman might be seen, 
 in those days, foremost in the pagan shows, 
 and not seldom in " hot conflict with neighbor 
 lads of the town," but fashioned by nature for 
 warm and generous friendships, and drawing 
 around him many hearts. "Fervid, as in his 
 affections, so in anger," Patricius Augustinus 
 was on occasions so "choleric," as to be the 
 terror, for the time, of the whole neighborhood. 
 Though a pagan, and leading a pagan's im- 
 moral life, he won the affections of the youth- 
 [28] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 29 
 
 ful Monica ; and, scarcely had slie reached the 
 "marriageable age," when she entered the 
 " unequal yoke." 
 
 One of our poets has written — 
 
 "When thou choosest a Avife, think not cnly of thyself, 
 But of those God may give thee of her, that they 
 reproach thee not for their being." 
 
 And again — 
 
 " Let her be a child of God, that she bring with her a 
 blessing to thy house — 
 A blessing above riches, and leading contentment in 
 its train." 
 
 Little did poor Patricius think that day of such 
 a blessing as in store for him ; but a Hand was 
 leading the future mother, too skilful* to miss 
 its aim. 
 
 Monica had sinned, for she had not married 
 "in the Lord;" and many bitter tears it cost 
 her, and " a great fight of afflictions." 
 
 The honeymoon was not Avell over, when 
 Patricius was at his old ways — night after 
 night a stranger to the home-hearth — a fre- 
 quenter of revels; and returning again and 
 
 * Pa. Ixxviii. 72. 
 
 3* 
 
30 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 again to his youtliful wife, only to rage and 
 scold, and even, at times, to lift his hand to 
 her. Monica gave herself to patience and to 
 prayer. "She so endured," says Augustine, 
 " the wronging of her bed, as never to have 
 any quarrel with her husband thereon. For 
 she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that, 
 believing in Thee, he might be made chaste." 
 
 And he adds : — " She had learned not to 
 resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but 
 not even in word. Only when he was smooth 
 and tranquil, and in a temper to receive it, she 
 would give an account of her actions, if haply 
 he had overhastily taken offence. In a word, 
 while many matrons, who had milder husbands, 
 would in familiar talk blame their husbands' 
 lives, she would blame their tongues. And, 
 when they, knowing what a choleric husband 
 she endured, marvelled that it had never been 
 heard, nor by any token perceived, that Pa- 
 tricius had beaten his wife, or that there had 
 been any domestic difference between them, 
 even for one day, — confidentially asking the 
 reason, she told them, that, from the time she 
 heard the marriage-writings read to her, she 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 81 
 
 had accounted them an indenture, binding lier 
 not to set herself up against her lord." 
 
 Monica had another trial under the home- 
 roof. Patricius had a peevish mother, whose 
 suspicious temperament, finding a ready accom- 
 plice in the " whisperings of evil servants," 
 was to the household a daily rankling sore. 
 But, even for her, Monica's "persevering en- 
 durance and meekness" were too much; and, 
 at length, the shrew was "so overcome," that 
 she "of her own accord discovered to her sou 
 the meddling tongues" which had disturbed 
 the domestic peace, entreating him to correct 
 them. The wound was healed ; and they hence- 
 forth "lived together with a remarkable sweet- 
 ness of mutual kindness." 
 
 "Love," it is written, "thinketh no evil." 
 Monica possessed that life-sweetening grace. 
 " This great gift also," says Augustine, " Thou 
 bestowedst, O my God, my Mercy, upon that 
 good handmaid of Thine, in whose womb Thou 
 createdst me, that, between any disagreeing 
 and discordant parties, where she was able, she 
 shewed herself such a peacemaker, that, hearing 
 on both sides most bitter things, such as swell- 
 
32 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 ing and undigested clioler uses to break forth 
 into when the crudities of enmities are breathed 
 out in sour discourses to a present friend against 
 an absent enemy, she never would disclose 
 aught of the one unto the other, but what might 
 tend to their reconcilement. Such was she; 
 Thyself, her most inward Instructor, teaching 
 her in the school of the heart." 
 
 And, alluding to these first years of her 
 married life, he adds : — " She' served her hus- 
 band as her lord, and did her dihgence to win 
 him unto Thee, — preaching Thee unto him in 
 lier conversation by which Thou ornamentedst 
 her, making her reverently amiable and admi- 
 rable unto him." 
 
 At length, he Avho one day was to be 
 "brought forth by her in heart, that he might 
 be born to light eternal," was " brought forth 
 by her in the flesh, that he might be born into 
 this temporal light." It was on the thirteenth 
 of November, in the year of our Lord 85St ^^ 
 
 " A babe in a house is a well-spring, a messenger of 
 peace and love." 
 
 The infant Aurelius was "taken up by the 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 33 
 
 comforts of God's compassion ;" and that "man- 
 sion of the soul," so narrow and so ruinous, 
 was not to be let alone until it had been re- 
 paired and enlarged, and made a fit dwelling 
 for Himself. 
 
III. 
 
 " How soft and peaceful were my slumbers then, 
 Blessed by that lovely thing, a mother's song I 
 How welcome was the waking with the day, 
 How glad the greeting with my playmate throng I 
 How beautiful I thought the daisy wreath, 
 With which I then adorn'd my infant brow I 
 No coronet would be so highly prized, 
 Or give the wearer half such pleasure now." 
 
 *' Man," it lias been said, 
 
 •' Doeth one thing at once, nor can he think two 
 thoughts together ; 
 But God compasseth all things." 
 
 The same year wliicli gave birth to the infant 
 Corsican who was one day to scourge Europe 
 saw in another far-distant island of the sea the 
 earliest smile of him who was to chain the 
 Gallic eagle to the solitary rock of St. Helena. 
 In like manner, just as the babe of Thegaste 
 appeared, a mother in a lonely cottage in Brit- 
 
 [34] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 85 
 
 ain Avas already nurturing a spirit which one 
 day was to scourge the Church with one of its 
 deadh,est heresies. By and by, we shall meet 
 Pelagius on the scene of conflict. Meanwhile, 
 we turn aside to the nursling-champion whom 
 God. was rearing to smite him down. 
 
 In his own quaint way, Augustine thus de- 
 scribes his first experience in this vale of tears : 
 " I here received (as I heard, for I remember 
 it not) the comforts of woman's milk. For 
 neither my mother nor my nurses stored their 
 own breasts for me, but Thou didst bestow the 
 food of my infancy through them, according to 
 Thine ordinance, whereby Thou distributest 
 Thy riches through the hidden springs of all 
 things. Thou also gavest me to desire no 
 more than Thou gavest, and to my nurses 
 willingly to give me what Thou gavest them ; 
 for they, with a heaven-taught affection, wil- 
 lingly gave me what they abounded with from 
 Thee. And this, my good from them, was 
 good for them : nor, indeed, from them was it, 
 but through them ; for from Thee, God, are 
 all good things, and from my God is all my 
 health. This I have since learned, — Thou, 
 
36 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 through these Thy gifts, within me and with- 
 out, prochiiming Thyself unto me ; for then I 
 knew but to suck — ^to repose in what pleased, 
 and to cry at what offended my flesh, — nothing 
 more." 
 
 A babe, it has been said, is 
 
 "A resting place for innocence on earth." 
 
 Alas, for the poetic fancy! "I began," says 
 Augustine, narrating the stern reality, " to 
 smile — first in sleep, then waking ; for so it 
 was told me, of myself. And, little by little, 
 I became conscious w^here I was, and began to 
 have a wish to express my wishes to those who 
 could content them. And I could not, for the 
 wishes were within me, and they without ; nor 
 could they, by any sense of theirs, enter within 
 my spirit. So I flung about at random limbs 
 and voice, making the few signs I could and 
 such as I could — like (though in truth very 
 little like) what I wished. And when I was 
 not presently obeyed, I was indignant at my 
 elders for not submitting to me ; and I avenged 
 myself on them by tears." 
 
 And he adds: — " Who remindeth me of the 
 
MEMOIli OF ST. AUGUSTI^^E. 37 
 
 sins of my infancy ! The weakness of infant 
 limbs, not its will, is its innocence. Mj'self 
 have seen and known even a baby envious; 
 it could not speak, yet it turned pale and 
 looked bitterly on its foster-brother. Is that 
 innocence, v/hen the fountain of milk is 
 flowing in rich abundance, not to endure one 
 to share ifc though in extremest need and 
 whose very life depends thereon ? We bear 
 gently with all this ; and yet, though tolerated 
 now, the very same tempers arc utterly intol- 
 erable, when found in riper years. Alas ! for 
 my sin ! for Thou madest me, but sin in me 
 Thou madest not. What is it to me, though 
 any comprehend not this ? " 
 
 By and by, -the " speechless infant " rose into 
 the " speaking boy." " This I remember," 
 says he, " and have since observed, how I 
 learned to speak. It was not that my elders 
 taught me words in any set method; but I, 
 longing by cries and broken accents and by 
 various motions of my limbs to express my 
 thoughts that so I might have my will, and yet 
 unable to express all I willed or to whom I 
 willed, did myself, by the understanding which 
 4 
 
38 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Thou, my God, gavest me, practise the sounds 
 in my memory. When they named anything 
 and, as they spoke, turned towards it, I saw 
 and remembered that they called what they 
 would point out by the name they uttered. 
 And, that they meant this thing and no other, 
 was plain from the motion of their body — the 
 natural language, as it were, of all nations, ex- 
 pressed by the countenance, by glances of the 
 eye, by gestures of the limbs, and by tones of 
 the voice, indicating the affections of the mind 
 as it pursues, possesses, rejects or shuns. And 
 thus, by constantly hearing words as they oc- 
 curred in various sentences, I collected gradu- 
 ally for what they stood ; and, having broken 
 in my mouth to these signs, I thereby gave ut- 
 terance to my will. Thus I exchanged with 
 those about me those current signs of our wills, 
 and so launched deeper into the stormy inter- 
 course of human life, yet depending on parental 
 authority and on the beck of elders." 
 
 " The joys of parents," says Bacon, '' are se- 
 cret ; and so are their griefs and fears : they 
 cannot utter the one ; and they will not utter 
 the other." As Monica gazed upon her boy, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 39 
 
 slie would breathe into tlie ear of her Lord — 
 the only ear into whicli she could breathe 
 freely — many a tremulous aspiration. " There 
 is an eternal life," she would whisper to him, 
 "promised through the humility of the Lord 
 our God stooping to our pride." And often, 
 often did she pray that the good seed might 
 take root. 
 
 One day, in a field, the boy was " attacked 
 with a sudden oppression of the stomach," and 
 was " like near death." A strange terror seized 
 him, until, after a few days, he " suddenly re- 
 covered." The terror wore off as suddenly as 
 it had come ; but it was the first heavings of 
 that troubled sea which, only after a tossing 
 of his frail bark upon its billows for nearly 
 thirty years, was to hear the voice from heaven, 
 saying, " Peace I be still !" 
 
IV. 
 
 " Seldom, -when life is mature, and the strength proportioned to the 
 burden, 
 
 Will the feeling mind, that can remember, acknowledge to deeper 
 anguish 
 
 Than when, as a stranger and a little one, the heart first ached with 
 anxiety 
 
 And the sprouting buds of sensibility were bruised by the harsh- 
 ness of a school." 
 
 One evening, at the liomelj fireside at The- 
 gaste, and just as the boy had been put to bed, 
 Patricius was sitting in one of his tenderest 
 moods, talking with Monica of their son's fu- 
 ture prospects. 
 
 "We must send him to school," said the 
 father, winding up the conversation in a prac- 
 tical form, though not in the devoutest frame ; 
 " he has parts that will get him on in the world ; 
 he will be sure to make a figure.'' 
 
 " Yes," replied Monica, the motherly com- 
 placency and the saintly solicitude struggling 
 
 [40] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 41 
 
 for the mastery; "I hope he may excel in 
 tongue-science ; but oh ! that it -may lead him, 
 in some way, to God ! " 
 
 To school, accordingly, one autumn morn- 
 ing, he hied with a look sorely downcast. If 
 Monica, in her excessive fondness, had hither- 
 to— 
 
 " Stopp'd with indulgence the fountain of his tears," 
 
 that peril, at least, was over now. " O God, 
 my God," he wrote, many years afterwards, 
 looking back upon this era of his life, " what 
 miseries and mockeries did I now experience, 
 when obedience to my teachers was proposed 
 to me as proper in a boy, in order that in this 
 world I might prosper and excel in tongue- 
 science, which should serve to the 'praise of 
 men' and to deceitful riches." 
 
 "Custom," Bacon says, "is the principal 
 magistrate of man's life." In the school, poor 
 Aurelius found to his horror, a "custom" 
 which he describes thus : — " I was to get learn- 
 ing, in which I (poor v^^etch) knew not Avhat 
 use there was ; and yet. if idle in learning, I 
 was beaten. For, this was judged right by our 
 4-^ 
 
42 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 forefathers ; and many, passing the same course 
 before us, framed for us weary paths through 
 which we wers fain to pass, muhiplying toil 
 and grief upon the sons of Adam." He " loved 
 not study," and "hated to be forced to it;" 
 yet he " was forced." 
 
 And the worst of all was, " his elders, yea, 
 his very parents, who yet wished him no ill," 
 would " mock his stripes, his then great and 
 grievous ill." Even Monica — such was the 
 "tyrant-power of custom" — had no relentings 
 at the "wrenching" of her boy's "young 
 heart's fibres." 
 
 One heart, the boy had heard, was not 
 steeled. " Lord," says he, " we found that 
 men called upon Thee ; and we learned from 
 them to think of Thee (according to our pow- 
 ers) as of some great One who, though hidden 
 from our senses, couldst hear and help us. 
 And so I began to pray to Thee, my aid and 
 refuge, — and broke again the fetters of my 
 tongue to call on Thee, praying Thee — though 
 small, yet with no small earnestness — that I 
 might not be beaten at school." His prayer, 
 however, was "not heard; " and, in after-years, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 43 
 
 he blessed the Lord that He " did not thereby 
 give him over to folly." 
 
 The urchin's " sole dehght " was " play." 
 
 " Unbutton'd, glowing hot," 
 His joy . . " to kneel and draw 
 The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw , 
 To pitch the ball into the rounded hat, 
 Or drive it devious with a dextrous pat." 
 
 And for this — poor boy ! he was " punished by 
 those who yet themselves were doing the like." 
 But '' elder folks' idleness," says he, '' is called 
 ' business ' ; that of boys being really the same, 
 is punished by those elders. He who beat me 
 was, if worsted in some trifling discussion with 
 his fellow-tutor, more embittered and jealous 
 than I when beaten at ball by a play -fellow." 
 
 And another apology he found for his boy- 
 ish idleness : — " I loved the pride of victory in 
 my contests, and to have my ears tickled with 
 lying fables, that they might itch the more, — 
 the same curiosity flashing from my eyes, more 
 and more, for the shows and games of my 
 elders. Yet those who give these shows," he 
 proceeds, " are in such esteem, that almost all 
 
44 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 wish the same for their children, and yet are 
 very willing that they should be beaten if 
 those very games detain them from the studies 
 whereby they would have them attain to be 
 givers of them." And he adds : — " Look with 
 pity, Lord, on these things." 
 
 Poor wight ! how his soul was haunted by 
 that terrific spectre of the birch 1 
 
 " How sorrow sat upon his pillow, and terror woke bim 
 up betimes ! " 
 
 " Is there, Lord," we find him exclaiming, long 
 afterwards, as the unquieted ghost rose up be- 
 fore him in all its old grimness, " any of soul 
 so great, and cleaving to Thee with so intense 
 affection, that he can think as lightly of the 
 racks and boots and other torments, against 
 which, throughout all lands, men call on Thee 
 with extreme dread, and can smile at those by 
 whom they are feared most bitterly, as our pa- 
 rents smiled at the torments which we suffered 
 in boyhood from our masters ? For we feared 
 not our torments the less ; nor prayed we less 
 to Thee, to escape them." 
 
 Bitterly, however, in after-days, did lie la- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 45 
 
 merit this " sowing of wild oats." " I sinned 
 herein," he writes, '* Lord God, the Creator 
 and Disposer of all things in nature, I sinned 
 in transgressing the commands of my parents 
 and of those my masters. For, what they, with 
 whatever motive, would have me learn, I might 
 afterward have put to good use. I sinned in 
 writing or reading or studying less than was 
 exacted of me. For I wanted not, Lord, 
 memory or capacity, whereof Thy will gave 
 enough for my age." 
 
" How weak the barrier of mere nature proves, 
 Opposed against the pleasure nature loves I 
 While self-betray'd, and wilfully undone, 
 She longs to yield, no sooner woo'd than won." 
 
 *' Oh ! that I miglit repose on Thee ! " Au- 
 gustine wrote, one day. "Oh I that Thou 
 wouldst enter into my heart, and inebriate it, 
 that I might forget my ills, and embrace Thee, 
 my sole good ! " But a dark, dark night was 
 yet to be traversed,before he could even breathe 
 this longing. 
 
 We enter the school again. There he is, — 
 still a prisoner on that bench I How it is 
 
 " Mangled, hack'd, and hew'd, not yet destroy'd." 
 
 And how he " hates the Greek !" And — the 
 "reading, writing, and arithmetic," he "thinks 
 as great a penalty as any Greek." The " Lat- 
 ere] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 47 
 
 in " lie " loved ;" not the elements, however, 
 but "what the so-called" grammarians "taught" 
 him. He "learned the wanderings of one ^neas, 
 forgetful of his own ;" and he " wept for dead 
 Dido, because she killed herself for love, — the 
 while, with dry eyes, enduring his miserable 
 self-dying among tliese things, far from Him 
 who was his life." And thus his " curious 
 spirit" was 
 
 " Crarara'd with unwholesome gaiioage, 
 "While starving for the mother's milk the breasts of nature 
 
 yield ; 
 And high-color'd fables of depravity lured with their classic 
 
 varnish, 
 While truth was holding out in vain her mirror much des- 
 
 Foster describes "glory" as " vanity turned 
 into a god," — having this one advantage over 
 every other, that it makes msLnhvnsel/the idol. 
 "This," says he, "is the adored object for 
 which so many souls are feverishly panting I 
 This is what calls out the energy of all the 
 faculties, — what poets and orators, and the 
 world's other oracles, have been extolling 
 through all ages I This is what absorbs the 
 
48 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 devotion due to God! this is wliat myriads 
 have been willing to lose their souls to obtain !" 
 In letters of living fire that phantasm was now 
 engraven on the youthful learner's heart. 
 
 One clay " a task was set upon him — ^upon 
 terms of praise, or of shame and stripes " — to 
 " speak the words of Juno (words, he had heard, 
 she never uttered) as she raged and mourned 
 that she could not 
 
 ' This Trojan prince from Latium turn.' " 
 
 The boy was roused to an unwonted effort ; 
 and as he was pronounced the victor, the walls 
 rang again. It was 
 
 " Tlie fire-damp gathering in the mine, 
 The soul svrelling with poisonous air, which a spark of temp- 
 tation might explode." 
 
 " What is it to me," he wrote long after 
 wards, " my true life, my God, that my dec- 
 lamation was applauded above so many of my 
 own age and class ? is not all this smoke and 
 wind ? And was there nothing else whereon 
 to exercise my wit and tongue ? Thy praises, 
 Lord, Thy praises might have stayed the yet 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 49 
 
 tender slioot of my heart by the prop of Thy 
 Scriptures. I read of Jove the thunderer and 
 the adulterer — a divine nature ascribed to 
 wicked men, that crimes might be no longer 
 crimes, and that those who committed them 
 might seem to imitate not abandoned men but 
 the celestial gods. And, O my God, all this 
 unhappily I learned willingly, with great de- 
 light, and, for this was pronounced a hopeful 
 boy." 
 
 Destined by his parents to be a "teacher of 
 oratory" — a profession of great dignity and 
 influence in those days, — he now removed to 
 the " neighbour city" of Madaura. He was in 
 his fifteenth year ; and most affecting is the 
 picture which he gives of his " foulness and 
 corruption." " With innumerable lies he would 
 deceive his tutors, his masters, his parents," 
 from " eagerness to see vain shows and from 
 restlessness to imitate them." So "enslaved" 
 Avas he, too, by "greediness," or "that he might 
 have to give to boys who sold him their play," 
 that he would "commit thefts from his parents' 
 cellar and table." Fierce passions also " boiled" 
 within him, "sinking him in a gulf of flagi- 
 5 
 
50' MEilOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 tionsness." And conscience had ceased to ut- 
 ter her protests. " I was grown deaf," says 
 he, "by the clanking of the chain of my mor- 
 tality, the punishment of the pride of my soul ; 
 and I strayed farther from Thee, and Thou let- 
 tedst me alone, and I Avas tossed about, and 
 wasted and dissipated, and I boiled over in my 
 fornications, and Thoa heldest Thy peace, O 
 Thou my tardy joy ! Thou then heldest Thy 
 peace ; and I wandered further and further 
 from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed- 
 plots of sorrows, with a proud dejectedness and 
 a restless weariness !" 
 
 Meanwhile, Patricius Augustine was still a 
 pagan ; but Monica prayed on. Another year 
 was to finish his course on earth ; but, before 
 passing into eternity, he was to pass from death 
 to life. Monica could wait ; and long she had 
 waited : but, like her prototype of " the bor- 
 ders of Tyre andSidon," she was one Avho could 
 take no denial. " Through the witness of the 
 fruits of a holy conversation," lie at last was 
 drawn after Him whom she loved so well. 
 '' Towards the very end of his earthly life," 
 says Aurelius, "did she gain him unto Thee : 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 51 
 
 nor had she to complain of that in him, as a 
 believer, which, before he was a believer, she 
 had borne from him." 
 
 The student vias at home again, passing " a 
 season of idleness, occasioned by the narrow- 
 ness of his parents' fortunes." It was his six- 
 teenth year ; and, chough his God was "merci- 
 fully rigorous" to him, besprinkling with most 
 bitter alloy all his unlawful pleasures, " that 
 he might seek pleasure without alloy" — he 
 "foamed" more than ever, "like a troubled 
 sea, following the rushing of his own tide — 
 forsaking God, and exceeding all God's lim- 
 its." 
 
 Monica wept and trembled. Year by year 
 — almost month by month — her counsels and 
 her entreaties seemed to tell less feebly on her 
 bo}^ Like some coral island, 
 
 "Fresh from the floor of the Atlantic, 
 Dinted by everj ripple, aud a sofl wave smoothing its 
 
 surface. 
 But soon its substance hardening in the winds and 
 
 tropic sun, 
 And weakly the foaming billows breaking against its 
 
 adamantine wall," — 
 
52 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Aurelius seemed hardening into an "obduracy 
 of vileness" almost bej^ond the reach of hope. 
 " Behold," says he, " with what companions I 
 walked the streets of Babylon, and wallowed 
 in the mire thereof, as if in a bed of spices and 
 precious ointments ! And, that I might cleave 
 the faster to its very centre, the invisible enemy 
 trod me down, and seduced me, for I was easy 
 to be seduced." Monica would warn him "in 
 private, and with great anxiety," against " those 
 crooked ways in which they walk who turn 
 their back to God and not the face." But 
 " the briers of unclean desires grew only more 
 rank over his head." His mother's words were 
 "womanish advices," which he should "blush 
 to obey." 
 
 It was "God himself speaking to him by 
 her," though he "knew it not." 
 
 But even then he was not let quite alone. 
 "Dare I say," he writes, "that Thou heldest 
 Thy peace, my God, while I wandered fur- 
 ther from Thee? Didst Thou then indeed hold 
 Thy peace to me ? And whose but Thine 
 were those words which by my mother. Thy 
 faithful one, Thou sangestin my ears — nothing 
 
MEMOIi: OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 53 
 
 whereof sank into my heart so as to do it ? I 
 thought Thou wert silent, and that it was she 
 who spake ; by whoni Thou wert not silent 
 unto me, but in her was despised by me her 
 son, ' the son of Thy hand-maid. Thy servant.' 
 I sank away from Thee, cind I wandered, O my 
 God, too much astray from* Thee, my stay ; 
 and I became a barren land." 
 
 5* 
 
VI. 
 
 *' Man, on the dubious waves of error tossed, 
 His ship half foundered, and his compass lost, 
 Sees, far as human optics may command, 
 A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land." 
 
 It was a beautiful summer evening, and the 
 sun was setting with a cahn lustre peculiar to 
 a Mediterranean sky, when, on the Corso of 
 Carthage, might be seen a gay crowd, flitting 
 along 
 
 " Like some fairy skifif, plying on the sea of life. " 
 
 An hour or two passed; and the capacious 
 theatre was re-echoing to the huzzas of a 
 countless multitude, mad with impure excite- 
 ment and with " the hell of lustfulness." The 
 night orgies over, and the next sun scarce 
 risen, there were pacing the halls of the rheto- 
 ricians' school certain of the most prominent 
 idlers of the Corso and of the Circus, " learning 
 [54] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINl!:. o5 
 
 eloquence," to " excel in the courts of litiga. 
 tion," and "desiring to be eminent, out of a 
 damnable and vain-glorious end — a joy in hu- 
 man vanity." One of these was Aurelius, now 
 entering his seventeenth year, and a student in 
 his last term.* 
 
 The fashion in the schools was to set the 
 youths 
 
 " A-tilting with their fellows," 
 
 "confounding" true philosophy "in a laby- 
 rinth of words." In this logomachy the stu- 
 dent of Thegaste was soon the acknowledged 
 "chief," — whereat he "joyed proudly" and 
 " swelled with arrogancy." 
 
 But he had not been in Carthage many 
 weeks, when "there sang all around him in 
 his ears a cauldron of unholy loves." He 
 "loved not yet; " but, " in love with loving," 
 he " sought what he might love." " Safetv " 
 he hated, and " a way without snares." His 
 " soul, sickly and full of sor-??," longed to be 
 
 *"By his resolution," says Aug-ustine, "rather than by 
 his means, my father furnished me with all necessaries for 
 going to Carthage for my studies' sake." 
 
66 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 " scraped by tlie touch of the objects of sense ; " 
 and so, ere long, " defiling the spring of friend- 
 ship with the filth of concupiscence," he "fell 
 headlong^ into the love in which he desired to 
 be ensnared." Another of his '^ fleshly de- 
 lights" was "stage-plays." "Full of images 
 of his miseries and of fuel to his fire," they 
 yet moved so intensely his sorrow, that "this 
 very sori'ow was his pleasure ; " and, night 
 after night, he "stayed intent, and wept for 
 joy." Himself "miserable," he "loved to 
 grieve, and sought out what to grieve at," — 
 that "acting best pleasing him, and attracting 
 him the most vehemently, which drew from 
 him most tears." 
 
 It was whilst thus " wandering with a stiff 
 neck," and "loving a vagrant libert}^," that 
 that "faithful mercy," which had "hovered 
 over him from afor," sped from its quiver the 
 first awakening arrow. One day, "in the or- 
 dinary course of study," he "fell upon a cer- 
 tain book of Cicero, containing an exhortation 
 to philosophy." As yet, "apostolic scripture 
 was not known" to him; but "Ilortensius" 
 discoursed so wisely concerning the vanity of 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 57 
 
 the prevailing fashion of the schools, that he 
 was "strongly roused and kindled and inflamed 
 to love and seek and obtain and hold and em- 
 brace, not this or that sect, but wisdom itself, 
 whatever it might be." Every "vain hope" 
 at once became worthless to him ; and he 
 " longed with an incredibly burning desire for 
 an immortality of wisdom." 
 
 The book "altered his whole affections, 
 making him other purposes and desires." 
 "Not to sharpen my tongue," says he, "did I 
 employ that book ; nor did it infuse into me 
 its stylC; but its matter. 
 
 But one thing " checked him thus enkin- 
 dled." "The name of Christ," he thought 
 within himself, one day, "is not in it." For, 
 though up to that hour the precious name had 
 had no place as a power in his conscience or 
 in his heart, it had been " so drunk in with his 
 mother's milk," and so "deeply treasured," 
 that " whatever was without it, though never 
 so learned, polishecj, or true, took not entire 
 hold of him." But "now," says he, "I began 
 to arise that I might return to Thee. How did 
 I burn, my Clod, how did I burn to remount 
 
58 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Irom earthly things to Thee ! nor knew I what 
 Thou woulclst do with me. For with Thee is 
 Avisdom." 
 
 The "poor freeman of Thegaste " was 
 seized that autumn with a sudden ilhiess ; and 
 Aurelius hastened home. lie arrived to find 
 his worst fears realized; for Patricius had 
 "fallen asleep," and Monica was a widow. 
 The stroke came at a moment not inopportune ; 
 and, under it, Monica demeaned herself so 
 calmly, and found in the Word a balm so sol- 
 acing, that the student returned to Carthage, 
 " resolved to bend his mind to the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, that he might see what they were.'' 
 
 But as yet he Avent to the Scriptures only to 
 " see in them a certain meanness, unworthy to 
 be compared with the stateliness of Tully ; " 
 and his "swelling pride" shrank from their 
 lowliness, nor could his "sharp wit pierce the 
 interior thereof." The Bible, and its simple 
 message of grace, is " a thing not understood 
 by the proud, but laid open to children" — • 
 lowly in access — 'in its recesses lofty, and 
 veiled with mysteries;" and he was "not such 
 as enter it, or to stoop his neck to follow its 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 59 
 
 steps." "Its mysteries are such," says he, "as 
 grow up in a little one ; but I disdained to be 
 a little one, — being swollen with pride, and 
 taking myself to be a great one." 
 
 Aurelius had come within sight of the ha- 
 ven ; but the time of entrance and of rest was 
 not yet. 
 
VII. 
 
 " Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they display, 
 Shines as it runs, but, grasp'd at, shps away." 
 
 A CENTURY before, from a cave in Turkistan, 
 there had issued a strange pretender, claiming 
 to. have been miraculously born of a virgin, 
 and to have received from heaven, during his 
 mysterious retirement, certain special revela- 
 tions. Buddha, Zoroaster, the Christ, had been, 
 each in their turn, the manifested God; and 
 Manx himself was no other than the promised 
 " Paraclete," whose mission was to restore the 
 Church by '^leading into all truth," by solving 
 all problems, by initiating into all mysteries 
 all who yearned after knowledge. 
 
 Spirit and matter (said this deceiver, fiishion- 
 ing with his plastic hand into one uncouth 
 medley the Christian doctrine and the old re- 
 ligions of Asia,) are essentially antagonistic ; 
 [60] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 61 
 
 their union gradually benumbing "sjoirit" into 
 unconsciousness. To the ordinary human in- 
 carnations of spirit, the only method of release 
 is a process of self-crucifying purification, fol- 
 lowed by an ultimate absorption into the primal 
 Spirit. Buddha, Zoroaster, the Christ, and 
 Mani, rising superior to the coLstraining bonds 
 of matter, have wrought out redemption for 
 the souls which otherwise were hopelessly im- 
 prisoned. For sin, indeed, and for atonement, 
 Manicheism found no place, evil being a mere 
 accident resulting from the creature's temporary 
 bondage to matter ; but it spoke of a Christ 
 " crucified in every soul," — a suffering " son of 
 man" hanging upon every tree, — the entire 
 world as one vast cross, on which spirit was 
 suffering crucifixion at the hands of implacable 
 matter. 
 
 The student of Carthage was now thrown 
 among these '' talkers." Inwardly, in the mar- 
 row of his soul, panting after truth and after 
 Him who is the truth, he had '' served up " to 
 him these " glittering phantasies ; and, because 
 he "thought them to be God," he "fed thereon." 
 " I fell," says he, " among men proudly doting, 
 6 
 
62 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 exceeding carnal and prating ; in whose moutlis 
 were the snares of the devil, limed with the 
 mixture of the syllables of Thy name, and of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, 
 the Paraclete our Comforter. These names 
 departed not out of their mouth; but so far 
 forth as the sound only and the noise of the 
 tongue, for the heart was void of truth. Yet 
 they cried out, 'Truth! Truth!' and spake 
 much thereof to me ; but it ' was not in them.' " 
 Poor Aurelius! how he was buffeted and 
 tossed — the sport of every charlatan, the slave 
 of every passion ! 
 
 "Lime begg'd of old, tliey say, 
 A neighbor spring to cool bis inward heat, 
 Which, b}'- the spring's access, grew much more great." 
 
 Such Avas Augustine. " Thou," says he, " wast 
 not these emptinesses ; nor was I nourished by 
 them, but exhausted rather. Food in sleep 
 looks very like our food awake ; yet are not 
 those asleep nourished by it, for they are 
 asleep." And he adds :• — " How much better 
 are the fables of poets and grammarians than 
 these snares! For, 'Medea flying,' though I 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGTSTINE. 63 
 
 did sing, I believed not ; but these things I did 
 believe. AYoe, woe ! by what steps was I 
 brought down to ' the depths of hell ! ' toiling 
 and turmoiling through want of truth ! " 
 
 But one heart was not daunted, — "hoping 
 against hope." 
 
 " By faith valiant for her son." 
 
 Monica " saw herself standing," one night, " on 
 a certain wooden rale," when " a shining one 
 came towards her clieerful and smiling," her- 
 self " grieving and overwhelmed with grief" 
 "Why weepest thou?" tenderly inquired the 
 mysterious visitor. " Oh ! my Aurelius ! " sob- 
 bed the mother; "my heart breaks for him." 
 " Look ! " said the stranger ; and, glancing in 
 the direction to which he pointed, she saw her 
 son " standing by her in the same rule." " Be 
 content and of good courage!" he added, 
 " where thou art, there he is also." And 
 Monica awoke. 
 
 The mother, overjoyed, hastened to her son, 
 and narrated the dream. "Ah!" said Aure- 
 lius, " it means rather that 3^ou should not de- 
 spair of being one day what I am." "No," 
 
64 MEMOIK OF ST. AUGUSTINi:. 
 
 replied Monica promptly; "it was not told 
 me that 'where he, there thou also,' but ' where 
 thou, there he also.' " " I confess to Thee, O 
 Lord," Augustine wrote, long afterwards, re- 
 calling the incident, " that, to the best of mj 
 remembrance (and I have oft spoken of this), 
 Thy answ^er through my waking mother — that 
 she was not perplexed by the plausibility of 
 my false interpretation, and so quickly saw 
 what was to be seen, and which I certainly 
 had not perceived before she spake — even then 
 moved me more than the dream itself, by 
 which a joy to the holy woman, to be fulfilled 
 so long after, was, for the consolation of her 
 present anguish, so long before fore-signified." 
 And, at a later period, he added : — " Whence 
 was it but that Thine ears were towards her 
 heart, O Thou Good Omnipotent^ who so ever 
 carest for every one of us as if Thou carcdst 
 for him onl}^, and so for all as if they were 
 but one ?" 
 
 Another day, Monica '■ knocked at the door 
 of a certain bishop, brought up in Tliy Church, 
 and well studied in Thy books." Known and 
 honoured as one of the Lord's tine sliepherds 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTII>rE. 65 
 
 who yearned over the lost and the wandering, 
 — Monica had come to him to engage his kind 
 offices on behalf of her son. " Do speak to 
 him," she said, as she stood in his humble 
 apartment, the tears " streaming down her 
 care-worn cheek:" "imteach him ill things, 
 and teach him good things ; for he is led cap- 
 tive by the devil at his will." " No," replied 
 the bishop, kindly ; " let him alone a while ; 
 he is not teachable yet, he is puffed up Avith 
 vain notions." " But what," rejoined Monica, 
 "Khe be taken away in his sins?" "Wo 
 must wait," said the bishop gravely ; " my 
 own mother was once seduced by the same 
 impiety, and handed me over to these people. 
 I read all their books, and frequently copied 
 out almost all of them. But, without any 
 argument or proof from any one, I was de- 
 livered from that snare of the devil. There- 
 fore wait, and pray to God for him." "But 
 wdll you not see him ?" she again asked, with 
 many tears. "Wait, I say, wait," was the 
 reply; "w^ait patiently: the son of these tears 
 cannot perish." 
 For nine more years was Aurelius to "wallow 
 6* 
 
66 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTIXE. 
 
 in tlie mire of that deep pit, and in the dark- 
 ness of falsehood,— often assaying to rise, but 
 dashed down the more grievously.' And, all 
 that time, did the "chaste, godly, and sober 
 widow — now more cheered with hope, yet no 
 whit relaxing in her weeping and mourning" — 
 continue, " at all hours of her devotions," 
 to bewail his case before the Lord. " Her 
 prayers," says he, " entered into Thy presence; 
 and yet Thou sufferedst me to be involved aud 
 re-involved in that darkness." 
 
 In those years — " from his nineteenth to his 
 eight-and-twcntieth," — first in his native town, 
 and latterly in Carthage, he "taught rhetoric." 
 " Overcome by cupidity," says he, " I made 
 sale of a loquacity to overcome by. Choosing 
 honest scholars (as they were accounted), I, 
 without artifice, taught them artifices, to be 
 practised, not against the life of the guiltless, 
 though sometimes for the life of the guilty." 
 
 Ilis ruling passion was, to "hunt after the 
 emptiness of popular praise, down even to 
 theatrical applauses, and poetic prizes, and 
 strifes for grassy garlands, and the follies of 
 shows." One day, he had "settled to enter 
 
MEMOIll CF ST. AUGL'SriNE. 67 
 
 the lists for a theatrical prize," when a wizzard 
 asked him " what he would give him to w^in?" 
 The wizzard was to "sacrifice some living 
 creatures to the devils, and, by these honours, 
 to invite them to favour him." The "foul mys- 
 teries" he did not consent to, — but " not out 
 of love to God." Another of his snares was " a 
 seduced and seducing lust." " In those years," 
 says he, " I had one, not in that which is called 
 lawful marriage, but whom I had found out in 
 a wayward passion, void of understanding : — 
 Cow per unites : — 
 
 " Faults in the life breed errors in the brain, 
 And these reciprocally those again ; 
 The mind and conduct mutually imprint 
 And stamp their image in each other's mint ; 
 Each, sire and dam of an infernal race. 
 Begetting and conceiving all that's base." 
 
 Augustine in those 3^ears might have sat for 
 that picture. "These things," he wrote after- 
 wards, looking back upon the humiliating 
 scene, " did I follow and practise with my 
 friends, deceived by me and with me. O my 
 God, I would still confess to Thee mine own 
 shame in Thy praise." 
 
VIII. 
 
 " My God ! what is a heart ?" 
 
 " Where ? " it has been asked, concerning 
 him whose " bark is cut from the anchorage 
 of God," 
 
 " Where is the imposture so gross, that shall not entrap 
 his curiosity ? 
 "What superstition so abject, that it doth not blanch 
 his cheek ? " 
 
 A new imposture now led Aurelius captive. 
 " Nativity-casters" — because they " seemed to 
 use no sacrifice, nor to pray to any spirit for 
 tlieir divinations" — he "consulted without 
 scruple." Instead of 
 
 "Counting down from God's goodwill, and melting 
 every riddle into Him," 
 
 these star-gazers "said, ' The cause of thy sin 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 69 
 
 is determined in heaven,' and, ' This did Yenus, 
 or Saturn, or Mars,' — that man, forsooth, flesh 
 and blood, and proud corruption, might be 
 blameless, whilst the Creator and Ordainer of 
 heaven and of the stars was to bear the blame." 
 The folly was pleasing to the rhetorician's un- 
 broken heart ; and lie clung to it with "a mad 
 desire." 
 
 One afternoon, some months before, in the 
 crowded Circus, the walls had rung to the 
 echo, as a graceful youth came forward, at the 
 close, to receive from the hand of the Eoman 
 proconsul the " agonistic garland." From that 
 hour the magistrate and the prizeman had been 
 sworn friends. " A wise man ; very skilful in 
 physic, and renowned therein ; simple in his 
 speech, but vivid, lively and earnest," — he had 
 won the heart of Aurelius, who " hung assidu- 
 ously and fixedly" on his lips. "Gather- 
 ing by his discourse" that he was "given to 
 the books of the nativity -casters," the old man 
 " kindly and fatherly advised him to cast them 
 away, and not to fruitlessly bestow upon these 
 vanities a care and diligence necessary for use- 
 ful things." 
 
70 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 and the counsel grated upon his ear. "I 
 studied the art," said the proconsul^ an evening 
 or two afterwards, "intending to make it my 
 profession ; and, as I understood Hippocrates, 
 I could soon have understood such a study as 
 this: but I gave it over, and took to physic, 
 because I found it utterly false." " How, then, 
 replied Augustine, impatiently, "can many 
 true things be foretold by it ? " Why, chance," 
 said his friend, " brings this about. If you 
 open the pages, of a poet who sings of some- 
 thing wholly different, a verse will oftentimes 
 fall out wondrously agreeable to the present 
 business : why, then, out of the soul of man, 
 unconscious of what takes place within it, may 
 there not be given by hap, not by art, an an- 
 swer corresponding to the business and actions 
 of the demander?" "But," replied Augus- 
 tine, " I have as yet found no certain proof that 
 what is truly foretold of these people was the 
 result of hap-hazard, not of the art of star- 
 gazers." "Thou hast rhetoric to maintain tliy- 
 selfby," urged the magistrate, "so that thou 
 folio west this of free choice, not of necessity : 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 71 
 
 the more, then, ouo-htcst thou to Give me credit 
 herein, Avho laboured to acquire it so perfectly 
 as to get my living by it alone." 
 
 Augustine was not moved. " Thus much," 
 he writes, in his Confessions, referring to this 
 stage of his wanderings, " either from or 
 througli him. Thou conveyedst to me, and 
 tracedst in my memory, Avhat I might thereaf- 
 ter examine for myself But, at that time, 
 neither he, nor my dearest Nebridius — a youth 
 singularly good, and of a holy fear, who de- 
 rided the whole body of divination — could 
 persuade me to cast it aside, — the authority of 
 the authors swaying me yet more." It was 
 but another instance of Cowper's apophthegm — 
 
 * Hear the just law^the judgment of the skies — 
 He that hates truth shall bo the dupe of lies ; 
 And he that will be cheated to the last, 
 Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast." 
 
 The delusions were not yet over. One day, 
 at Carthage, " a book of Aristotle, which they 
 called the Ten Predicaments," fell into his 
 hands ; and he " read and understood it un- 
 aided." A great celebrity of the town, "ac- 
 counted learned," used to "mouth the name 
 
72 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 of Aristotle with clieeks bursting witli pride ;" 
 and young Aurelius would liang " on the very 
 name," as on " something great and divine." 
 The book appeared to him to " speak very 
 clearly of substances, such as ' man,' and of 
 their qualities, as the figure of a man, of what 
 sort it is ; and stature, how many feet high ; 
 and his relationship, whose brother he is ; or 
 where placed ; or when born ; or whether he 
 stands or sits, or be shod or armed, or does or 
 suffers anything; and all the innumerable 
 things which may be ranged under these Nine 
 Predicaments of which the above are speci- 
 mens, or under that chief Predicament of Sub- 
 stance." His vanity, too, was flattered, when, 
 "on conferring with others who said that they 
 scarcely understood the book with the help of 
 very able tutors not only orally explaining it 
 but drawing many things in sand," he found 
 they " could tell no more of it than he had 
 learned reading it by himself" 
 But he lasted 
 
 " The sweet Circeau cup," 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 73 
 
 only to find it once more "a blinding spell." 
 " What," says he, " did all this further me, 
 seeing it even hindered me ? when imagining 
 that whatever is, was comprehended under 
 those Ten Predicaments, I essayed in such 
 wise to understand, my. God, Thy wonderful 
 and unchangeable Unity also, as if Thou also 
 hadst been subjected to Thine own greatness and 
 beauty. But it was falsehood which of Thee 
 I conceived, not truth; fictions of my misery, 
 not the realities of Thy blessedness." 
 
 A new experiment was tried. All the books 
 he could procure " on the so-called liberal arts," 
 he greedily devoured, " delighting in whatever 
 had been written of them," and, "by himself, 
 without much difficulty or any instructor, un- 
 derstanding them." But this, too, proved only 
 another gilded cheat. " I knew not," says he, 
 " whence came all which therein was true and 
 certain ; for I had my back to the light, and 
 my face to the things enlightened, — whence 
 my face, with which I discerned the things en- 
 lightened, itself was not enlightened." And, 
 worse than all, he continued " the vile slave of 
 7 
 
74 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 vile affections," — " seduced and seducing, de- 
 ceived and deceiving, in divers lusts — openly, 
 by sciences wliicli they call liberal — secretly, 
 with a Mse-named religion — here proud, there 
 superstitious, everywhere vain." 
 
IX. 
 
 " Come, I will shew theo a fricud— ouo worthy of thy trust -. 
 Thino heart shall not weary of him." 
 
 "Fkiendship," it lias been said, "is a marvel 
 among men." Such a frieiidsbip Augustine's 
 yearning heart cla.sped to itself in these years. 
 Of his own age, this friend '' had grown up 
 as a child with him" — had been his schoolfellow 
 and playfellow; and both had reached, together, 
 "the opening flower of. j^outh." "Ripened," 
 too, "by the warmth of kindred studies," the 
 attachment grew so "sweet," that "his soul 
 could not be without him." Daily they would 
 "talk and jest together" — "do kind offices by 
 turns" — "read together honied books," — "play 
 the fool or be earnest together" — "dissent at 
 times without discontent, as a man might with 
 his own self," — "seasoning, even with the sel- 
 domness of these dissentings, their more fre- 
 quent meetings." 
 
 [75] 
 
76 MKMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 " They would commune of hopes and asph'ations, the 
 
 fervent breathings of the heart ; 
 They vrould speak with pleasant interchange the 
 
 treasured secrets of affection; 
 They would listen to the voice of complaint, and 
 
 whisper the language of comfort ; 
 And, as in a double solitude, would think in each 
 
 other's hearing." 
 
 "These and the like expressions," says Augus- 
 tine, "proceeding, out of hearts which love and 
 are loved again, by the countenance, the tongue, 
 the eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures, 
 were so much fuel to melt our souls together, 
 and out of two to make but one." 
 
 Alas! in another thing, also, the kindred 
 spirits were " but one." " From the true faith," 
 Augustine writes, "(which he, as a youth, had 
 not soundly and thoroughly imbibed), I warped 
 him to these superstitions and pernicious fables, 
 for which my mother bewailed me. AYith me 
 he now erred in mind." 
 
 Suddenly seized with "a sore fever," his 
 friend lay, one night, "senseless, in a death- 
 sweat." After a few days, he was unexpectedly 
 raised up ; and scarcely was he "able to speak," 
 when he found Aurelius (who "had never left 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 77 
 
 him," for they "hung but too much upon each 
 other ') at his bedside, "jesting with him," and 
 merry -hearted, "fancying his soul still loved 
 the emptinesses which before had charmed 
 them." But, instead of the old smile, the 
 invalid "so shrank from him as from an 
 enemy;" and, "with a wonderful and sudden 
 freedom," he "bade him, as he would continue 
 his friend, to forbear such language to him." 
 "All astonished and amazed," Augustine "sup- 
 pressed his emotions," till his friend should be 
 grown well, and his health be strong enough 
 for him to deal with him. But the young 
 Thegastian had found the "pearl of great 
 price." A few days later, in Aurelius' absence, 
 he was "attacked again by the fever," and 
 "so departed." 
 
 "These are thy wouders, Lord of power 1 
 Killing, and quick'ning ; bringing down to hell, 
 And up to heav'n, in an hour." 
 
 Poor Augustine! how he wept! "Sweet to 
 him above all sweetness of that his life," his 
 " lost one" seemed to have taken with him into 
 yonder cold tomb his other self "At this 
 
 7* 
 
78 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 grief," says he, " my heart was utterly darken- 
 ed; and whatever I beheld was death. What- 
 ever I had shared withhhn, was now — wanting 
 him — become a distracting torture. Mine eyes 
 sought him every\vhere, but he was not granted 
 them; and I hated all places, for that they 
 had not him; nor could they now tell me, 
 *He is coming,' as when he was alive, and 
 absent. I neither hoped he should return to 
 life, nor did I desire this with my tears ; but I 
 wept only and grieved, for I was miserable, 
 and had lost my joy." 
 
 It was a stunning stroke to him. Weeping 
 as if he would weep out his eyes, he seemed to 
 exclaim — 
 
 "Oh! who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs, 
 Dwell in my head and eyes. Come clouds and rain I 
 I've need of all the watery things 
 That Nature hath produced. Let ev'ry vein 
 Suck up a river, to supply mine eyes, 
 My weary, weeping eyes ; too dry for me, 
 Unless they get new conduits, new supplies, 
 To bear them out, and with my state agree." 
 
 His torn heart found only " tears sweet ;" for 
 they "succeeded his friend in the dearest of 
 
MEMOIK OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 79 
 
 his affections." "I bore about," says he, "a 
 shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being 
 borne by me ; yet, where to repose it, I found 
 not. Not ia calm groves, not in games and 
 music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious 
 banquetings, nor in the pleasures of the bed 
 and of the couch ; nor, finally, in books of 
 poesy — found it repose. All things looked 
 ghastly, yea, the very light ; whatever was not 
 what he was, was revolting and hateful, except 
 gToaning and tears. For in these alone found 
 I a little refreshment. But, when my soul was 
 withdrawn from them, a huge load of misery 
 weighed me down.. I wondered," he adds, 
 "that others, subject to death, did live, — since 
 he, whom I loved as if he should never die, 
 w^as dead. And I wondered yet more, that 
 myself, who was to him a second self, could 
 live, he being dead. Well said one of his 
 friends, ' Thou half of my soul !' for I felt that 
 my soul and his soul were ' one soul in two 
 bodies;' and therefore was my life a horror to 
 me, because I would not live halved." 
 
 In these hours of deep agony, he would 
 whisper to his disquieted spirit, "Trust in 
 
80 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 God !" But " she obeyed him not ;" and " very 
 rightly," — for "that most dear friend whom 
 she had lost, was, being man, both truer and 
 better than that phantasm she was bid to trust 
 in." 
 
 A.s jet, God was to him but a phantom, — 
 "his error was, his God." "To Thee, 
 Lord," says he, "my burdened soul ought to 
 have been raised, for Thee to lighten : I knew 
 it; but 1 neither could nor would; the more, 
 since, when I tliought of Thee, Thou wert not 
 to me any solid or substantial thing ; for Thou 
 wert not Thyself, but a mere ' brightness.' If 
 I offered to discharge my load thereon^ that it 
 might rest, — it glided through the void, and 
 came rushing down again upon me ; and I had 
 remained to myself a hapless spot, where I 
 could neither be, nor be from thence. For, 
 whither should my heart flee from ray heart ? 
 whither should I flee from myself? whither 
 not follow myself ?" 
 
 And, his God a phantom, his bereaved heart 
 naturally went, for "restoration and refresh- 
 ment," only to " the solaces of other friends." 
 "Blessed," says he, "whoso loveth Thee, and 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 81 
 
 his friend in Thee; for he alone loses none 
 dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him who 
 cannot be lost." A bitter discipline was yet to 
 teach him, that, " whithersoever the soul of 
 man turns itself, unless towards its God, it is 
 riveted upon sorrows, yea. though it is riveted 
 upon things beautiful.'* 
 
< By what unseen and unsuBpectcd arts 
 The serpent Error twines round human hearts ! 
 Not all whose eloquence the fancy fills , 
 Musical as the chime of tinkling rills, 
 Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend, 
 Can trace his mazy windings to their end." 
 
 "Pride," says one, "is coiled as a poisonous 
 worm about tlie foundations of the soul ;" and 
 its "death" is, to "wait as an almsman upon 
 God." Augustine was now in his twenty 
 seventh year; and, though "longing to stand 
 and hearken to God," he "could not, for the 
 voices of his own errors." " Through the weight 
 of my pride," says he, " I was sinking into the 
 lowest pit." 
 
 For a year or two back, he had been " medi- 
 tating on ' the fair and the fit.' " " Do we 
 love," he would say to his friends, " anything 
 but the beautiful ? What, then, is the beauti- 
 [82] 
 
MKMOIR 01' ST. AUGUSTINE. 83 
 
 ful ? and what is beauty ? What is it that 
 attracts and wins us to the things we love ? " 
 At lengtli "corporeal fictions," "buzzing in 
 the ears of his heart," came forth in "two or 
 three books," which he dedicated to " Hierius, 
 an orator of Eome," 
 
 This Koman he "knew not b}^ face," but 
 '' loved for the fame of his learning, and for 
 some words of his, which he had heard, and 
 which pleased him." By birth a Syrian, Hierius 
 had risen, after being "instructed in Grecian 
 eloquence," into "a wonderful Latin orator, 
 and one most learned in things pertaining imto 
 philosophy." Aurelius, wishhig to be " him- 
 self such," loved him "for the love of the 
 orator's commenders, rather than for tlic things 
 for which he was commended." "It was to 
 me a great matter,'' says he, " that m)' discourse 
 and labours should ])e known to that man ; 
 which should he approve, I were the more 
 kindled; but, if he disapproved, my empty 
 heart, void of Thy solidity, had been wounded. 
 F(^r so did I then lean upon the judgment of 
 men, not upon Tliine, O my God, in whom no 
 man is deceived." 
 
84 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 All this time, lie kne^7 not that the soul 
 must be "enlightened by another light" than 
 its own, if it would be "partaker of truth." 
 God must light its candle ; but Aurelius was 
 his own candle. "What prouder," says he, 
 "than for me, with a strange madness, to main- 
 tain myself to be by nature that which Thou 
 art ? And I was wont, pratingly and foolislily, 
 to ask Thy faithful little ones — 'Why, then, 
 doth the soul err, which God created ? ' But I 
 would not be asked, 'Why, tlien, dotli God 
 err?' And I maintained, that Thy unchange- 
 able substance did err upon constraint, rather 
 than confess that my changeable substance had 
 gone astray voluntarily ; and now, in punish- 
 ment, I lay in error." 
 
 The result he gives, thus: — "I pressed 
 towards Thee, and was thrust from Thee, that 
 I might taste of death ; for Thou ' resistest the 
 proud.'" And, again: — "I was repelled by 
 Thee ; and Thou resistedst my vain stiffneck- 
 edness." 
 
 And, again: — "What did this further me, 
 imagining that Thou, Lord God, the Truth, 
 wert a vast and bright body, and I a fragment 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 85 
 
 of that body ? Perversencss too great ! But 
 such was I. Nor do I blush, my God, to 
 'confess to Thee Thy mercies towards me,' 
 and to call upon Thee, — I who blushed not 
 then to profess to men my blasphemies, and to 
 bark against Thee. "What profited me then 
 my nimble wit in those sciences and in all 
 those most knotty volumes, unravelled by me 
 Avithout aid from human instruction, — seeing I 
 erred so foully, and with such sacrilegious 
 shamcfulncss, in the doctrine of piety? Or, 
 what hindrance was a fiir lower wit to Thy 
 little ones— since they departed not for from 
 Thee, that in the nest of Thy Church they 
 might securely be fledged, and might nourish 
 the wings of charity by the food of a sound 
 faith?" 
 
 Aurelius was in his nine-and-twentieth year, 
 when there arrived, one day, at Carthage, "a 
 certain bishop of the Manichees, Faustus by 
 name, a great snare of the devil." Fame had 
 "before bespoken him most knowing in all 
 valuable learning, and exquisitely skilled in 
 the liberal sciences." And scarcely had he 
 reached the city, when " many were entangled 
 s 
 
SC) MEMOIR OF ST. AL:GUSTIXE. 
 
 by him through the lure of his smooth lan- 
 guage." Augustine, regarding less "the service 
 of oratory" than "the science which this 
 Faustus set before him to feed upon," found, 
 in " those long fables of the Manichees," con- 
 clusions respectiug "the solstices, the equi- 
 noxes, the eclipses of the greater lights," aud 
 such matters — "quite contrary" to what had 
 been established "by calculations and by his 
 own sight." 
 
 Even a philosophy which could have ac- 
 curately "measured the heavens, and numbered 
 the stars, and poised the elements," would have 
 failed to satisfy a heart which " God had made 
 for Himself," and which "must be restless until 
 it reposed in Him." " Doth, then," he writes, 
 " O Lord God of Truth, whoso knoweth these 
 things, therefore please Thee? Surely, un- 
 happy is he who knoweth all tliese, and 
 knoweth not Thee ; but happy whoso knoweth 
 Thee, though he know not these. And whoso 
 knoweth both Thee and them, is not the hap- 
 pier for them, but for Thee only,— if, knowing 
 Thee, he 'glorifies Thee as God, and is thank- 
 ful, and becomes not vain in his iinaginatjons.' 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 87 
 
 For, as he is better off who knows how to pos- 
 sess a tree, and returns thanks to Thee for the 
 use thereof, although he know not how many 
 cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads, than ho 
 that can measure it, and count all its boughs, 
 and neither owns it, nor knows or loves its 
 Creator; — so, a believer, whose is all this Avorld 
 of wealth, and who, ' having nothing, }^t pos- 
 sesseth all things,' by cleaving unto Thee whom 
 all things serve, though he know not even the 
 circles of the Great Bear, yet is it folly to 
 doubt but he is in a better state than one who 
 by curious skill can measure the starry heavens, 
 and track the courses of the planets, yet neg- 
 lectetli Thee." 
 
 But could ManichcTUs — who, ^'not hnowing 
 these things^ most impudentl}^ dared to teach 
 them" — "have any knowledge of piety?" 
 " Going about to persuade men, that ' the Holy 
 Ghost, the Comforter and Enricher of God's 
 ftiithful ones, was with plenary authority per- 
 sonally within him;'" and yet "convicted," 
 by "those who had truly learned them," of 
 " teaching falsely of the heaven and the stars, 
 and of the motions of the sun and moon (al- 
 
88 ME:^roiR of st. Augustine. 
 
 thougli these tilings pertained not to tlie doc- 
 trine of religion) ;" — was lie not plainly guilty 
 of "sacrilegious presumption, seeing lie de- 
 livered things, which not only he knew not 
 but which were falsified, with so mad a vanity 
 of pride that he sought to ascribe them to him- 
 self as to a divine person ? " 
 
 It was now nine years since Augustine, 
 " with unsettled mind," had become a Mani- 
 chee. Year by year, new difficulties had agi- 
 tated him; and "the rest of the sect," whom 
 "by chance he had lighted upon," had, when 
 "unable to solve his objections about these 
 things," still "held out to him the coming of 
 this Faustus, by conference with whom these, 
 and greater difl&culties if he had them, were 
 to be most readily and abundantly cleared," 
 Faustus he had now met. " Of pleasing dis- 
 course," and "speaking fluently and in better 
 terms," he had uttered onlj^ " the self-same 
 things which other disciples had been wont to 
 say." "Delighted verily with his action and 
 feeling when disputing, and with his choice 
 and readiness of words to clothe his ideas," 
 and, " with many others, and moi'e loudly than 
 
iTEMOIll OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 89 
 
 they, praising and extolling him,'' — he had, on 
 a nearer study of him, found him " first utterly 
 ignorant of liberal sciences, save grammar, and 
 that but in an ordinary way." And, being 
 " ignorant of those arts in which he thought 
 he excelled/' how should he " open and solve" 
 the graver difficulties which perplexed Augus- 
 tine's conscience? 
 
 Faustus himself, indeed, had rather capti- 
 vated Aurelius' generous heart; for "he was 
 not one of those talking persons, many of whom 
 he had endured, who, undertaking to teach 
 him these things, said nothing." This man 
 •'had a heart, thongh not right towards God, 
 yet neither altogether treacherous to himself." 
 Not wholly ignorant of his own ignorance, and 
 not ashamed to confess it, — " he did not rashly 
 entangle himself in a dispute, from which he 
 could neither retreat, nor extricate himself 
 fairly." And for this modesty Augustine 
 " liked him the better." 
 
 But all the more did he now begin to dislike 
 the doctrine which even " this ingenuous advo- 
 cate had failed to defend." His ''zeal for the 
 writings of ^ranicha.His Avas blunted;" for, if 
 
90 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 he, ''wlio in such wise presumed to be a 
 teacher, guide, chief, that whoso followed him 
 thought that he followed not man but God's 
 Holy Spirit, were once convicted of having 
 taught anything false," — was not "so great 
 madness" to be detested and utterly rejected?'' 
 Thus, " this Faustus, who to so many had been 
 a snare of death, now began, neither willing 
 nor witting it, to loosen that wherein Aurelius 
 had been taken." 
 
 Once more he was at his wit's end. Like 
 the prodigal, "no man gave to him." Pride 
 of intellect — 
 
 '• That pestilent meteor, flitting on the marshes of 
 corruption" — 
 
 had been "luring him forward to his death;" 
 now it was once more quenched in darkness. 
 But "Thy hands," says he, "0 my God, in 
 the secret purpose of Thy providence, did not 
 forsake my soul ; and out of my mother's 
 heart's blood, through her tears night and day 
 poured out, was a sacrifice offered for me unto 
 Thee, and Thou didst deal with me by won- 
 drous ways. Thou didst it, O my God ; for 
 
:\tEMOiii OF ST. AUGi;srixi:. 91 
 
 ' tlie steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, 
 and He shall dispose his way.' Or how shall 
 we obtain salvation, but from Thy hand, re- 
 making what it made ? " 
 
 But now a new scene was to open, and a 
 brighter day to dawn, 
 
XI. 
 
 « I was a stricken deer : 
 
 With many an arrow deep infix'd 
 My panting side was charged." 
 
 On tlie liigliway from Cartilage miglit be seen, 
 one afternoon, two travellers — tlie one, a youth 
 of prepossessing mein, but 
 
 " Rushing madly on, as if trying to forget his being," 
 
 the other, a grave matron, " holding him by 
 force, that either she might keep him back, or 
 might go with him." It was — Aurelius Au- 
 gustine, on his way to Rome, — and his saintly 
 mother, "grievously bewailing his journey, and 
 following him as far as the sea." 
 
 Night came on; and they repaired to "a 
 place hard by the ship, where was an Oratory 
 in memory of the blessed Cyprian." 
 
 At midnight, Monica retired — not to rest, 
 [92] 
 
MEiEOIM OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 93 
 
 but to iier closet to ask tlie Lord " with many 
 tears" that He "would not suffer" lier son 
 " to sail." Augustine, instead of going to Lis 
 cliamber, "privily departed," and stepped on 
 board. Tlie wind springing up, the craft set 
 sail ; and, before many liours, the shore was 
 out of sight. " I lied to my mother," says he, 
 " and such a mother ! — and escaped." 
 
 It is morning ; and Monica is on the shore, 
 "frantic with sorrow, and filling God's ears 
 with complaints and groans." She gazes on 
 the waste of waters, and she gazes again ; for 
 " she has loved his being with her, as mothers 
 do, though much more than many." But he 
 is gone ! he, " the only son of his mother," is 
 gone ! — and gone — she knows not whither. 
 
 Stunned by his " treachery and hardhearted- 
 ness " — as only such a mother could be, — she 
 "betook herself again to intercede to God for 
 him," " the earthly part of her affection to him 
 chastened with the allotted scourge of sorrows." 
 A few days passed ; and she "returned to her 
 wonted place," " daily to water with the streams 
 of her eyes the ground under her face," but 
 3* 
 
94: ME:Mom of st. augustixe. 
 
 " knowing not how great joy God was about 
 to work for her out of his absence." 
 
 The scene changes ; and we are in Rome, in 
 the house of a Manichee, where Augustine lies 
 dangerously ill. It is night — fever has come 
 on — and the patient begins to tremble lest he 
 be "parting and departing for ever." 
 
 " I am going down to hell," he mutters, 
 tremulously ; " I'm going with all my sins ! " 
 
 " Nay," Avhispers the Manichee, " you have 
 loved the good and the beautiful, — and Christ 
 will not reject you." 
 
 ^' Oh ! I have made His cross a phantom ; 
 and how can a phantom save me ? " 
 
 " But truth ! truth ! that is life ! " 
 
 " No ; there is nothing for me, but to depart 
 into fire and torments, such as my misdeeds 
 deserve." 
 
 "And Monica ! "he thought, " how shall she 
 bear her Aurelius' double death ? " " with 
 which wound," says he afterwards, " liad my 
 mother's heart been pierced, it could never 
 have been healed. For I cannot express the 
 affection she bare to me, and with how much 
 
MEMOIR OF 8T. AUGUSTINE. 95 
 
 more veliement aiigaisli she was now in labour 
 of me in the spirit, than at her child-bearing in 
 the flesh." 
 
 But, at its crisis, the fever abated. " Thou 
 rccoveredst me then," he writes, " of that sick- 
 ness, and healedst the son of Thine handmaid 
 for the time in the bodj^, that he might live for 
 Thee to bestow upon him a better and more 
 abiding health." 
 
 The exile, however, recovered, only to bo 
 " as phrenzied as ever in his sacrilegious heart." 
 A dark cloud hung overhead ; and yet, ever 
 and anon, there gleamed upon it that one sil- 
 ver lining — his mother's weeping prayers. 
 " Couldest Thou despise," says he, " and reject 
 from Thy aid the tears of such an one, and 
 those her so strong and unceasing pra3'ers, 
 wherewith she begged of Thee, not gold or sil- 
 ver, nor any mutable or passing good, but the 
 salvation of her son's soul ? Thou, by whose 
 gift she was such ? Never. Lord. Yea, Thou 
 wert at hand, and wert hearing and doing, in 
 that order Avherein Thou hadst determined be- 
 fore that it should be done. Far be it from 
 Thee that Thou shouldcst deceive her in Thv 
 
96 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 visions and answers, which she laid up in her 
 faithful heart, and, ever praying, urged upon 
 Thee as Thine own handwriting." 
 
 Now " beginning diligently to practise that 
 for which he had come to Rome — the teaching 
 of rhetoric," — his first step was to " gather to 
 his house some to whom, and through whom, 
 he had begun to be known." But many 
 weeks had not passed, when new vexations 
 seemed to Avliisper that he had not yet found a 
 home. 
 
 In Carthage, there had " reigned among the 
 scholars a most disgraceful and unruly license." 
 They would " burst in audaciously," and "with 
 gestures almost frantic," would " disturb all 
 order which any one had established for the 
 good of his scholars ; " and, not content with 
 this, they would, " with a wo-nderful stolidity," 
 commit " divers outrages, punishable by law," 
 but rendered all the more intolerable that " a 
 blinded and blinding 'custom' upheld and 
 made lawful what God's eternal law con- 
 demned." But at Rome he had heard, young- 
 men studied more peacefully, and were Jcept 
 under a restraint of more regular discipline ; 
 
MEMOIIl OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 97 
 
 and, for this "almost only reason," not for 
 " higher gains or dignities," he had ** changed 
 his earthly dwelling." Another and sorer evil, 
 however, now harassed him. The youths had 
 not been with him a month, when, " on a sud- 
 den, to avoid paying their master's stipend, a 
 number of them plotted together, and removed 
 elsewhere," — " breakers of faith," says he, 
 somewhat warmly, " who, for love of money, 
 held justice cheap." These his " heart hated," 
 — though he feared " not ' with a perfect ha- 
 tred,' " — for, " perchance, lie hated them more 
 because he was to suffer by them, than because 
 they did things utterly unlawful." " I rather," 
 says he, " for my own sake misliked them evil, 
 than liked and wished them good for Thine." 
 But this " perverseness" God "secretly used," 
 to " goad " him onward to the place where He 
 had purposed to meet him in grace. 
 
 Otherwise, also, he was ill at ease. Kome 
 "secretly harboured" not a few of that evil 
 sect whose follies he had now detected but still 
 strangely loved ; and his " familiar friendship 
 with certain disciples of the fraternity had riv- 
 eted once more the spell. What was to be done ? 
 9 
 
98 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 *' If the wanderer his mistake discern, 
 Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return, — 
 Bewildered once, must he bewail his loss 
 Forever aad forever ? " 
 
 No ; one refuge — that which Monica had so 
 often whispered to him — ever and anon floated 
 in a dim haze before his eye. 
 
 "The Cross! 
 There, and there only (though the deist rave), 
 There, and there only, is the power to save. 
 There no delusive hope invites despair ; 
 No mockery meets you, no deception there. 
 The spells and charms, which bhnded yoii before, 
 All vanish there, and fascinate no more." 
 
 And, again and again, during these dreary 
 months, the voice of the Crucified seemed to 
 beckon him to rest. " Whither goest thou," 
 it would say to him, "in rough ways? To 
 what end wouldest thou still and still walk 
 these difficult and toilsome paths ? There is 
 no rest where thou seekest it. Thou seekest a 
 blessed life in the land of death : it is not there ; 
 for how should there be a blessed Jife where 
 life itself is not? " 
 
 One evening, as he sat in his chamber lonely 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 99 
 
 and downcast, " memories of Monica and of 
 her early teachings rose up before his troubled 
 spirit." " Our true Life," was his secret 
 thought, "came dov/n hither, and bore our 
 death, and slew death, out of the abundance 
 of His own life. And He thundered, calling 
 aloud to us to return hence to Him into that 
 secret place whence He came forth to us — 
 first into the Virgin's womb wherein He es- 
 poused the human creation, our mortal flesh, 
 that it might not be forever mortal, and thence 
 ' like a bridegroom coming out of his cham- 
 ber, rejoicing as a giant to run his course.' 
 For He lingered not, but ran, calling aloud by 
 words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension; 
 crying aloud to us to return to Him. And 
 He departed from our eyes, that we might re- 
 turn into our heart, and there find Him. For 
 He departed ; and lo, He is here. Even now, 
 after the descent of Life to thee, wilt thou not 
 ascend, my soul, and live ? " 
 
 Had he, then, found rest? Alas! "Heav- 
 en's easy, artless, unencumbered plan," 
 
 " Sorts not with hia darling whim ; 
 Though plain to others, 'tis obscure to him." 
 
100 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 And strange indeed were the difficulties whicli 
 his mind fashioned for itself. "It seemed to 
 me very unseemly" he says, "to believe Thee 
 to have the shape of human flesh, and to be 
 bounded by the bodily lineaments of our mem- 
 bers. This was the greatest and almost only 
 cause of my inevitable error." Then this 
 thought presented itself — "I fear to believe 
 our Saviour to have been born in the flesh, 
 lest I should be forced to believe Him defiled 
 by the flesh." And, again : — " There half 
 arises the tliought in me, that those philoso- 
 phers, whom they call ' Academics,' are wiser 
 than the rest; for that they hold that men 
 ought to doubt everything, and lay down that 
 no truth can be comprehended by man." And, 
 summing up all, he adds : — " I despaired of 
 finding in Thy Church the truth from which I 
 had been turned aside." 
 Cowper writes : — 
 
 " Learning oftentimes 
 Serves but to lead philosophers astray, 
 Where children would with ease discern the way. 
 When some hypothesis, absurd and vain, 
 Has filled with all its fumes a critic's brain, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 101 
 
 The will made suly'ect to a lawless force, 
 
 All is irregular and out of course ; 
 
 And Judgment, drunk, and bribed to lose his way, 
 
 Winks hard, and talks of darkness at noon-day." 
 
 Such was Augustine, at tliis new stage of his 
 erratic course. " Panting after the breath of 
 Thy truth," he says, " I could not breathe it 
 pure and untainted." Carthage had offered 
 him only an "unreal happiness;" and now, 
 in Eome, the shadow was shadowy as ever. 
 To what new "dwelling" was the Lord thus 
 leading him "for the salvation of his soul?" 
 At what Bethel was he to find the heavenly 
 ladder by. which, "from his weariness," he 
 should pass upward to God? 
 
XII. 
 
 " He shewed me the picture of a very grave person. It had eyos 
 hfted up to heaven, the best of books in its hand, the law of truth was 
 written upon its hps, and the world was behind its back ; it stood as 
 if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over its head. 
 And he said, 'The man whose picture this is, is the only man whom 
 the lord of the place, whither thou art going, hath authorized to be 
 thy guide in all difiQcult places thou mayest meet with in the way.' " 
 
 At Milan, some eight or nine years before, 
 a strange scene had been witnessed. 
 
 The bishop was dead; and the emperor 
 Valentinian had summoned the bishops of the 
 province to elect a successor. " Choose," said 
 he, addressing them, " a man fit to instruct by 
 life, as well as by doctrine ; and we ourselves 
 will readily submit our sceptres to his counsels 
 and direction, and, as men exposed to human 
 frailty, will receive his reproofs and admoni- 
 tions as wholesome physic." 
 
 A youthful Eoman, of singular capacity, 
 and of even more singular rectitude, at that 
 
 [102] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 103 
 
 time ruled the province. The youngest son of 
 the emperor's lieutenant in France, he had, on 
 his father's decease, repaired, with his mother 
 and two brothers and an only sister, to Eome, 
 where he quickly rose, at the bar, to such dis- 
 tinction, as to be chosen by the Christian Pre- 
 fect of Italy to be a member of his Privy 
 Council, and, not long afterwards, governor 
 of Milan. Ambrose had a sister, Marcellina, 
 whose heart had been touched by the love of 
 Christ ; and to her he owed a fixed preposes- 
 sion in favour of " living godliness." " Go," 
 the Prefect had said to liim, on setting out for 
 his own province, " and govern more like a 
 bishop than a judge." And, for five years, he 
 had held the reins of office, loved rather as a 
 father, than feared as a bearer of the sword. 
 
 The bishops were now assembled in con- 
 clave ; and day after day passed without any 
 result, — the opposing factions — the Arians and 
 the orthodox — dividing the city, and eacli 
 urging the claims of their favourite candidate. 
 At length, one morning, as a vast multitude 
 had gathered into the church, bent on open 
 violence, Ambrose hearing of the uproar, 
 
104 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 hastened to the spot. His presence, and a few 
 cabniiig words, sufficed to quell the storm; 
 but scarcely had he sat down, when, amidst 
 the dead silence, an " infant voice" whispered, 
 " Ambrose is bishop." At once, the whole 
 assembly, "catching the word, as if a voice 
 from heaven," shouted, "Ambrose shall be 
 the man ! " The sound of faction was hushed; 
 and, "by universal consent, he who had come, 
 as the governor, simply to keep the peace, 
 found himself suddenly summoned to feed and 
 to govern Christ's flock." After much hesita- 
 tion, he yielded, and entered on his new func- 
 tion. 
 
 Kot unworthily did he "fulfil his ministry." 
 Devoting many hours daily to the study of the 
 Scriptures and to prayer, he would come forth 
 among his fellows with a certain heavenly halo 
 about him, which seemed to say that he had 
 been on the mount with God. 
 
 " Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed, 
 Were copied close in him, and well transcribed." 
 
 With great plainness he rebuked the evils 
 of the day, not shrinking from tlie ■ most 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 105 
 
 unsparing denunciations of the prevailing 
 "fashionable sins." The poor were his "stew- 
 ards and treasurers ;" and the humblest and the 
 meanest found him easy of access. "I con- 
 fess," said he, unfolding the secret of his rare 
 sympathy and lowliness, "my debts were 
 greater than those of the penitent woman, and 
 more was forgiven me, who was called into 
 the ministry from the noise of the forum and 
 from the terror of judicial administration. 
 Yet, if we cannot equal her, the Lord Jesus 
 Knows how to support the weak, and to bring 
 with Himself the fountain of living water. 
 He came to the grave Himself O that Thou 
 wouldest come. Lord Jesus, to this my sepul- 
 chre of corruption, and wash me with Thy 
 tears ! It shall be said, ' Behold, a man, taken 
 from the midst of secular vanity, remains Thy 
 minister, not by his own strength, but by the 
 grace of Christ.' Preserve, Lord, Thy gift." 
 
 One day, a young man, a personal friend, 
 came to him, desiring ordination. Possessed 
 of ample learning, and not wanting in gifts, he 
 yet had about him a certain air of lightness 
 which wounded Ambrose's heart. " I am 
 
106 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 sorry to refuse you," said lie; "but I cannot 
 help it. I dare not commit to you the care of 
 precious souls." And, on another occasion, 
 warning his clergy against certain " feastings" 
 and " gay entertainments," he remarked — 
 "What have we to do with such scenes? 
 Why do you not revisit Christ, speak to Chr.ist, 
 hear Christ? We speak to Him, when we 
 pray : we hear Him Avhen we read the Divine 
 oracles. We received the ministry to attend 
 on the service of Christ, not to pay court to 
 men." 
 
 To the feet of that " best of men," Augus- 
 tine was now "unknowing led" by God, that 
 by him he might " knowingly be led to 
 God." 
 
 The citizens of Milan, in want of a " rhet- 
 oric reader" for their city, had " sent to Eome 
 to the prefect," to look out a fit man, and to 
 " send him at the public expense." Symma- 
 chus had relations with the Manichees ; and, 
 " through those very persons — intoxicated 
 with Manichean vanities — to be freed from 
 whom he was to go (neither, however, know- 
 ing it)," he " made application to be tried by 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 107 
 
 setting him some subject, and so be sent." He 
 was successful ; and he set out. 
 
 " To Milan," says he, "I came — to Ambrose 
 the bishop, Thy devout servant, whose elo- 
 quent discourse did then plentifully dispense 
 unto Thy people the flour of Thy wheat, the 
 gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation 1 
 of Thy wine." The " man of God" received 
 him "as a father," "shewing him an episcopal 
 kindness on his coming." And Augustine 
 " henceforth began to love, him — at first, in- 
 deed, not as a teacher of truth, but as' a person 
 kind to himself" Day after da}^, he would 
 steal away into some secret corner, to listen to 
 the earnest preacher, "hanging on his words 
 attentively," and "delighted with the sweet- 
 ness of his discourse, more recondite, yet in 
 manner less winning and harmonious, than 
 that of Faustus ;" — though " of the matter 
 there was no comparison ; for, the one was 
 wandering amid Manichean delusions, the 
 other teaching salvation most soundly."* 
 
 * Possidius, Augustiuc's frioud and biographer, remarks, in his brief 
 notes on this period : — " Hiijiis vcrbi Dei praedicatoris frequentissimis 
 in ecclesia disputationibus adstans iu populo, intendebat suspensus 
 atque affixus." 
 
108 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Bacon describes certain "idols of the cave" 
 wliicli hinder the mind from reaching the sun- 
 light. Augustine was drawing nearer to the 
 light "by little and little, and unconsciously;" 
 but two "idols" met him, making him feel 
 that " salvation was far from sinners such as 
 he then stood before God." 
 
 He " could not imagine any substance but 
 such as was wont to be seen with the eyes ;" 
 and, so, unable to " conceive a spiritual sub- 
 stance," he would fain have taken refuge once 
 more in the "Academic" infidelity, " doubting 
 of everything, and wavering between all," — 
 though " to the j)hilosophers," he says, who 
 were " without the saving name of Christ," " I 
 utterly refused to commit the cure of my sick 
 soul." A darker idol, however, enslaved him. 
 He was " gross-hearted." His " concubine" 
 had followed liim to Milan; and his "heart 
 cleaved" to her with a guilty affection. " Hab- 
 its," it has been said, 
 
 " Are soou assumed ; but, when we strive 
 To strip them off, 'tis being fiay'd alive." 
 
 Augustine was "the slave of lust;" the "dis- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 109 
 
 ease of his soul was kept up with vigour ;" 
 and to surrender his idol would have been "to 
 tear his heart and wound it and bleed it.'' 
 
 The result was a filmy darkness which no 
 reasonings could penetrate. 
 
 " That prize belongs to none but the sincere ; 
 The least obliquity is fatal here." 
 
 Ko wonder he listened to Ambrose, " not 
 with the intent he ought, but, as it were, try- 
 ing his eloquence, whether it answered the 
 fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than 
 had been reported," whilst of " the matter" he 
 was " as a careless and scornful looker-on." 
 
 And yet, "though taking no pains to learn 
 what the preacher spoke, but onl}^ to hear how 
 he spoke," there " came into his mind often- 
 times, together with the words which he would 
 choose, the things which he would refuse.*" 
 for he "could not separate them;" since, while 
 " he opened his heart to admit ' how eloquently 
 he spoke,' " there " also entered, though as yet 
 by degrees, ' how truly he spoke.' " 
 
 The "Catholic faith now began to appear to 
 him a thing capable of defence." It had 
 10 
 
110 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 ''learned maintainers," who "could at large 
 and with some show of reason answer objec- 
 tions ;" and, though it was " not a way to be 
 held" to the condemnation of his old belief, 
 he now blamed his recent " despair that no 
 answer could be given to such as hated and 
 scoffed at the law and the prophets." The 
 "Catholic cause" w^as "not, indeed, as yet 
 victorious , 
 such sort not vanquished." 
 
XIII. 
 
 " The touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong 
 man in his sins." 
 
 Monica was still at Thegaste, at lier " wonted 
 place," interceding for her son. 
 
 " How strong, yet how most weak I in utter poverty how 
 rich I 
 
 Behold that fragile form ! 
 
 Hath not thy heart said of her— 'Alas! poor child of 
 weakness ? ' 
 
 Thou hast erred; Goliath of Gath stood not in half 
 her strength : 
 
 She is the King's remembrancer, and steward of many 
 blessings ; 
 
 Holding the buckler of security over her unthankful 
 son. 
 
 For that weak fluttering heart is strong in faith as- 
 sured ; 
 
 Dependence is her might, and behold — she prayeth." 
 
 Time had not assuaged her anxiety; for, 
 week by week, did she pour "fourth more co- 
 
 [111] 
 
112 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 pious prayers and tears," bewailing him '' as 
 one dead," and " carrying him forth upon the 
 bier of her thoughts, that God might say to the 
 son of the widow, ' Young man ! 1 say unto 
 thee, arise.' " 
 
 Augustine, ^Ikiding long afterwards to this 
 season, writes : — " Wouldest Thou, God of 
 mercies, ' despise the contrite and humbled 
 heart ' of that chaste and sober widow ; so fre- 
 quent in almsdeeds ; so full of duty and service 
 to Thy saints ; twice a-day, morning and even- 
 ing, without any intermission, coming to Thy 
 church, not for idle tattlings and old wives' fa- 
 bles, but that she might hear Thee in Thy 
 discourses, and Thou her in her prayers ? 
 Couldest Thou despise and reject from Thj^ aid 
 the tears of such an one ? " 
 
 At length, one morning, she set out from her 
 humble home; and going on board a ship 
 which was in the harbour, she sailed for Ge- 
 noa. A day or two passed, and the vessel was 
 heaving amidst one of those storms which visit 
 that sea. Eickety and leaky, the craft creaked 
 and groaned, as if each moment she would 
 founder ; and the sailors, in consternation, were 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 113 
 
 preparing for the worst. But one heart was 
 calm that niglit. "Be not troubled," said the 
 mysterious passenger, " I know we shall have 
 a safe arrival," It was Monica, " comforting 
 the very mariners, by wliom passengers, unac- 
 quainted wdth tlie deep, used ratlier to be com- 
 forted when troubled." She " believed in 
 Christ," says Augustine, "that, before she de- 
 parted this life, she should see her son a Catho- 
 lic believer." 
 
 Standing on deck, one brilliant morning, ds 
 they entered the harbour of Genoa, she gazed 
 with a strange emotion on the magnificent 
 scene. Another traveller, one day, wrote on 
 that spot : — 
 
 " The mountains of this glorious land 
 
 Are conscious beings to mine eye, 
 When at the break of day they stand 
 
 Like giants, looking through the sky 
 To hail the sun's unrisen car, 
 
 That gilds their diadems of snow, 
 "While one by one, as star by star, 
 
 Their peaks in ether glow. 
 
 " Their silent presence fills my soul, 
 
 When, to the horizontal ray, 
 
 The many-tinctured vapours roll 
 
 In evanescent wreaths away, 
 
 10* 
 
114 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTI^^E. 
 
 And leave them uaked ou the sceue 
 
 The emblems of eternity, 
 The same as they have ever been, 
 
 And shall for ever be 1 " 
 
 But Monica, ttat morning, had an eye for one 
 object only in the landscape. Her lost one 
 was there ; and over him her bowels yearned, 
 '' with sorrow seeking what in sorrow she 
 had brought forth, and knowing not how great 
 joy God was about to work for her." She 
 landed ; and, before noon, she was on her way 
 to Milan. 
 
 In a gaol at Milan, a prisoner knelt, one even- 
 ing, weeping great tears. " O my Grod," he 
 cried, "I had abandoned Thee! I see Thee 
 again : I love Thee. I repent that I have so 
 insulted Thee ! " On a shelf beside him lay a 
 Bible, covered with dust. For six or seven 
 days, he had not opened it ; and, instead, he 
 had taken to amusing himself with "foolish 
 pleasantries," " singing with a pretended merri- 
 ment." 
 
 One morning, the gaoler's child came in, and 
 Silvio Pellico caressed it and smiled. ''Since 
 you have left off reading that villain of a book," 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 115 
 
 said the ckild, with an artless simplicity, point- 
 ing to the neglected Bible, and repeating some 
 epithets which he had heard probably from the 
 lips of the priest, "you do not look so sad as 
 before." Blushing mth shame, he took the 
 book from the shelf; and, brushing away the 
 dust with a napkin and opening it, his eye 
 caught these words — " And He said to His dis- 
 ciples, it is impossible but that offences will 
 come ; but woe to that man by whom the of- 
 fence Cometh! it were better for him ^iiat a 
 millstone were hanged about his neck, and he 
 cast into the sea, than that he should offend 
 one of these little ones." '^What!" thought 
 he with himself; *' does this child suppose, by 
 the dust on my Bible, that I have become more 
 sociable and pleasant through forgetting God ? " 
 Then, turning to his little visitor and kissing 
 him, he said, half playfully, yet "completely 
 desolate at having so scandalised him" — " You 
 little rogue ! this is not a villain-book ; during 
 the several days that I have neglected it, I am 
 become much worse. My singing, which you 
 have heard, is only a force-put ; and my ill- 
 humour, which I try to drive away when your 
 
116 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 mother lets you in to see me, comes all back 
 when I am alone." 
 
 The child had scarcely gone ont, when, 
 " with indescribable emotion," Silvio placed his 
 Bible on a chair — knelt down upon the earth 
 to read — and, though unused to weep, burst 
 into tears. For more than an hour, he " read 
 and lameiited," ashamed of his grievous sin, 
 and vowing never again to separate from God, 
 for ever. At length, he rose, full of confidence 
 in the thought that God was with him, and 
 that he had " pardoned his delirium ! " And 
 now he vv^as girded for any trial. " Yester- 
 day," said he, my misfortunes, the torments of 
 my impending trial, the probability of torture, 
 seemed like huge, frowning precipices; now 
 they appeared to me a very little thing. I can 
 rejoice in suffering, since I may fulfil a sacred 
 duty, which is, to obey the Saviour in suffer- 
 ing with resignation." 
 
 That solitary traveller, who was now enter- 
 ing Milan, was to be to Aurelius another 
 gaoler's child. 
 
XIV. 
 
 " Come, then — a still small whisper in your ear — 
 He has no hope who never had a fear ; 
 And he that never doubted of his state, 
 He may perhaps— perhaps he may — too late." 
 
 Aerived in the city, Monica found herself, 
 after an hour or two's search, beneath her 
 son's humble roof, clasping the erring one to 
 her heart. "I am not a Manichee now," he 
 whispered, as if to soothe her bleeding spirit. 
 
 "Not overjoyed," he wrote afterwards, "as 
 at something unexpected," she was "shaken 
 with no tumultuous exultation, when she heard 
 that what she daily in tears had desired of the 
 Lord, was already so far realized." 
 
 "But," Aureliiis proceeded, anxious not to 
 encourage in her undue hopes, " though res- 
 cued from falsehood, I have not yet attained 
 the truth; and I almost despair of ever hnd- 
 ing it, I see not a way open for man to God." 
 
 [U7] 
 
118 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 "I know," she replied, calmly, "that He 
 who has promised the whole, will one day 
 give the rest. I will see you a Christian yet, 
 before I die." 
 
 And ''so," says Augustine, "she poured 
 forth to Thee, Fountain of Mercies, more co- 
 pious prayers and tears, that Thou wouldst 
 hasten Thy help, and enlighten my darkness ; 
 for, as one dead, though to be re-awakened by 
 Thee, she carried me forth upon the bier of 
 her thoughts, that Thou mightest say to the 
 son of the widow, ' Young man, I say unto 
 thee, arise ; ' and he should revive and begin 
 to speak, and Thou shouldest deliver him to 
 his mother." 
 
 That very evening, "hastening eagerly to 
 the church, she hung upon the lips of Am- 
 brose ; " for, by this time, she knew that by 
 him Aurelius had been "brought to that 
 doubtful state of faith he was now in ; " — and 
 she " loved him as an angel of God." Aure- 
 lius was at her side ; and, as she listened in- 
 tently to the preacher, she "prayed for tlic 
 fountain of that water which ' s})i'ingetli up 
 unto life everlasting,'" — "anticipating most 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 119 
 
 confidently," that, "after the access, as it were, 
 of a sharper fit, which phj'sicians called 'the 
 crisis,' " her son " would pass from his present 
 sickness unto health." 
 
 ^ Henry Marty n, one day, said — " I fear I 
 have not yet learned the secret of true happi- 
 ness — a poor and contrite spirit." Aurelius 
 Augustine " panted after honours, gains, mar- 
 riage." In these "desires," indeed, he had 
 " undergone most bitter crosses, God deriding 
 him, and in mercy suffering nothing to grow 
 sweet to him which was not Himself. Still 
 his soul was held fast in that " bird-lime of 
 death." " T did not yet groan in my prayers," 
 he says, "that Thou wouldest help me; but 
 my spirit was wholly intent on learning, and 
 restless to dispute. And Ambrose, himself, 
 as the world counts happy, I esteemed a happy 
 man, whom personages so great held in such 
 honour; only his celibacy seemed to me a 
 painful course." 
 
 On one occasion, as he was "preparing to 
 recite a panegyric of the emperor, wherein he 
 was to utter many a lie, and, lying, was to bo 
 applauded by those who knew he lied," and 
 
120 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 as his heart was "panting with these anxieties, 
 and boiling with the feverishness of consum- 
 ing thoughts," he observed on the street a 
 poor beggar — then, he supposed, " with a full 
 bellj," — unusually "jolly, and joking, and 
 joyous." Turning to a friend who was with 
 him, he heaved a deep sigh, and spoke of 
 " the many sorrows of our phrenzies." " By 
 all such efforts of ours," he wrote afterwards, 
 referring to the incident, " as those wherein I 
 then toiled, dragging along, under the goading 
 of desire, the burden of my own wretchedness, 
 and, by dragging, augmenting it, we yet looked 
 to arrive only at that very joyousness whither 
 that beggar-man had arrived before us who 
 should never, perchance, attain it. For, what 
 he had obtained by means of a few begged 
 pence, the same was I plotting for by many a 
 toilsome turning and winding — the joy of a 
 temporary felicity. For he, verily, had not 
 the true joy ; but yet I, with those my ambi- 
 tious dcsis-ns, was seekinor qhq mucli less true. 
 And certainly he was joyous, I anxious ; he 
 void of care, I full of fears." 
 
 And he added : — " But, should any ask me, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 121 
 
 ' Had I rather bo merr}^ or fearful ? ' I would 
 answer, Merrj. Again, if he asked, ' Had I 
 rather be such as he was, or what I then 
 was ? ' I should choose to be myself, though 
 worn with cares and fears, — but out of wrong 
 judgment, — for, was it the truth? For I 
 ought not to prefer myself to him, because 
 more learned than he, — seeing I had no joy 
 therein, but sought to please men b}^ it — and 
 that, not to instruct, but simply to please. 
 Wherefore also," he concludes, "Thou didst 
 break my bones with the staff of Thy cor- 
 rection." 
 
 In a little chamber of the cathedral, sat, 
 daily, hour after hour, a holy man intent on 
 "some book," — "his eye gliding over the 
 pages, and his heart searching out the sense, 
 but his voice and tongue at rest." It was 
 Ambrose, husbanding intently "the small in- 
 tervals which he obtained, free from the din 
 of others' business, for the recruiting of his 
 mind." Not a morning passed without " mul- 
 titudes of busy people, whose weaknesses he 
 served," pressing one by one into his presence 
 to propound some hard question ; and it was 
 11 
 
122 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSriNE. 
 
 noticed that rarely did any one come out with- 
 out a radiant smile, as if the good bishop had 
 the tongue of the learned, speaking a word in 
 season to him that was weary. 
 
 Oftentimes, after the others were away, two 
 strangers would linger wistfully about, half 
 afraid to enter, yet not able to forego the priv- 
 ilege of a brief colloquy. It was Monica and 
 Aurelius. One day, the last visitor had gone, 
 and all was now still, when at length they 
 ventured in. 
 
 "It generally happened," he writes, alluding 
 to those interviews, " when we had come (for 
 no man was forbidden to enter, nor was it his 
 wont that any who came should be announced 
 to him), we saw him thus reading to himself, 
 and never otherwise ; and, having long sat 
 silent (for who durst intrude on one so intent?) 
 we were fain to depart, conjecturing that lie 
 might be loath to be taken off; for, perchance, 
 he dreaded lest, if the author he read should 
 deliver anything obscurely, some attentive or 
 perplexed hearer might desire him to expound 
 it, or to discuss some of the harder questions." 
 A brief moment was all they durst to occupy ; 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 123 
 
 but Ambrose always had a gracious word for 
 them. Monica, especially, " so fervent in spir- 
 it," touched his tender heart. " When he saw 
 me," says her son, with the warmth of filial 
 affection so peculiar to him, "he often burst 
 forth into her praises, congratulating me that 
 I had such a mother." 
 
 But Augustine still " doubted, imagining 
 that the way of life could not be found out." 
 Not venturing to reveal to any ear — even to 
 Ambrose's or to Monica's — "the tides of his 
 feelings, or the abyss of his danger," — he went 
 on stumbling in the shadow of death, resisting 
 Him who "had prepared the medicines of 
 faith, and had applied them to the diseases of 
 the whole world, and had given them so great 
 authority." " I kept my heart," he says, "from 
 assenting to anything, fearing to fall headlong ; 
 but, by hanging in suspense, I was the worse 
 killed." A new expedient was attempted. 
 
 In his native town of Thegaste, there had 
 lived a young man, of high parentage and of 
 ^' great towardliness to virtue." Some years 
 his junior, Alypius had joined the rhetori- 
 cian's class, first at Thegaste, and afterwards 
 
124 MEMOIR OF Sr. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 at Carthage, a warm friendship springing up 
 between them, " the pupil loving his master 
 much because he seemed to him kind and 
 learned." Drawn by "the whirlpool of Car- 
 thasfinian habits " into " the madness of the 
 Circus," the youthful student had been "mis- 
 erably tossed therein," until his "deadly doat- 
 ing upon it" seemed likely to "throw away so 
 great promise," and "undo so good a wit." 
 One day, as Augustine "was sitting in his ac- 
 customed place, wdth his scholars before him," 
 Alypius, after a protracted absence, had " en- 
 tered, greeted him, sat down, and applied his 
 mind to what was then in hand." As the 
 teacher proceeded, a simile from the Circen- 
 sian games occurred to him, "as likely to 
 make what he would convey pleasanter and 
 plainer, seasoned with biting mockery of those 
 Avhom that madness had enthralled." " God I " 
 says Augustine, " Thou knowest that I then 
 thought not of curing Alypius of that infec- 
 tion; but he took it wholly to himself, and 
 thought that I said it simply for his sake. 
 And, whence another would have taken occa- 
 sion of offence with me, that right-minded 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 125 
 
 youth took as a ground of being offended at 
 himself, and of loving me more fervently." 
 It was God Himself " making of his heart and 
 tongue burning coals by which to set on fire 
 the hopeful mind thus languishing, and so to 
 cure it." "That his amendment," Augustine 
 adds, " might plainly be attributed to Thyself, 
 Thou effectedst it through me, but unknow- 
 ingly." That very day, Alypius had " burst 
 out of the so deep pit wherein he had been 
 willfully plunged and been blinded by its 
 wretched pastimes; and "he had shaken his 
 mind with a strong self-command ; whereupon 
 all the filths of the Circensian pastimes flew 
 ofi" from him, nor came he again thither." 
 
 But the student had escaped the Circus only 
 to be entangled in the Manichean meshes of 
 his master. A " shadowy and counterfeit vir- 
 tue," "reaching not the depths of virtue," had 
 next "beguiled his soul." Setting out for 
 Rome to study law, and there once more asso- 
 ciated with his old teacher, he had " become 
 involved more and more hopelessly in the 
 same superstition," loving in the Manichees 
 11* 
 
126 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 that "show of continency, which he supposed 
 true and unfeigned." 
 
 One night, however, accosted on the street 
 by " divers of his acquaintance and fellow-stu- 
 dents coming from dinner," they " with a fa- 
 miliar violence had haled him, vehemently refus- 
 ing and resisting, into the amphitheatre, during 
 those cruel and deadly shows." On the way, 
 he had protested to them, that, " though they 
 might hale his body to the place and set it 
 there, they could not and would not force him 
 to turn his mind or his eyes to them. " I shall 
 then be absent," he had said, " while present, 
 and so shall overcome both you and them." 
 " We shall see," exclaimed his friends, incred- 
 ulously ; and they led him on to the charmed 
 spot. A few minutes had passed, and " the 
 whole place kindled with that savage pastime." 
 Alypius " closing the passages of his eyes," had 
 determined not to suffer his mind to "range 
 abroad after such evils." " Would," says Au- 
 gustine, " he had stopped his ears also ! For, 
 in the fight, when one fell, a mighty cry of the 
 whole people striking him strongly, overcome 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 127 
 
 by curiosity, and as if prepared to be superior 
 to it whatsoever it were, he opened his eyes, 
 and was stricken with a deeper wound in his 
 soul than the other whom he desired to behold 
 was in his body ; and he fell more miserably 
 than he upon whose fall that mighty noise was 
 raised which entered through his cars and un- 
 locked his eyes to make way for the striking 
 and beating down of a soul bold rather than 
 resolute, and the weaker in that it had pre- 
 sumed on itself which ought to have relied on 
 Thee. For so soon," Augustine adds, " as he 
 saw that blood, he therewith drank down sav- 
 ageness ; nor turned away, but fixed his eye, 
 drinking in phrenzy, unawares, and was de- 
 lighted with that guilty fight, and intoxicated 
 with the bloody pastime. Nor was he now the 
 man he came, but one of the throng he came 
 unto, — ^yea, a true associate of theirs that 
 brought him thither. Why say more ? He 
 beheld, shouted, kindled, carried thence with 
 him the madness which should goad him to re- 
 turn not only with them who first drew him 
 thither, but also before them, yea, and to draw 
 in others." 
 
128 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Alypius had been destined to the law, 
 though "more to please his parents than him- 
 self." At Eome he had acted as a petty j udge ; 
 and, one day, a very powerful senator, accus- 
 tomed to " have a thing allowed him which by 
 the laws was unallowed," had appeared as a 
 suitor, demanding with an imperious air an in- 
 stant decision in his favor. The judge had 
 " resisted: a bribe was promised ; with all his 
 heart he scorned it : threats were held out ; he 
 trampled upon them ; =— all wondering at so un- 
 wonted a spirit, which neither desired the 
 friendship nor feared the enmity of one so 
 great and so mightily renowned for innumera- 
 ble means of doing good or evil." 
 
 Augustine had not been long in Milan when 
 he found Alypius once more at his side. He 
 had been appointed "assessor;" and "week 
 after week," says his friend, "he sat with an 
 uncorruptness much wondered at by others, 
 he wondering at others rather who could pre- 
 fer gold to honesty." Proof at once against 
 " the bait of covetousncss and the goad of 
 fear," the youthful lawyer, already "faithful 
 in a little," was one day to be "faithful also 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 129 
 
 in much." Meanwhile, " he, being such," says 
 Augustine, " did at that time cleave to me, 
 and with me wavered in purpose, what course 
 of life was to be taken." 
 
 Another young man also hung upon Augus- 
 tine's lips. A native of Carthage, and possess- 
 ing an excellent family estate, Nebridius had 
 left his home and its many pleasant attractions, 
 and, attracted by the rhetorician, had "come 
 to Milan, for no reason but that with him he 
 might live in a most ardent search after truth 
 and wisdom." "Like me," Augustine writes, 
 "he sighed; like me, he wavered, — an ardent 
 searcher after true life, and a most acute exam- 
 iner of the most difficult questions." 
 
 The three friends — each groping darkly af- 
 ter the same dim and hazy shadow — determined 
 to combine their energies after a fashion quite 
 unique. They were to retire into a secluded 
 retreat — to live in common — to gaze with a 
 certain ecstatic fervor upon the beautifut ideal, 
 "truth." "We thought," Augustine writes, 
 describing the scheme, " there might be some 
 ten persons in this society; some of whom 
 Avere very rich. We had settled, also, that 
 
130 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 two annual officers should provide all things 
 necessary, the rest being undisturbed." And, 
 for a brief interval, they met, and speculated, and 
 gazed. " Thus were there," he says again, "the 
 mouths of three indigent persons, sighing out 
 their wants one to another." It was a dreary 
 time. Often, often, would they groan out this 
 complaint — " How long shall these things be ?" 
 And yet, " so saying, they forsook them not ; 
 for, as yet, there dawned nothing certain, which, 
 these forsaken, they might embrace." 
 
 One day, as he sat alone with Monica, con- 
 science seemed to awake once more from her 
 slumber. .''Life," it whispered, "is vain; 
 death uncertain ; if it steal upon thee on a sud- 
 den, in what state shalt thou depart thence? 
 and where shalt thou learn what here thou 
 hast neglected ? and shalt not thou rather suf- 
 fer the punishment of thy negligence ? "Where- 
 fore, then, delay to abandon worldly hopes, 
 and to give thyself wholly to seek after God 
 and the blessed life?" The scheme of the 
 three friends dwindled into romance — there 
 must be something more real. " This plan," 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 131 
 
 lie writes, "winch had been so well moulded, 
 fell to pieces in our hands, and was utterly 
 dashed and cast aside." The " philosophi- 
 cal union" had been tried and found want- 
 ing. 
 
XY. 
 
 " None sends his arrow to the mark in view, 
 Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue." 
 
 Augustine was now in his thirty-first year. 
 " Deceased," he writes, " was that my evil and 
 abominable youth; and I was passing into 
 early manhood, the more defiled by vain things 
 as I grew in years." 
 
 Monica, meanwhile, intent on " wiling him 
 away from his guilty passion," was "making a 
 continual effort to have him married." '' I 
 wooed," he says, " and was promised, chiefly 
 through my mother's pains." And, again : — 
 " A maiden was asked in marriage two years 
 under the fit age, and, as pleasing, was waited 
 for." 
 
 The next step was, to " tear his concubine 
 from his side, as a hindrance to his marriage." 
 His heart " clave unto her;" and, at the part- 
 ing, it " was torn, and wounded, and bleeding." 
 
 [132] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST, AUGUSTINE. 133 
 
 He sent lier away, however ; and she returned 
 to Africa, leaving with him his " son by her." 
 But scarcely was she gone, when " impatient 
 of delay," he " procured another, though no 
 wife." 
 
 " What strange pollutions doth he wed, 
 And make his own ! as if none knew but he 1 
 
 No man shall beat into his head, 
 That Thou within his curtains drawn canst see. 
 They are of cloth, 
 Where never yet came moth." 
 
 It seemed as if he was "joined to his idols," 
 and as if God must " let him alone." 
 
 But conscience still whispered her behests. 
 " To Thee," says he, " be praise !" Glory to 
 Thee, Fountain of mercies ! I was becoming 
 more miserable, and Thou nearer. Thy right 
 hand was continually ready to pluck me out 
 of the mire, and to wash me thoroughly ; and 
 I knew it not ; nor did anything call me back 
 from a yet deeper gulf of carnal pleasures but 
 the fear of death and of Thy judgment to come 
 — which, amid all my changes, never departed 
 from my breast." 
 
 And he adds: — " While these winds shifted 
 12 
 
134 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 and drove my heart this way and that, time 
 passed on, and I delayed to turn to the Lord, 
 deferring from day to day to live in Thee and 
 to die to myself. Loving a happy life, I feared 
 it in its own abode, and sought it by fleeing 
 from it. O crooked paths ! Woe to the au- 
 dacious soul, which hoped, by forsaking Thee, 
 to gain some better thing ! Turned it hath, 
 and turned again, upon back, sides, and belly, 
 yet all was painful ; and Thou alone rest." 
 
 A new vanity now harrassed him. He had 
 heard, from the teaching of Ambrose, that 
 " the cause of our doing ill" was "free-will," 
 and that we " suffered ill" because of God's 
 "just judgment." Not able " clearly to discern 
 it," and endeavouring to draw his soul's vision 
 out of that deep pit," he " was again plunged 
 therein, and, endeavouring often, was plunged 
 back as often." 
 
 One day a gleam of light broke in. " I saw," 
 says he, " as well that I had a will, as that I 
 lived : when, then, I did will or nill anything, 
 I was most sure that none other than myself 
 did will and nill ; and I all but saw that there 
 was the cause of my sin.'' 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 135 
 
 But again an eclipse of faitH came. " I said, 
 "Who made me ? Did not my God, who is not 
 only good, but goodness itself? Whence, 
 then, came I to will evil and nill good ? who 
 set this in me, and engrafted into me this plant 
 of bitterness, seeing I was wholly formed by 
 my most sweet God? If the devil were the 
 author, whence that same devil ? And, if he 
 also, by his own perverse will, of a good angel 
 became a devil, whence, again, came in him 
 that evil will whereby he became a devil, see- 
 ing the whole nature of angels was made by 
 that most good Creator ?" 
 
 " Heaven from above, and conscience from within, 
 Cried in his startled ear — Abstain from sin I" 
 
 But "his deeds were evil;" and he hated 
 the light which condemned them. 
 
 "Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill. 
 Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will ; 
 And with a clear and shining lamp supplied, 
 First put it out, then take it for a guide." 
 
 Conscience once more startled him. " I had 
 observed of other sceptics," says he, " that, 
 through enquiring the origin of evil, they were 
 
136 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 filled with evil. I had sought ' whence is evil ?' 
 and had sought in an evil way, not seeing the 
 evil in mj very search. But now again I was 
 overcharged with most gnawing cares, lest I 
 should die ere I had found the truth. What 
 were the pangs of my teeming heart ! what 
 groans, O my God ! yet even then were Thine 
 ears open, and I knew it not: and when, in 
 silence, I vehemently sought, ' whence was 
 evil ?' those silent contritions of my soul were 
 strong cries unto Thy mercy. Thou knewest 
 what I suffered, and no man. For what was 
 that which was thence through my tongue dis- 
 tilled into the ears of my most familiar friends ? 
 Did the whole tumult of my soul, for which 
 neither time nor utterance sufl&ced, reach 
 them ? Yet went up the whole to Thy hear- 
 ing, all which I roared out from the groanings 
 of my heart. These things had grown out of 
 my wound ; for Thou ' humbledst the proud 
 like one that is wounded.' By inward goads 
 didst Thou rouse me, that I should be ill at 
 ease until Thou wert manifested to ni}- inward 
 sight." 
 
 A new snare entangled him. Procuring, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 137 
 
 "by means of one puffed up Avith most unnat- 
 ural pride," " certain books of the Platonists," 
 ■ — lie was ensnared into a search for "incorpo- 
 real truth," — ^believing that the Word," Avhich 
 had been "in the beginning with God," was 
 " the light of men," but not believing that " the 
 Word was made flesh." And for a little while 
 it seemed as if he had grasped something, and 
 as if his heart had found repose. " He that 
 knows the Truth," he would whisper to him- 
 self complacently, " knows what that Light is ; 
 and he that knows it knows eternity. Love 
 knoweth it. O Truth who art Eternity ! and 
 Love who art Truth ! and Eternity who art 
 Love ! Thou art my God ; to thee do I sigh 
 night and day." 
 
 But a few months passed, and these sigh- 
 ings, apparently so ethereal and so devout, left 
 him desolate as before. " I prated," says he, 
 "as one well skilled; but, had I not sought 
 Thy way in Christ our Saviour, I had proved 
 to be not skilled, but killed. For, now, I had 
 begun to wish to seem wise, being filled with 
 mine own punishment ; yet I did not mourn, 
 but scorn, puffed up with knowledge. For 
 12^ 
 
138 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 where was that charity, building upon the 
 'foundation' of humiUty, 'which is Christ 
 Jesus?'" 
 
 The void in that heart could be filled only 
 by a personal Christ ; and to Him he now be- 
 gan, darkly and uncertainly, to grope his way. 
 " Thy AYord was the One," said he, " the Eter- 
 nal One. Truth built for itself in this lower 
 world a lowly habitation of our clay, whereby 
 to abase from themselves such as would be 
 subdued, and to bring them over to Himself, — 
 allaying their swelling, and fomenting their 
 love, to the end they might go on no further 
 in self-confidence, but rather consent to become 
 weak, seeing before their feet the Divinity weak 
 by taking our coats of skin, and, wearied, might 
 cast themselves down upon it, and it, rising, 
 might lift them up." And yet he had not 
 rest. "A narrow way," he says, "presented 
 itself from w^hose straitness I shrank." That 
 " narrow way" was the atoning sacrifice — the 
 blood of the slain Lamb. He could not brook 
 the humiliation of going down into the dust as 
 a guilty, condemned sinner ; and therefore the 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 139 
 
 blood had no attractions for him — the Cross 
 was still " foolish nes.s." 
 
 Thus, from " the mountain's shaggy top" he 
 seemed to " see the land of peace ; " but he 
 "found no way thither, — in vain essaying 
 through ways unpassable, opposed and beset 
 by fugitives and deserters under their captain 
 the lion and the dragon." 
 
 " Nothing but drouth and dearth, but bush and brake, 
 Which way soe'erl look, I see.-' 
 
XVI. 
 
 " Who, when groat trials come, 
 Nor seeks, nor shuns them ; but doth calmly stay, 
 Till he the thing and the example weigh : 
 
 All being brought into a sum, 
 Whiit place or person calls for, he doth pay." 
 
 There lived in those days, at Rome, a grave, 
 learned man, " skilled in the liberal sciences,'' 
 and so eminently successful as a "Ehetoric 
 Professor," that the rare honour had been 
 decreed to him of a statue in the Forum. For 
 years, he had been a devoted worshipper of 
 idols, " defending with a thundering eloquence" 
 the superstitious rites, — until now, in his old 
 age, Victorinus might be seen poring most 
 studiously over the Christian Scriptures which 
 a friend had placed before him. 
 
 " Understand," said he, one morning, to his 
 friend, " that I am already a Christian." " I 
 will not believe it," was the reply, "nor will I 
 
 [140] 
 
MEMOIil OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 141 
 
 rank jou among Christians, unless I see you 
 in the Church, of Christ." ''Do walls, then, 
 make Christians?" lie would answer, half in 
 jest, and half trembling; for he "feared to 
 offend his friends, proud demon -worshippers, 
 from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, 
 as from ' cedars of Libanus' which the Lord 
 had not yet broken down, he supposed the 
 w^eight of enmity would fall upon him." 
 
 Some months passed ; and, one day calling 
 upon Simplicianus, he said, suddenly — "Go 
 we to chui'ch ; I wish to avow myself a Chris- 
 tian." At once the two set out, his friend 
 scarce able to " contain himself for joy." As 
 they hastened along, the venerable Roman told, 
 with tears in his eyes, how, after long and 
 earnest musings, the light had at last dawned, 
 and how he " feared to be denied by Christ 
 before the holy angels, should he now be afraid 
 to confess Him before men." Arrived at the 
 humble place of meeting, he gave in his name 
 for baptism, "submitting his neck to the yoke 
 of liumility, and subduing his forehead to the 
 reproach of the cross." 
 
 It was the custom at Rome for the catechu- 
 
142 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 men to ascend an elevated platform, and, in 
 the sight of all the people, to deliver a profes- 
 sion of his faith. When Victorinns came for- 
 ward, the brethren offered to receive his profes- 
 sion in private — a concession at times made to 
 "such as seemed likely through bashfulness to 
 be alarmed." But, " choosing rather to profess 
 his salvation in the presence of the holy multi- 
 tude," he boldly though meekly went forward, — 
 "each, as he recognised him, whispering his 
 name to his neighbour with the voice of con- 
 gratulation." As he stood in front of the as- 
 sembl}^, " there ran a low murmur through all 
 the mouths .of the rejoicing multitude — 'Yictori- 
 nns ! Yictorinus !' " " Sudden was the bui'st of 
 rapture," writes the quaint chronicler, " that 
 they saw him ; suddenly were they hushed, that 
 they might hear him. He pronounced the true 
 faith with an excellent boldness ; and all wished 
 to draw him into their very heart: yea, by 
 their love and joy they drew him thither ; such 
 were the bands wherewith they drew him. 
 That day Yictorinus put on Christ, " Eome 
 wondering, the Church rejoicing." 
 
 A few months afterwards, Simplicianus ar- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 143 
 
 rived at Milan; and, one morning, Augustine 
 was relating to him " the mazes of his wander- 
 ings." He "seemed to me," Aurelius writes, 
 " a good servant of Thine ; and Thy grace 
 shone in him." Setting before him his anxi- 
 eties, he entreated him to "tell him, out of the 
 store of his experience, which was the fittest 
 way for one in his case to walk in God's paths." 
 Simplicianus related to him the story of the 
 Eoman Professor's trial and triumph of faith. 
 "And immediately," says Augustine, "I was 
 on fire to imitate him. 
 
 "But," interposed his friend, "there was a 
 law made in the reign of Julian forbidding any 
 Chiistian to teach the liberal sciences or oratory ; 
 and Victorinus, obeying this law, gave up 
 all for Christ." Augustine was not damped. 
 " When I heard," he writes, " how he chose 
 rather to give over the wordy school, than 
 Thy Word, by which Thou ' makest eloquent 
 the tongues of the dumb,' he seemed to me not 
 more resolute than blessed, in thus having 
 found opportunity to wait on Thee only. 
 Which thing," he adds, "I was sighing for, 
 
144 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 bound as I was, not with another's irons, but 
 by my own iron will." 
 
 He had "heard from Ambrose" how "the 
 flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit 
 against the flesh;" and now he "understood, 
 by his own experience, what he had heard." 
 "My will," says he, "the enemy held; and 
 thence he had made a chain for me, and bound 
 me. t^For of a froward will was a lust made ; 
 and a lust, served, became custom ; and custom, 
 not resisted, became necessity. By which links, 
 as it were, joined together (whence I called it a 
 chain), a hard bondage held me enthralled. 
 But that new will, which had begun to be in 
 me — ^freely to serve Thee and to wish to enjoy 
 Thee, God, the only assured pleasantness — • 
 was not yet able to overcome my former wilful- 
 ness, strengthened by age. Thus my two 
 wills — one new, and the other old, one carnal, 
 the other spiritual — struggled within me ; and, 
 by their discord, they undid my soul." 
 
 And he adds : — " Myself, verily, either way; 
 yet, more myself in that which I approved in 
 myself, than in that which in myself I disap- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. ACGL'STIXE. 145 
 
 proved. For, in this last, it was now for the 
 more part not myself : because, in much, 1 
 rather endured against my will, than acted 
 willingly. But I, still under service to the 
 earth, refused to fight under Thy banner, fear- 
 ing as much to be freed of all encumbrances as 
 we should fear to be encumbered with it. 
 Thus, with the baggage of this present world 
 was I held down pleasantly as in sleep ; and 
 the thoughts wherein I meditated on Thee 
 were like the efforts of such as would awake, 
 who yet, overcome with a heavy drowsiness, 
 are again drenched therein." 
 
 One morning, he was at church; and a vast 
 concourse was there, " one going this way, and 
 another that way." Anew the feeling rose in 
 him, '^Why not surrender my soul to God? 
 why lead any longer a secular life?" And, for a 
 day or two, it seemed as if he were "escaped 
 like a bird out of the snare of the fowler." 
 But, once more, he gave way. " Still I was 
 enthralled," says he, " with the love of women; 
 and, because of this alone, I was tossed up and 
 down in all beside, faint and wasted with 
 withering cares. Thou calledst to me, * Awake, 
 18 
 
146 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTIKE. 
 
 thou that slecpest, and arise from the dead, and 
 Christ shall give thee light;' but I had nothing 
 to answer. Thou didst on all sides shew me 
 that what thou saidst was true; but I, con- 
 victed by the truth, had only those dull and 
 drowsy words, 'Anon I anon 1 ' 'presently!' 
 leave me but ' a little ! ' As no one would sleep 
 for ever, and, in all men's sober judgment, 
 waking is better, — yet a man for the most part, 
 feeling a heavy lethargy in all his limbs, defers 
 to shake off sleep, and, though half displeased, 
 yet, even after it is time to rise, with pleasure 
 yields to it ; so, was I assured that much better 
 were it for me to give myself up to Thy charity 
 than to give myself over to mine own cupidity : 
 but, though the former course satisfied me and 
 gained the mastery, the latter pleased me and 
 held me mastered. For, ' presently I presently !' 
 had no present ; and my ' little while' went on 
 for a long while." 
 
 The day-dawn, however, was now at hand ; 
 and its rising we proceed to trace. 
 
 " What wonders shall I feel, when I shall see, 
 Thy full-eyed love, 
 When Thou shalt look me out of pain I" 
 
XVII. 
 
 " What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, 
 That learning is too proud to gather up?" 
 
 We are in a chamber in Milan, where often- 
 times, of an evening, after the business of the 
 day, three friends assemble, to recount their 
 mutual sorrows and to whisper in one another's 
 ears their sighings. By this time, the " books 
 of the Platonists" have been exchanged for the 
 " Epistles of St. Paul ;" and, this particular 
 night, as Augustine is sitting alone, with the 
 new instructor before him, Alypius enters, 
 wearied and worn out, being "just released 
 from his third sitting that day to sell his coun- 
 sel." They are waiting for N"ebriclius to join 
 the little circle, when an unusual knock at the 
 door startles them, and the suspicious book is 
 hastily closed. A few moments pass; and 
 there is announced " a high dignitary of the 
 Imperial Court, one Pontitianus," whom they 
 
 [1471 
 
148 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 recognise as "a couatrj-mau fi'om Africa" but 
 have only once or twice met. 
 
 After the customary salutation, the visitor 
 sits down beside them at "a table for some 
 game ;" but they have not played many min- 
 utes, before his eye glances at the book which 
 is lying upon it, and which the friends have 
 just so abruptly shut. Thinking it '' one of 
 the books which he once wore himself out in 
 teaching," he opens it with a heavy sigh ; but, 
 "finding it, contraiy to his expectation, the 
 Apostle Paul," he smiles significantly — Augus- 
 tine blushes — and, before he can utter a word 
 of apology, the stranger relieves his embar- 
 rassment by expressing his "joy and wonder 
 that he has on a sudden found this book, and 
 this only, before their eyes." 
 
 Pontitianus was "a saint in Caesar's house- 
 hold;" and, that evening, he told the wonder- 
 ing friends the story of God's dealings with 
 him. 
 
 One afternoon, at Triers, as the Emperor 
 and his Court were in the Circus, "taken up 
 with the games," the courtier had stolen away, 
 with three companions — "agents for public 
 
ME.MOIll OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 149 
 
 affairs" — to " walk in gardens near the city- 
 walls." Two and two, they had sauntered on, 
 until "one of the couples," "lighting upon a 
 certain cottage, inhabited by certain saints 
 ' poor in spirit of whom was the kingdom of 
 heaven,' " found a little book narrating the 
 heavenly life of a saint not long departed. 
 This they began to read ; and they " admired 
 and kindled at it," until, " filled with an holy 
 love and a sober shame," one of them, " in 
 anger with himself, cast his eyes upon his 
 friend, saying, 'Tell me, I pray thee, what 
 would we attain by all these labours of ours ? 
 what aim we at? what serve we for? can our 
 hopes at court rise higher than to be the Em- 
 peror's favourites? and, in this, what is there 
 not brittle and full of perils? and by how 
 many perils arrive we at a greater peril ? and 
 when arrive we thither? But a friend of 
 God, if I wish it, I become now at once.' " 
 
 It was the turning point of his course. " In 
 pain with the travail of a new life, he turned 
 his ejes again upon the book — read on — was 
 changed inwardly — and his mind was stripped 
 of the world." " Now," said he, after a little, 
 13-^ 
 
150 IIEMOIII OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 turning to his companion, " I have broken 
 loose from those onr hopes, and am resolved 
 to serve God ; and this, from this honr, in this 
 place, I begin upon. If thou likest not to 
 imitate me, oppose not." "I will cleave to 
 thee," was the reply, " to partake so glorious a 
 reward, so glorious a service." 
 
 It was now late in the evening; and the 
 other two friends, who had been walking in 
 other parts of the garden, arrived at the cot- 
 tage in search of them. With full hearts, the 
 two related what had passed. " Our purpose 
 is settled," said they ; " our will is fixed ; and, 
 if you will not join us, pray do not molest us." 
 "Alas! " was the answer, *' what shall we do? 
 we envy you your choice ; and oh ! pray for 
 us." And so, "nothing altered from their 
 former selves, and with hearts lingering on 
 the earth," they betook themselves to the 
 palace. 
 
 As the story proceeded, Augustine fdt as if 
 God were searching him through and through. 
 " Thou, Lord, while he was speaking," says 
 he, "didst turn me round towards myself, 
 taking me from behind my back, where I had 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 151 
 
 placed me, unwilling to observe mjself, and 
 setting me before my face, that I might see 
 how foul I was — how crooked and defiled, be- 
 spotted and ulcerous." He " beheld, and stood 
 aghast ;" and " whither to flee from himself, 
 he found not." If he sought to turn his eye 
 from off himself, Pontitianus went on with his 
 relation; and "Thou," he writes again, "didst 
 set me over against myself, and thrustedst me 
 before mine eyes, that ' I might find ont mine 
 iniquity, and hate it.' I had known it, but 
 had made as thougli I saw it not — had winked 
 at it, and forgotten it." 
 
 Slight convictions make slight conversions. ) 
 But, if ever the foundations were laid deep in 
 a soul, it was, in those days, in the heart 
 of Augustine. "Now," says he, "the more 
 ardently I loved those whose healtliftd affec- 
 tions had led them to resign themselves whollv 
 to the Lord to be cured, the more did I abhor 
 myself wdien compared with them. For many 
 of my years — some twelve — had now i-an out 
 since my nineteenth, when, upon the reading 
 of Cicero's ' Ilortensius,' I was stirred to an 
 earnest love of wisdom ; and still I was defer- 
 
152 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 ring to reject raere earthly felicit}^, and to give 
 mj^self to searcli out that whereof not the find- 
 iiig only, but the very search, was to be pre- 
 ferred to the treasures and kingdoms of the 
 world though already found, and to the pleas- 
 ures of the body though spread around me at 
 my will. But I wretched, most wretched, in 
 the very commencement of my early youth, 
 had begged chastity of Thee, saying, ' Give 
 me chastity and continency, only not yet.'' For 
 I feared lest Thou shouldest hear me soon, and 
 cure me of the disease of concupiscence, which 
 I wished to have satisfied rather than extin- 
 guished. And I had thought, that I therefore 
 deferred from da}^ to day to reject the hopes 
 of this world and to follow Thee only, because 
 there did not appear aught certain Vv^hithcr to 
 direct iny course. And now was the day come 
 wherein I was to be laid bare to myself, and 
 niy conscience was to upbraid me." 
 
 Yet the delay, the anxiety, the stingings, 
 the protracted law-work, had not fitted him 
 for coming to Christ. Others, who "neither 
 so wore themselves out with seeking it, nor for 
 ten years and more were thinking tliereon," 
 
ME.MOIR OF ST. AUGUbTINE. 153 
 
 had had " their shoulders lightened, and had 
 received wings to fly away." As for himself, 
 his ten years' gloomy groping had only left 
 him more guilty and more self-condemned. 
 " Thus was I gnawed within," he writes, "and 
 exceedingly confounded with an horrible 
 shame, while Pontitianus was speaking. And 
 he, having brought to a close his tale and the 
 business he came for, went his way; and I 
 into myself." 
 
 As the stranger departed, Augustine and his 
 friend sat for a few moments silent. "What 
 ails us?" at last exclaimed Aurelius, turning 
 to the other (his "forehead, cheeks, eyes, col- 
 our, tone of voice," expressing, more emphati- 
 cally than the words he uttered, that " great 
 contention of his inward dwelling which he 
 liad strongly raised against his soul in the 
 chamber of his heart"); "what is it? what 
 heardest thou ? The unlearned start up and 
 'take heaven by force;' and we — with our 
 learning and without heart — lo, where we ^^^al- 
 low in flesh and blood ! Are ayc ashamed to 
 follow, because others are gone before? and 
 not ashamed to refuse even to follow ?" Some 
 
154. MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE 
 
 such words he uttered; and his "fever of 
 mind" tore him away, — Alypius gazing in 
 mute amazement, as his friend suddenly disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The house they lodged in had a little garden ; 
 and, as the master of the house Avas absent, 
 they could always reckon on finding in the 
 garden a quiet retreat. " Thither," says he, 
 " the tumult of my breast hurried me, where 
 no man might hinder the hot contention 
 wherein I had engaged with myself, until it 
 should end as Thou knewest — I knew not. 
 Only I was healthfully distracted, and dying, 
 to live ; knowing what evil thing I was, and 
 not knowing what good thing I was shortly to 
 become. What said I not against myself? 
 With what scourges of condemnation lashed I 
 not my soul, that it might follow me striving 
 to go after Thee ! Yet it drew back ; refused, 
 but excused not itself. All arguments were 
 spent and confuted; there remained a mute 
 shrinking ; and she feared, as she would death, 
 to be restrained from the flux of that custom 
 whereby she was wasting to death." 
 
 Seated beneath a shady tree, "as far re- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 155 
 
 moved as might be from the house," he Avas 
 joined, ere long, by Aljpius; for "how," says 
 he, " could he forsake me so disturbed ?" Bat 
 his friend's presence did not lessen his privacy ; 
 and again he fell into the most bitter self- 
 reproach. "I was troubled in spirit," he 
 writes, " most vehemently indignant, that I 
 entered not into Thy will and covenant, O my 
 God, which 'all my bones cried out' unto me 
 to enter, and praised it to the skies. And 
 therein we entor not by ships, or by chariots, 
 or by feet — no, r or move so far as I had come 
 from the house to that place where we were 
 sitting. For, not to go only, but to go in 
 thither, was nothing else than to will to go, 
 but to will resolutely and thoroughly ; not to 
 turn and toss, this way and that, a maimed and 
 half-divided will, struggling, with one part 
 sinking as another rose." 
 
 It was xhe throe of the new bii'th ; and no 
 Avonder he felt a bitter pang. "In the very 
 fever of my irresoluteness," he says, " I made 
 with my body many such motions as men 
 sometimes will, but cannot, if either they have 
 not the limbs, or these be bound with bands, 
 
156 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 weakened with infirmity, or nny other way 
 hindered. Thus, if I tore my hair, or beat my 
 forehead — if, locking my lingei's, I clasped my 
 knee, — I willed, I did it; but I might have 
 willed and not done it, if the power of motion 
 in my limbs had not obeyed. So, many things 
 then I did, when ' to will' was not itself ' to be 
 able;' and I did not what both I longed m- 
 comparably more to do, and which soon after, 
 when I should will, I should be able to do; 
 because, soon after, when I should will, I 
 should will thoroughly. For, in these things, 
 the ability was one with the will, and to will 
 was to do ; and yet was it not done : and more 
 easily did my body obey the weakest willing 
 of my soul, in moving its limbs at its nod, than 
 the soul obeyed itself to accomplish in the will 
 alone this- its momentous will." 
 
 By those painful teachings, he was learning, 
 in these moments, lessons which were to be 
 graven on his heart for ever. " Whence this 
 monstrousness ?" he enquires, looking back on 
 that crisis of his inner life ; " and to what end ? 
 Let Tlij' mercy gleam that I may ask, — if so be 
 t;he secret penalties of men, and tliose darkest 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 157 
 
 pangs of the sons of Adam, may perliaps 
 answer me. Whence is this monstrousness ? 
 and to what end? The mind commands the 
 body, and it obeys instantly; the mind com- 
 mands itself, and is resisted. The mind com- 
 mands the liand to be moved ; and such readi- 
 ness is there, that command is scarce distinct 
 from obedience. Yet the mind is mind, the 
 hand is body. The mind commands the mind — 
 its own self — to will ; and yet it doth not. 
 
 Whence this monstrousness?" he again 
 asks ; " and to what end ? It commands itself, 
 I say, to will, and would not command unless 
 it willed ; and what it commands, is not done. 
 But it willelh not entirely ; therefore doth it 
 not command entirely. For, so far forth it 
 commandeth as it willeth ; and, so far forth is 
 the thing commanded not done, as it willeth 
 not. For the will commandeth that tliere be a 
 will — not another, but itself. But it doth not 
 command entirely ; therefore, what it com- 
 mandeth, is not. For, were the will entire, it 
 would not even command it to be, because it 
 would already be. It is, therefore, no mon- 
 14 
 
158 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 strousness partly to will, partly to nill, — but a 
 disease of the mind, that it doth not wholly 
 rise, by truth up-borne, by custom down- 
 borne." 
 
 God was tutoring him thus for his life-work, 
 though he knew it not. He was rooting up 
 from his heart "the mandrake Pride," though 
 it "cost him groans and writhings;" and, one 
 day, he was to utter the teachings in accents 
 whose echo has not to this hour died away on 
 the ear of Christendom. Another has written — 
 
 " Fall of rebellion, I would die 
 Or fight, or travel, or deny- 
 That Thou hast aught to do with me. 
 Oh, tame my heart I 
 It is Thy highest art. 
 To captivate strongholds to Thee." 
 
 And, again — 
 
 " Oh, smooth my rugged heart, and there 
 Engrave Thy rev'rend love and fear 1 
 Or make a new one ; since the old 
 Is sapless gro\vn, 
 And a much fitter stone 
 To hide my dust, than Thee to hold." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 159 
 
 These liumbling truths Augustine was now 
 reading, not in books, but off the living tablet 
 of his own inmost heart ; and how could such 
 a man afterwards fail to write confusion upon 
 upon all human pride ? 
 
XVIII. 
 
 " There was I found by One who had Himself 
 Been hurt by the archers. In His side He bore, 
 And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars ; 
 With gentle force soliciting the darts, 
 He drew them forth, and hcal'd, and bade me live." 
 
 As lie sat, tlmt evening, beneath the tree, his 
 bewildered soul groped its last weary wander- 
 ings in the region and shadow of death. 
 
 He writes : — " Thus soul-sick was I, and 
 tormented, accusing myself much more severely 
 than my wont, rolling and turning me in my 
 chain, till that were wholly broken, whereby 
 I now was but just — but still was — held. And 
 Thou, Lord, pressedst upon me in m}^ in- 
 ward parts by a severe mercy, redoubling the 
 lashes of fear and of shame, lest I should again 
 give way, and, not bursting that same slight 
 remaining tie, it should recover strength and 
 bind me the faster. For I said within myself: 
 [160] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 161 
 
 ' Be it clone now ! be it done now ! ' and, as I 
 spake, I all but enacted it ; I all but did it, and 
 did it not ; yet sank not back to my former 
 state, but kept my stand liard by, and took 
 breatli. And I essayed again, and wanted 
 somewhat less of it, and somewliat less, and all 
 but touched and laid hold of it ; and yet came 
 not at it, nor touched nor laid hold of it; 
 hesitating to die to death and to live to life : 
 and the worse, whereto I was inured, prevailed 
 more with me than the better, whereto I was 
 unused ; and, the very moment wherein I was 
 to become other than I was, the nearer it ap- 
 joroached me, the greater horror did it strike 
 into me ; yet did it not strike me back, nor 
 turned me away, but held me in suspense." 
 
 "Faithful," one day, was accosted by a de- 
 ceiver, who promised him, " if he would but 
 turn and dwell with him," " all manner of 
 fleshly content;" and, when he "turned to go 
 away from him," he took hold of his flesh, and 
 gave him such "a deadly twitch back," that it 
 seemed as if he had pulled part of him after 
 himself After a like fashion, poor Augustine 
 now felt himself "held by those very toys of 
 14* 
 
162 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 toys, and vanities of vanities'' — his "ancient 
 mistresses." " They plucked my fleshl}^ gar- 
 ment," he says, "and whispered softly, 'Dost 
 thou cast us off? and from that moment shall 
 we no more be with thee for ever ? and from 
 that moment shall not this or that be lawful to 
 thee for ever ? ' And what defilements did 
 they suggest ! what shame ! " 
 
 But it was too late. " I much less than half 
 heard them," he writes, " and they did not 
 openly shew themselves and contradict me, but 
 muttered as it were behind my back, and, as I 
 was departing, privily plucked me, but to look 
 back upon them. Yet they did retard me, so 
 that I hesitated to burst and shake myself free 
 from them, and to spring over whither I was 
 called, — a violent habit saying to me, ' Thinkest 
 thou, thou canst live without them ? ' But 
 now it spake very faintly. For, on that side 
 whither I had set my face and whither I trem- 
 bled to go, there appeared unto me the chaste 
 dignity of continency — serene,yet not relaxedly 
 gay, honestly alluring me to come and doubt 
 not, and stretching forth, to receive and em- 
 brace me, her holy hand full of multitudes of 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 163 
 
 good examples; there were so many young 
 men and maidens here, a multitude of youtli 
 and of every age, grave widows and aged vir- 
 gins ; and Continence herself in all, not bar- 
 ren, but ' a fruitful mother of children' — of 
 joys — by thee, her husband, O Lord. And she 
 smiled on me with a persuasive mockery, as if 
 she would say, — ' Canst not thou what these 
 3^ouths, what these maidens, can ? or can they 
 either, in themselves, and not rather in the 
 Lord their God ? The Lord their God gave 
 me unto them. Why standest thou in thyself, 
 and so standest not ? cast thyself upon Him, 
 fear not He will withdraw Himself that thou 
 shouldest fall ; cast thyself fearlessly upon 
 Him, He will receive and will heal thee.' And 
 I blushed exceedingly ; for that I yet heard 
 the muttering of those toys, and hung in sus- 
 pense. And she again seemed to say, — ' Stop 
 thine ears against those thy unclean members 
 on the earth, that they may be mortified. The}^ 
 tell thee of delights, but not as doth the law 
 ofthe Lord thy God.'" 
 
 All this time, he was '' in unwonted emo- 
 tion ; " and Alypius had continued "sitting 
 
164 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 close bj his side, in sileuce waiting its issue." 
 At length, '' a deep consideration having, from 
 the secret bottom of his soul," " drawn together 
 and heaped up all his misery in the sight of 
 his heart, and a mighty storm arising and 
 bringing a might}^ shower of tears," — he "rose 
 from Atypius," that he "might pour it forth 
 wholly in its natural expressions." " Solitude," 
 he says, " was suggested to me as fitter for the 
 business of weeping ; so, I retired so far that 
 even his presence could not be a burden to me. 
 Thus was it then with me ; and he perceived 
 something of it; for something, I suppose, I 
 had spoken, wherein the tones of m}^ voice ap- 
 peared choked with weeping, and so risen up. 
 He then remained where we had been sitting, 
 most extremely astonished." 
 
 A poet, who himself had travailed, writes — 
 
 "With sick and famish' d eyes, 
 With doubhng knees, and weary bones, 
 To Thee my cries, 
 To Thee my groans, 
 To Thee my sighs, ray tears ascend. 
 No end ? " 
 
 Yes, brother, thy travail is ending now. "I 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 165 
 
 cast myself clown," says he, "I know not how, 
 under a certain fig-tree, giving full vent to my 
 tears ; and the floods of mine eyes pushed out 
 ' an acceptable sacrifice to Thee.' And — not, 
 indeed, in these words, yet to this purpose — 
 spake I much unto Thee : — ' And Thou, O 
 Lord, how long? how long, Lord, wilt Thou 
 be angry ? for ever ? Remember not our for- 
 mer iniquities!' for I felt that I was held by 
 them. I sent up these sorrowful words, 'How 
 long ? how long ? ' ' To-morrow, and to-mor- 
 row ? ' ' why not now ? why not now ? why 
 not is there this hour an end to my unclcan- 
 ncss ?' " 
 
 " A microscopic cause," it has been said, 
 " often works a long-prepared effect." That 
 evening, in the garden at Milan, the apoph- 
 thegm was to hold good." 
 
 Augustine was still " speaking, and weeping 
 in the niost bitter contrition of his heart," when 
 suddenly there fell upon his ear, from a neigh- 
 bouring house, "a voice, as of a boy or girl, 
 chanting, and oft repeating — ' Take up and 
 read ! take up and read ! ' " Not more start- 
 ling to Saul of Tarsus was the light, and the 
 
166 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUST IKE. 
 
 voice, that cla}^, on the way to Damascus. 
 "Instantly," says he, " mj^ countenance altered : 
 I began to think most intently whether chil- 
 dren were wont, in any kind of play, to sing- 
 such words ; nor could I remember ever to 
 have heard the like. So, checking the torrent 
 of my tears, I arose, interpreting it to be no 
 other than a command from God to open the 
 book and read the first chapter I should find ; 
 for," he adds, " I had heard of Antony, that, 
 coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he 
 received the admonition, as if what was being- 
 read was spoken to him — ' Go, sell all that thou 
 hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven, and come and follow me ; ' 
 and by such oracle he was forthwith converted 
 imto Thee." 
 
 Hastening to the spot where he had left 
 Alypius, he snatched the volume of St. Paul 
 which they had been reading in tlie room and 
 which he had brought with him to the garden. 
 He opened the book ; and his eye fell on that 
 scripture — " T^ot in rioting and drunkenne:~s, 
 not in chambering and wantonness, not in 
 strife and envying ; but put ye on the Lord 
 
MEMOIll OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 167 
 
 Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the 
 flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.''"^ It was the 
 hour of the spirit-birth. The Lord was at his 
 side, saying, " Live ! " " No further would I 
 read," says he ; "nor needed I: for instantly, 
 at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were 
 of serenity infused into my heart, all the dark- 
 ness of doubt vanished away." 
 
 When the Pilgrim, at the Cross, " stood 
 looking and weeping," wondering that the sight 
 of the Crucified should have "eased him of his 
 burden," — " three shining ones came to him, 
 and stripped him of his rags, and clothed him 
 with change of raiment; and Christian, giving 
 three lca[)S for joy, went on singing — 
 
 " ' Thus far did I come laden with my sin, 
 
 Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in, 
 Till I came hither : what a place is this ! 
 Must here be the beginning of my bliss ? 
 Must here the burden fall from off my back ? 
 Must here the strings that bind it to me crack ? 
 Blest Cross ! Blest Sepulchre I blest rather be 
 The Man that there was put to death for me ! ' " 
 
 Augustine now had found a like rest, and he 
 
 * Rom. xiii. 13, 14. 
 
168 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 rejoiced with a like lowly joy. "0 my God," 
 he exclaimed, " let me with thanksgiving re- 
 member and confess unto Thee Thy mercies on 
 me. Let my bones be bedewed with Thy love, 
 and let them say unto Thee, 'Who is like unto 
 Thee, Lord ? Thou hast broken my bonds 
 in sunder. I will offer unto Thee the sacrifice 
 of thanksgiving.' " 
 
 And, looking back, long afterwards, upon 
 the crisis, he wrote : — " Thy powerful voice 
 said, ' Let there be light, and there was light." 
 The gross darkness which had floated before 
 my eyes dissolved in an instant. I felt it scat* 
 ter, and descried the dawning day, and heard 
 the powerful command ; and, full of thankful 
 wonder, I cried out — "Thou verily art God, 
 which has brought me out of darkness and the 
 shadow of death into Thy marvellous light.' 
 Thou spakest that word ; and, behold, I see." 
 
XIX. 
 
 " Let this bint suffice — 
 The Cross once seen is death to every vice ; 
 Else He that hung there suffer'd all this pain, 
 Bled, groan'd, and agonised, and died, in vain." 
 
 King Alfred, after his conversion, used to 
 spend night after night in a quiet retreat, por- 
 ing over the Book of Psalms, and, like Luther, 
 crying, " More light ! more light ! " In a se- 
 cluded villa near Milan was now to be seen, 
 for many successive weeks, the meek son of 
 Monica, sitting, like another Mary, often for 
 half the night, at the feet of Jesus, hearing His 
 words. "Oh 1 in what accents," says he, 
 " spake I unto Thee, my God, when I read the 
 Psalms of David, those faithful songs and 
 sounds of devotion ! How was I — as yet a 
 novice in Thy real love — ^by them kindled to- 
 wards Thee, and on fire to rehearse them, if 
 15 [169] 
 
170 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 possible, tbrougli the whole world against the 
 pride of mankind !" 
 
 But we return, for a few moments, to the 
 garden. 
 
 His first impulse, that night, was, to " tell 
 his friend Aljpius what had come to him ; " 
 and so, " putting his finger between and also 
 some other mark," he closed the book, and, 
 '' with a calm countenance," communicated the 
 joyful tidings. 
 
 " Let me see," said Alypius, '* what you have 
 read." Opening the place he shewed him ; and 
 the words following caught his eye, " Him that 
 is weak in the faith, receive." " This," says 
 Augustine, " he applied to himself, and dis- 
 closed to me. And by this admonition was he 
 strengthened; and by a good resolution and 
 purpose, and most corresponding to his charac- 
 ter, wherein he did always very far differ from 
 me for the better, he without any turbulent de- 
 lay joined me." 
 
 His next thought was, to hasten to Monica ; 
 and to her he "related in order how it had 
 taken place." Long had she " gone forth 
 weeping, bearing the precious seed ; " and now 
 
MKMOm OF ST. AUGL'STINE. 171 
 
 it was like life's harvest- home to lier, witli its 
 " sheaves " of joy. " She leapt for gladness," 
 Augustine writes, " and triumphed, and blessed 
 God who had done for her above what she 
 could ask or think. She perceived that Thou 
 hadst given her more for me, than she was 
 wont to beg by her pitiful and most sorrowful 
 groanings. For Thou convertedst me unto 
 Thyself, so that I sought neither wife, nor any 
 hope of this world, standing in that ' rule ' of 
 faith where Thou hadst shewed me unto her in 
 a vision so many years before. And Thou 
 didst ' convert her mourning into joy ' much 
 more plentiful than she had desired, and in a 
 much more precious and purer way than she 
 erst required by having grandchildren of my 
 body." 
 
 Yinet speaks of a detaching and an attach- 
 ing. Nature begins with the detaching ; hence 
 its painful struggles after holiness, and its dark 
 and dreary bondage. Grace attaches first — at- 
 taches to the person of the living and loving Sa- 
 viour ; and, a new affection thus possessing the 
 soul, the detaching follows easily, naturally. " I 
 saw with my heart the Lord Jesus," said an 
 
172 MEMOIK OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Indian warrior to Brainerd, one day ; " and it 
 stole my heart away." Augustine had now felt 
 the expulsive power of the same new affection ; 
 and, like Levi at the receipt of custom, he bad 
 resolved to leave all and follow Jesus.* 
 
 It was within some twenty days of the "Va- 
 cation of the Yintage;" and, determining, "not 
 tumultuously to tear, but gently to v/ithdraw, 
 the service of his tongue from the marts of 
 lip-labour," — he "endured" those few days, that, 
 having been "purchased of the Lord, no more 
 to return for sale," he might "then in a regu- 
 lar way take his leave." 
 
 Not, indeed, without certain grave misgiv- 
 ings, did his tender conscience suffer him to 
 " sit even one hour in the chair of lies." 
 "Thou hadst pierced our hearts," he writes, 
 
 *Possidius, referring to this period, says: — "Mox ex inti- 
 rnis cordis medullis convorsus ad Dcum, spcm oimieni, quam 
 habebat in sfcculo, dereliquit : jam iion nxorem, iiou filios 
 carnis, non divitias, non honores, sfficuli qurerens ; sed Deo 
 cum suis servire statuit, in illo et ex illo pusillo grege esse 
 studens, quern Dominus alloquitur, dicens, 'Nolito timere, 
 pusille grex, quoniam complacuit Patri vestro dare vobis reg- 
 num. Vendite qufc possidetis,' &c. — et super Hdci fundamen- 
 tura iiidificare desidcrans non ligna, foenuni et slipulau), sed 
 aurum, argentum, et lapidcs protiosos." 
 
MEMOIIl OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 173 
 
 "vvitli Thy charity, and we carried Thy words 
 as it were fixed in our entrails ; and the exam- 
 ples of Thy servants — whom for black thou 
 hadst made bright, and for dead, alive — being 
 piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, 
 kindled and burnt up that our heavy torpor, 
 that we should not sink down to the abyss ; 
 and they fired us so vehemently that all the 
 blasts of 'subtle tongues' from gainsayers might 
 only inflame us the more fiercely, not extin- 
 guish us." 
 
 Nevertheless, he decided to wait. "It 
 seemed," he adds, "like ostentation, not to 
 wait for the vacation now so near, but to quit 
 beforehand a public profession which was be- 
 fore the eyes of all, — so that all, looking on 
 this act of mine, and observing how near was 
 the time of vintage which I wished to antici- 
 pate, would talk much of me, as if I had de- 
 sired to appear some great one. And what 
 end had it served me, that people should re- 
 pute and dispute upon my purpose, and that 
 our 'good should be evil spoken of? '" 
 
 Meanwhile, the brief interval had its own 
 '* full joy." "Submitting his neck to Chrst's 
 
174 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 easy yoke, and his slioulders to His light bur- 
 den," — ^he writes: — "'How sweet did it at once 
 become to me to want the sweetnesses of those 
 toys ! and what I had feared to be parted from, 
 was now a joy to part with. For Thou, O 
 Christ Jesus, didst cast them forth fi-om Thee, 
 Thou true and highest sweetness ! Thou 
 castedst them forth, and, instead of them, en- 
 teredst in Thyself — sweeter than all pleasure, 
 though not to flesh and blood — brighter than 
 all light, but more hidden than all depths — ■ 
 higher than all honor, but not to the high in 
 their own conceits. Now was my soul free 
 from the biting cares of canvassing and get- 
 ting, and from w^eltering in filth, and scratch- 
 ing off the itch of lust. And my infant tongue 
 spake freely to Thee my brightness, and ni}- 
 riches, and my health, the Lord my God. 
 
 Another thing solaced him. That very sum- 
 mer, his "lungs had begun to give wa}^, amid 
 too great literary labour, and to breathe deeply 
 with difftculty, and, b}^ a pain in the chest, to 
 shew that they were injured, and to refuse any 
 full or lengthened speaking ;" and he had been 
 looking forward to the necessity of "laying 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 175 
 
 down that burden of teaching," or, if he "could 
 be cured and recover," at least of intermitting 
 it. "But," says he, "when the full wish for 
 leisure, that I might see ' how that thou art the 
 Lord,'* arose, and was fixed, in me,- — my God, 
 Thou knowcst, I began even to rejoice that I 
 had this secondary, and that no feigned excuse, 
 which might something moderate the offence 
 taken by those who, for their sons' sake, wish- 
 ed me never to have the freedom of Thy sons.'' 
 Thus the twenty days were "endured man- 
 full}'." " Our purpose," says he, " was known 
 to Thee ; but to men, other than onr own friends, 
 was it not known. For we had agreed among 
 ourselves not to let it abroad to any ; although 
 to us, now ascending from the 'valley of teai's' 
 and singing that ' song of degrees,' Thou hadst 
 given 'sharp arrows' and 'destroying co.ds' 
 against the ' subtle tongue ' which, as though 
 advising for us, would thwart, and would, out 
 of love, devour us, as it doth its meat." More- 
 over, the " covetousness, whicli af jretiine bore 
 a part of this heavy business," had left him, 
 and he " remained alone ;" but " patience had 
 
 * Psalm xlvi. 10. 
 
176 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 taken its place," and so tie " was not over- 
 whelmed." 
 
 At length, the day arrived when he " was in 
 deed freed of his Rhetoric Professorship, where- 
 of in thought he had been already freed," — 
 the Lord " rescuing his tongue whence He had 
 before rescued his heart." And he retired to 
 a friend's country house, "blessing God and 
 rejoicing." With him was the " brother of his 
 heart," Alypius, who had been "subdued unto 
 the name of Jesus ; " and the boy Adeodatiis 
 — born, after the flesh, of his sin — a lad not 
 quite fifteen, but " in wit surpassing many grave 
 and learned men ; " and, last not least, was Mo- 
 nica, "in female garb with masculine faith, 
 with the ti-anquility of age, motherly love. 
 Christian piet}^" 
 
 The host himself was not of the circle ; for, 
 with not a few convictions, poor Verecundus 
 " would not be a christian on any other terms 
 than on those he could not." Himself " held 
 long back by bonds whereby he was most 
 sternl}' bound, he was worn down with care about 
 their blessedness ; for he saw that he should be 
 severed from them." But he "offered them 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 177 
 
 courteously the use of his villa ; " and, scarcely- 
 able to bear the separation, he set out on a visit 
 to Rome. Daring his sojourn there, he was 
 taken seriously ill ; the arrow was removed by 
 the Divine Healer ; and, not long afterwards, 
 he died, resting in Christ Jesus. "In this,"' 
 says Augustine, "Thou hadst mercy, not on 
 him only, but on us also, — lest, remembering 
 the exceeding kindness of our friend towards 
 us yet unable to number him among Thy flock, 
 we should be agonized with intolerable sorrow. 
 Thanks unto Thee, our God, wc are Thine! 
 Thy suggestions and consolations tell us, that, 
 faithful in promises. Thou now requitest Yere- 
 cundus for his country-house of Cassiacum, 
 where, from the fever of the world, we now 
 reposed in Thee with the eternal freshness of 
 Thy Paradise." 
 
 The villa was Augustine's Wartburg, where 
 the Lord took him aside 
 
 " To gather up the ravelled skeins of feeling — 
 And rest a while for duties." 
 
 "When shall I have time to rehearse," he 
 writes, "all Thy great benefits towards us at 
 
178 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 that time, especially when basting on to yet 
 greater mercies ? For my remembrance recalls 
 me — and pleasant it is to me, O Lord, to confess 
 to Thee — by what inward goads Thou tamedst 
 me : and how Thou hast evened me, lowering 
 the m.ountains and hills of my high" imagina- 
 tions, straightening my crookedness, and 
 smoothing my rough ways." 
 
 And he adds : — " With what vehement and 
 bitter sorrow was I angered at the Manichees ! 
 How I would thc}^ had then been somewhere 
 near me, and, without my knowing that they 
 Avere there, could have beheld my countenance 
 and heard my words when I read the fourth 
 Psalm in that time of my rest, and how that 
 Psalm wroughc upon me — ' Hear me when I 
 call, God of my righteousness ; Thou hast 
 enlarged me when I was in distress ; have 
 merc3^ upon me, and hear my prayer !' Would 
 that what I uttered on these words they could 
 hear, without my knowing whether they heard, 
 lest they should think I spake it for their sakcs! 
 Because neither should I speak the same things, 
 nor in the same way, if I perceived that they 
 heard and saw me ; nor, if I spake tliem, would 
 
MEMOIK OF ST. AUGUSTIXE. 179 
 
 they so receive them as when I spake by and 
 for myself before Thee, out of the natural feel- 
 ings of my soul." 
 
 Another divine lesson taught him, "in that 
 breathing-time, panting from the school of 
 pride," was — a deep self-abasement and a holy 
 revenge against sin. " How was I moved, O 
 my God," says he, " who had now learned to 
 be angry at myself for sins past, that I might 
 not sin in time to come ! Yea, to be justly 
 angry ; for it was not another nature of a peo- 
 ple of darkness which sinned for me, as they 
 say who are not angry at themselves and who 
 treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and 
 of the revelation of Thy just judgment. Nor 
 were my good things now without, nor sought 
 with the eyes of flesh in that earthly sun ; for 
 they that would have joy from without soon 
 become vain, and waste themselves on the 
 things seen and temporal, and in their famished 
 thoughts do lick their very shadows. There, 
 where I was angry within myself in my cham- 
 ber — where I was inwaixlly pricked — where T 
 Avas saciificed, slaying ' my old man ' and com- 
 mencing the purpose of a new life, 'putting 
 
180 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 my trust in Thee,' — there haclst Thou begun 
 to grow sweet unto me, and haclst 'put glad- 
 ness in my heart.' And I cried out, as I read 
 this outwardly, finding it inwardly. Nor 
 would I be multiplied with worldly goods — 
 Avasting away time, and wasted away by time ; 
 whereas I had, in Thy eternal simple essence, 
 other 'corn, and wine, and oil.'" 
 
 It has been remarked of Bunyan that his 
 perceptions were all so vivid as to be transfig- 
 ured into sensations. Augustine's trials and 
 triumphs of faith took the same almost tangible 
 form. " I trembled for fear," he writes, giving 
 another of his villa-experiences, " and again 
 kindled with hope, and with rejoicing in Thy 
 mercy, O Father; and all issued forth, both 
 by mine eyes and by my voice, when Thy good 
 Spirit, turning unto us, said, ' O ye sons of 
 men ! how long slow of heart ? why do ye 
 love vanity and seek after leasing?' For I 
 liad loved vanity, and had sought after leasing. 
 Thy Holy One was risen, and was ascended ; 
 and the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, was 
 come^ and was crying. ' Know this !' and I so 
 long, not knowing, had 'loved vanity and 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUjsTINE. 181 
 
 sought after leasing :' and therefore I heard 
 and trembled, because it was spoken unto such 
 as I remembered myself to have been. For, 
 in those phantoms which I had held for truths, 
 was there ' vanity and leasing ; ' and I spake 
 aloud many things, earnestly and forcibly, in 
 the bitterness of my remembrance. Which 
 would they had heard, who yet ' love vanity 
 and seek after leasing!' The}' would per- 
 chance have been troubled, and have vomited 
 it up ; and ' Tliou wouldest hear them when 
 they cried unto Thee.'" 
 
 On a later occasion, after the same Bunyan- 
 like type, he says: — "I read that verse — 'I 
 will both lay me down in peace, and sleep ; for 
 Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety ; ' 
 and, with a loud cry of my heart, I cried out, 
 O 'in peace!' for the self-same! O, what 
 said he, ' I will lay me down and sleep ?' I 
 read, and kindled ; nor found I what to do to 
 those deaf and dead — of whom myself had 
 been — a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind 
 bawler against those writings which are honied 
 with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with 
 16 
 
182 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Thine own light: and I was cousunied with 
 zeal at the enemies of this Scripture.'' 
 
 Some days passed, and he had a notable in- 
 stance of "the severity of the Lord's scourge, 
 as well as of the wonderful swiftness of His 
 mercy." He writes: — "Thou didst then tor- 
 ment me with pain in my teeth ; whicli when 
 it had come to such height that I could not 
 speak, it came into my heart to desire all my 
 friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God 
 of all manner of health. And this I wrote on 
 wax, and gave it them to read. Present!}^, so 
 soon as with humble devotion we had bowed 
 our knees, that pain went away. But what 
 pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, 
 O my Lord, my God; for, from infancy, I had 
 never experienced the like. And the power 
 of Thy nod was deeply conveyed to me ; and, 
 rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy nnme." 
 
 It Avas now term-time, after the "vintage- 
 vacation;" and he gave formal notice to the 
 ^Milanese to "provide their scholars with 
 another master to sell words to them;" "for," 
 says he, "I both had made choice to serve 
 
MKAIOIR OF ST. AUGUSTIXE. 183 
 
 Thee, and, tlirough my difficulty of breathing 
 and pain in my cliest, was not equal to my 
 professorship." At the same time, he for- 
 warded a letter to Ambrose, setting forth his 
 " past errors and present desires, and especially 
 his wish " to put on Christ" openly by baptism. 
 The holy man responded with a characteristic 
 warmth of welcome ; and, in a few more weeks, 
 Aurelius was openly to confess his Lord, 
 crying— 
 
 "Oh! let me still 
 Write Thee Great God, and me Thy child ; 
 Let me be soft and supple to Thy will ; 
 Small to myself, to others mild ; 
 Be hither ill 1" 
 
XX. 
 
 Let him see thee speaking to thy God ; he will not forget it 
 
 afterward : 
 When old and gray, will he feelingly remember a mother's 
 
 tender piety." 
 
 " Now the evening shadows lengthen, 
 And the stars will soon appear ; 
 Every fleeting moment tells rac, 
 That the hour of rest is near." 
 
 A YEAR or two previous, strange scenes had 
 been witnessed in the city cathedral. The 
 empress mother — a recent pervert to Arianism 
 — had lent herself to the heretics as a violent 
 persecutor. On Ambrose, especially, the vials 
 of her fury were poured. And, day after day, 
 the devout people had kept watch in the 
 church, expecting to see their pastor taken 
 forth to martyrdom — themselves " ready to die 
 with him." Among the waiting company was 
 Monica, "bearing a chief part of these anxie- 
 ties, living for prayer." 
 [184] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGL'STINE. 185 
 
 In those days, her son and his associates had 
 not yet been " warmed by the heat of God's 
 Spirit ;" but often had they been stirred by the 
 sight of the " amazed and disquieted city," and, 
 Aot least, by the calm joy with which, in the 
 church and in the houses, and even on the 
 streets, the people would sing hymns and 
 psalms — a custom then fii-st instituted, after 
 the manner of the Eastern Churches — " lest 
 they should wax faint through the tediousness 
 of sorrow." And now that he returned to 
 Milan to confess Christ, he fell with his whole 
 soul into " this kind of consolation and exhorta- 
 tion, zealously joining with harmony of voice 
 and heart." "How did I weep," says he, "in 
 thy hymns and canticles, touched to the quick 
 by the voices of Thy sweet-strained Church ! 
 The voices flowed into mine ear, and the truth 
 distilled into my heart, whence the affections 
 of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, 
 and happy was I therein. Nor was I sated 
 with the wondrous sweetness of considering 
 the depth of Thy counsels concerning the sal- 
 vation of mankind. Therefore did I the more 
 weep among the singing of Thy hymns, former- 
 16^'- 
 
186 HEMOIll OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Ij sighing after Tiiee, and at length breathing 
 in Thee, as far as the breath may enter into this 
 house of grass." 
 
 Augustine's affectionate soul — dissevered 
 from old fellowships — soon drew around it 
 holy attachments. The circle at Milan was a 
 little brotherliood of hearts, — 
 
 " Its sun the brightness of affection." 
 
 There was Aljpius, whom we left in the 
 garden beneath the tree. '^ He, with me," 
 says Augustine, "was born again in Thee." 
 Already "clothed was he with a most meek 
 humiUty." And "a most valiant tamer was 
 he of the body." 
 
 Then there was Euodius, " a young military 
 officer of his own city," wlio, amidst the gaities 
 of the Imperial Court, had been arrested by 
 God's grace, and, quitting his "secular war- 
 fare," had "girded liimself for the Lord's." 
 
 And there was the youth Adeodatus, whose 
 talent struck his father with " such awe," that 
 lie " could onl}^ exclaim, ' Who but Thou could 
 be the workmaster of such wonders?'" 
 "Soon," he adds, "didst Thou take his life 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 187 
 
 from the eartli ; and I now remember li'm 
 without anxiety, fearing nothing for his child- 
 hood or youth or his whole self." 
 
 There was Nebridius, also, Avho, though he 
 had f.illen into "the pit of that pernicious 
 error of believing the flesh of God's Son to be 
 a phantom," yet, " emerging thence," had 
 given himself to God at the fountain of Im- 
 manuel's blood. He, too, ere long, was ripened 
 for glory. His whole family had just been, 
 "through him, made Christian," — when he was 
 "released from the flesh;" "and now," writes 
 his friend, "he lives in Abraham's bosom. 
 Whatever that be which is signified by that 
 bosom, there lives my Nebridius, mj- sweet 
 friend, and Thy child, O Lord, adopted of a 
 freedman; there he liveth. For what other 
 place is there," he adds, "for such a soul? 
 There he liveth, whereof he asked much of 
 me, a poor inexperienced man. Now lays he 
 not his ear to m}^ mouth, but his spiritual 
 mouth unto Thy fountain, and drinketh as 
 much as he can receive, wisdom in proportion 
 to his thirst, endlessly happy. Nor do I think 
 that he is so inebriated therewith, as to forget 
 
188 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 me; seeing Thou, Lord, whom he drinketh, 
 art mindful of us." 
 
 And, last not least, there was Monica, whose 
 hand had dropped into his heart's deepest fur- 
 rows the goodly seed of the kingdom. 
 
 Such was the little family whom grace had 
 called, at once into the fellowship of Jesus and 
 into the mutual fellowship of most loving and 
 unselfish hearts. They "were together, about 
 to dwell together for some devout purpose, 
 seeking where they might serve Thee most 
 usefully," when a stroke came upon Aurelius, 
 which, more than any other, made him feel as 
 if he were himself more than half way. 
 
 The friends had set out for Africa, and were 
 already as far as Ostia, " recruiting, after the 
 fatigues of a long journey, for the voyage." 
 One evening, "leaning in a certain window 
 which looked into the garden," Augustine and 
 his mother stood alone, and, " removed from 
 the din of men," were " discoursing together 
 very sweetly." " Forgetting," says he, "those 
 things which are behind, and reaching forth 
 unto those things which are before, we were 
 enquiring between ourselves, in the presence 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 189 
 
 of the Trutli — whicli Thou art — of what sort 
 the eternal life of the saints was to be, ' which 
 eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it 
 entered into the heart of man.' Gasping with 
 the mouth of our heart after these heavenly 
 streams of God's fountain — the fountain of life 
 which is with Him, so that, being bedewed 
 thence, according to our capacity, we might in 
 some sort meditate upon so high a mystery, — 
 we were, in our discourse, brought to that 
 point, that the very highest delight of the 
 earthly senses, in the very purest material 
 light, seemed in respect of the sweetness of 
 that life, not only not worth}'- of comparison, 
 but not even of mention." 
 
 It looked, that evening, as if the saintly 
 Monica were already breathing the air of 
 heaven. "We, raising up ourselves," he says 
 again, "with a most glowing affection, did by 
 degrees pass through all things bodily, even 
 the very firmament whence sun and moon and 
 stars shine upon the earth ; yea, we were soar- 
 ing higher yet, by inward musing, and dis- 
 course, and admiring of Thy words ; and we 
 came to our own minds, and went beyond 
 
190 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 them, that we might arrive at that region of 
 never-failing plenty where 'Thou feedest Is- 
 rael' for ever with the food of truth. And, 
 while we wxre discoursing and panting after 
 wisdom, we slightly touched on it with the 
 whole effort of our heart; and we sighed, and 
 there we leave bound ' the first fruits of the 
 Spirit,' and returned to vocal expression of 
 our mouth, where the word spoken has begin- 
 ning and end." 
 
 Before many days, Monica was to be away ; 
 and it seemed as if even now she was treading 
 "the golden streets" and had "joined the glo- 
 rious throng." " We were saying then," her 
 son writes, "If to any the tumult of the flesh 
 were hushed — hushed the images of earth and 
 Avaters and air — hushed also the poles of 
 heaven — yea, the very soul hushed to herself, 
 and, by not thinking on self, did surmount 
 self — hushed all dreams and imaginary revela- 
 tions, every tongue and every sign, and wliat- 
 soever exists only in transition (since, if any 
 could hear, all these say, ' We made not our- 
 selves, but He made us that abideth for ever') 
 — If then, having uttered this, they too should 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGU3TIXK. 101 
 
 be hushed, having roused only our cars to Him 
 ■vvho made them, and He alone should speak, 
 not by them, but by Himself, that we might 
 hear His word, not through any tongue of 
 flesh, nor angel's voice, nor sound of thunder, 
 nor in the dark riddle of a similitude, but 
 might hear whom in these things we love — - 
 might hear his very self without these (as we 
 two now strained ourselves, and in swift 
 thought touched on that Eternal Wisdom 
 which abideth over all), — could this be con- 
 tinued on, and other visions of kind far unlike 
 be withdrawn, and this one ravish and absorb 
 and wrap up its beholder amid these inward 
 joys, so that life might be for ever like that 
 one moment of understanding which now we 
 sighed after; — were not this, 'Enter into Thy 
 Master's joy' ? And when shall that be?" 
 
 Monica was not ill that night; and yet a 
 strange presentiment had seized her, that her 
 translation could not be very far off. " Son," 
 she said solemnly, as the setting sun shed, 
 with a quiet radiance, his last golden beams 
 into the humble chamber, " for mine own part, 
 I have no farther delight in anything in this 
 
192 ME^rOIR OF ST. AUGUSTIXE. 
 
 life. What I do here aiw longer, and to what 
 end I am here, I know not, — now that my 
 hopes in this world are accomplished. One 
 thing there was, for which I desired to linger 
 for a wliile in this life, that I might see thee a 
 Catholic Christian before I died. My God 
 hath done this for me more abundantlj^, that I 
 should now see thee withal, despising earthly 
 happiness, become His servant: AVhat, then, 
 do I here ?" They parted for the night, — • 
 Monica, especially, 
 
 " Yearniug for realms where fancy shall be fiird and the 
 
 ecstasies of freedom shall be felt, 
 And the soul reign gloriously, risen to its royal destinies." 
 
 A day or two afterwards, she suddenly "fell 
 sick of a fever." One night, "a swoon came 
 on, so severe that for a good while she was 
 withdrawn from these visible things." Augus- 
 tine and his friends had liastoned round her ; 
 and, as she looked up again and saw them 
 standing by, she enquired, " Where was I?" 
 
 That night, there was a little episode on 
 which afterwards Aurelius greatly loved to 
 linger. Fixing her eye steadfastly on her sun, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 193 
 
 who stood "with grief amazed," slic said, 
 " HerG shall j^ou bury your mother." Till 
 lately, the place of her burial had engaged her 
 anxious thoughts. One day, at Thegaste, as 
 her son was leaving, she had taken him to the 
 cemetery, and, pointing to a spot beside his 
 father, had said to him — "We have lived in 
 great harmony together ; and, when I die, I 
 wish what is earthly of us to be united beneath 
 the same earth." And, since the travellers had 
 set out from Milan on their way home, she 
 had more than once expressed her desire " to 
 have it remembered among men," that, "after 
 her pilgrimage beyond the seas," the dust of 
 each was not divided. But, latterly, the long- 
 ing had, " through the fulness of the Lord's 
 goodness," "begun to cease in her heart." 
 " In that discourse in the window," Aurelius 
 writes, "when she said, ' What do I here any 
 longer ?' there appeared no desire of dying in 
 her own country. And, another da}^, in my 
 absence, as she was, wdth a mother's confi- 
 dence, discoursing with some friends about the 
 contempt of this life and the blessing of death, 
 and they had expressed their amazement that 
 17 
 
194 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 such courage God should have given to a 
 woman, adding, ' Are you not afraid to leave 
 your body so far from your own city?' she 
 replied, ' Nothing is far to God ; nor do I fear 
 lest at the resurrection He should not recog- 
 nise whence He were to raise me up.' " And 
 now, as the weeping circle stood around her 
 bed, and as she whispered that injunction 
 about her burial, Augustine "held his peace, 
 and refrained weeping," silently adoring Him 
 who had " instilled that gift into the heart of 
 His faithful one." 
 
 "But," said his friend, addressing the dying 
 saint, " I pray God to grant you a happier lot 
 than to die in this strange place." " What ! " 
 she replied, fixing upon him an anxious look, 
 and as if checking him with her eyes, " still 
 savouring such things?" And then, turning 
 to her son, she added, "Behold what he saith!" 
 A few moments passed; and, once more re- 
 verting to the topic, she addressed them both 
 thus — " Lay this body anywhere; let not the 
 care for that any way disquiet you." And 
 again she " held her peace, being exercised by 
 her growing sickness." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 195 
 
 About the eiglith day, the " dark cottage" 
 was evidently crumbling to its fall. That 
 night, as the shadows of the dark valley fell 
 upon her, she spoke to all about her with a 
 heavenly calmness. 
 
 '* The terrors were but shadows now, haunting the vale of 
 
 death : 
 The dread was drown'd with joy, the hope was fill'd with 
 
 imraortahty." 
 
 At last, towards sunrise on the ninth day, 
 " that religious and holy soul was freed from 
 the body," and winged its way to the moun- 
 tain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, till 
 a better day should break and a brighter sun 
 arise. It was thirty summers after she had 
 " brought forth in the flesh into this temj^oral 
 light" him who, after the travail of so many 
 prayers, she had " brought forth in heart into 
 the light eternal." 
 
 As the happy spirit fled, Augustine closed 
 her eyes ; and "there flowed withal a mighty 
 sorrow into his heart, which was overflowing 
 into tears," — his ej^es, at the same time, by the 
 violent command of his mind, "drinking up 
 
196 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 their fountain wholly diy." The boy Adeo- 
 datus " burst out into a loud lament ; " then, 
 checked b}^ them all, he held his peace. " In 
 like manner also," says Augustine, " a childish 
 feeling in me, which was, through my heart's 
 3- outhful voice, finding its vent in weejiing, was 
 checked and silenced. For," he adds, " we 
 thought it not fitting to solemnise that funeral 
 with tearful lament and groanings, because 
 thereby do they for the most part express grief 
 for the departed, as though unhappy or alto- 
 gether dead, whereas she was neither unhappy 
 in her death, nor altogether dead. Of this we 
 were assured on good grounds — the testimony 
 of her good conversation and of her faith un- 
 feigned." 
 
 Meanwhile, "they, whoso office it was, made 
 ready for the burial ; " but first, Euodius, tak- 
 ing up the Psalter, began to sing the plaintive 
 ditty — the whole little circle answering him — 
 " I will sing of mercy and of judgment ; unto 
 thee, Lord, will I sing." ^ The melody 
 brought together " many brethren and reli- 
 gious women ; and, as they sang, it seemed as 
 
 * Ps. ci. 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 197 
 
 if they had followed the glorified spirit aloft, 
 and were already sweeping, on the sea of glass, 
 their golden harps. The preparation proceed- 
 ed ; and I," says he, " (in a part of the house 
 where I might properly) together with those 
 who thought not fit to leave me, discoursed 
 upon something fitting the time, and, by the 
 halm of truth, assuaged the torment knowai to 
 Thee, they unknowing and listening intently, 
 and conceiving me to be without all sense of 
 sorrow." 
 
 Never was filial heart so wrung. " Woe 
 was me in such a strife," he wrote, long after- 
 wards, recording those hours. " What was it 
 which did grievously pain me Avithin, but a 
 fresh wound Avrought through the sudden 
 wrench of that most sweet and dear custom of 
 living together ? I joyed, indeed, in her testi- 
 mony, when, in that her last sickness, mingling 
 her endearments with my acts of duty, she 
 called me 'dutiful,' and mentioned with great 
 affection and love, that she never had heard 
 any harsh or reproachful sound uttered by my 
 mouth against her. But yet, O my God, who 
 madest us, what comparison is there betwixt 
 17* 
 
198 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 that honour which I paid her, and her slaveiy 
 for me? Being, then, forsaken of so great 
 comfort in her, my sonl was wounded, and that 
 life rent asunder, as it were, which, of hers and 
 mine together, had been made but one." 
 
 No wonder, then, that that manly face did, 
 that day, scarce conceal, before the little circle, 
 the inner harrowing of the stricken heart. " In 
 Thy ears," says he, " where none of them 
 heard, I blamed the weakness of my feelings, 
 and refrained my flood of grief, which gave 
 way a little unto me, but again came, as with, 
 a tide, yet not so tts to burst out into tears nor 
 to a change of countenance ; still I knew what 
 I was keeping down in my heart. And, being 
 very much displeased that these human things 
 had such power over me, which in the due or- 
 der and appointment of our nature, must needs 
 come to pass, — with a new grief I grieved for 
 my grief, and was thus worn by a double sor- 
 row." 
 
 That evening, " the corpse was carried to the 
 burial," the mourners "going and returning 
 without tears." " Yet," says he, " I was in se 
 cret heavily sad, and, with troubled mind, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 109 
 
 prayed Thee, as I could, to lieal my sorrow ; 
 but Thou didst not." On their return, he 
 " went and bathed," having heard that the batl 
 had its name from its " driving sadness from 
 the mind ; " but no relief came — he was " the 
 same as before he had bathed," for " the bitter- 
 ness of sorrow could not exude out of his 
 heart." Then, going to rest, he " slept, and 
 woke again," his " grief not a little softened ;" 
 and, as he was alone in his bed, he remembered 
 those "true verses of Ambrose" — 
 
 " Maker of all, the Lord, 
 
 And ruler of the height ; 
 "Who, robing day in light hath pour'd 
 Soft slumbers o'er the night ; 
 
 That to our limbs the power 
 
 Of toil may be renewed. 
 And hearts be raised that sink and cower, 
 
 And sorrow be subdued." 
 
 By and by, as the stunning grief wore off, 
 " I recovered," says he, " by little and little, 
 my former thoughts of Thy handmaid-— her 
 holy conversation towards Thee, her holy ten- 
 derness and observance towards us, whereof I 
 was suddenly deprived ; and I was minded to 
 
200 MEMOTK OF ST. AUGUSTINE, 
 
 weep, ill Thy sight, for them and for myself, 
 in her behalf and in my own. And I gave 
 ^V' ay to the tears which I before restrained, to 
 overflow as much as they desired ; reposing 
 my heart upon them : and it found rest in 
 them, for it v/as in Thy ears, not in those of 
 man who would have scornfully interpreted 
 my weeping." 
 
 "And now, Lord," he adds, "in writing I 
 confess it unto Thee: read it who will, and in- 
 terpret it how he will : and, if he finds sin 
 tlierein, that I wept for my mother for a small 
 portion of an hour — the mother who for the 
 time was dead to mine eyes, who had for many 
 years wept for me that I might live in Thine 
 eyes, — let him not deride me, but rather, if he 
 be one of large charity, let him weep himself 
 for my sins unto Thee, the Father of all the 
 brethren of Thy Christ." 
 
 It was late in the autumn of 887, and in 
 Monica's fifty-sixth year. 
 
XXI. 
 
 " Thy will such an entrenching is, 
 
 As passeth thought ! 
 To it, all strength, all subtleties 
 
 Arc things of nought." 
 
 On the road from Ostia, there was seen travel- 
 ling, one day, a little company of sable 
 mourners — weighed down, like the two friends 
 going to Em mans, by some mysterious grief. 
 And yet — like their prototypes — as they 
 'Svalked and were sad," a gleam of sunshine 
 Avould shoot athwart their faces, as if within 
 them their hearts "burned." It was Auous- 
 
 o 
 
 tine — bereaved and stricken, yet brightened by 
 a most blessed hope — on his way for a little 
 season to Rome, before resuming his journey 
 homeward. 
 
 Augustine at Rome ! the future Doctor — the 
 meek, childlike disciple, 
 
 [2on 
 
202 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 " Within the ancient city ! liis feet 
 Standing within the ruiu'd theatre, 
 Where gladiators fought, and Cliristians bled ! 
 
 The past seera'd present, 
 And slaughtered martyrs rose to live and speak 1 "' 
 
 Ah! even already there was little else there 
 than the past, with which a soul so simple in 
 its faith, so warm in its Christ-affection, could 
 have fellowship. Augustine's Kome was the 
 Eome of St. Paul, not that of IJildebrand and 
 of Borgia. The great Church-father was a 
 living soul ; and what communion has the 
 living with the dead ? 
 
 Late in the summer, he once more set out 
 for Africa. Landing at Carthage, he sojourned 
 for some days with a friend who, like himself, 
 since they last met, had found Christ, and, *'in 
 answer to prayer," had just been raised up 
 from the gates of the grave. Then, repairing 
 to his native town — where he had a small 
 estate, left him by his father, — he found a re- 
 treat such as his soul coveted, after its recent 
 tossings. He was joined by a few bretlircn ; 
 and with them he freely shared his patrimony, — • 
 dedicating the next three years to study and to 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 203 
 
 prayer. As from the desert witli its secret 
 trials and triumplis of faitli — not from scenes 
 of fleshly excitement — the Master had gone 
 forth to His ministry, — so the disciple was to 
 go forth on his errand, not from the dreams of 
 the Academic grove — still less from the world's 
 enticing blandishments, but from the quiet 
 solitude with its stern lessons and its searching 
 lieavenly discipline. 
 
 " Where is the wise, or the loam'd, or the good, that 
 sought not solitude for tliinking, 
 And from seclusion's secret vale brought forth his 
 precious fruits ?" 
 
 After his own quaint fashion, he gives us 
 sundry glimpses into the retreat. 
 
 Luther tells us he learned his theology upon 
 his knees. If Augustine had already learned 
 on his knees the theology of conversion, he 
 was now to learn, in a like method, the theol- 
 ogy of the inner life. That " warring" es- 
 pecially of the two " laws" — that " lusting of 
 the flesh against the spirit," — which constrained 
 the convert of Tarsus to exclaim, with such 
 intenseness of emotion, "O wretched man 
 
204 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 that I am ! wlio shall deliver me from the 
 body of this death?" was now to find a battle- 
 field in the heart of Augustine. And he, like 
 Paul, was to find, in the unchanging Saviour, 
 the same victory and the same repose. 
 
 And not idly did he afterwards "recount" 
 them. " These confessions," says he, " praise 
 the God of righteousness and goodness, and 
 excite the human understanding and affection 
 toward Him. They did this in me while I 
 was writing them; and they do it still when I 
 read them." 
 
 One morning, after a night of deep exercise, 
 he poured out his heart thus: — "My groaning 
 is Avitness that I am disiDleased with myself; 
 but Thou shinest out, and art pleasing, and 
 beloved, and longed fur, — that still more I may 
 be ashamed of myself and renounce myself, 
 and may choose Tliee, and please neither Thee 
 nor myself but in Thee." 
 
 And again: — "How near, by Thy gift, I 
 approach unto Thee ! and how much I am held 
 back by my own weight ! My good deeds are 
 Thine appointments and Thy gifts; my evil 
 ones are my offences and Thy judgments. Let 
 
:memoir of ST. auCxUstine. 205 
 
 my brethren breathe freely at the one, sigh at 
 the other ; and let hymns and weeping go up 
 into Thy sight out of their hearts, which are 
 Thy censers." 
 
 Another day, he says : — " Not with doubting, 
 but with assured confidence, do I love Thee, 
 the Lord ! Thou has stricken my heart with 
 Thy word, and I love Thee. But what do I 
 love, when I love Thee ? Not beauty of 
 bodies ; nor the fair harmony of time ; nor the 
 brightness of the light — so gladsome to our 
 eyes ; nor sweet melodies of varied songs ; nor 
 the fragrant smell of flowers, and ointments, 
 and spices ; not manna and honey ; not limbs 
 acceptable to embracements of flesh. ISTone of 
 these T love, when T love my God ; and yet I 
 love a kind of light, and melody, and fragrance, 
 and meat, and embracement, when I love my 
 God who is the light, melody, fragrance, meat, ' 
 embracement, of my inner man, — where there 
 shineth unto my soul what space cannot contain, 
 and there soundeth what time beareth not 
 away, and there smelleth what breathing dis- 
 perseth not, and there tasteth what eating 
 diminisheth not, and there clingeth what satiety 
 18 
 
206 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 clivorceth not. This is it which I love, when 
 I love ray God."* 
 
 Each new week seemed to brighten his 
 hope — freshen his penitence — deepen his love. 
 *' Give me, dear God," we find him praying on 
 one occasion, "hearty repentance, an humble 
 and contrite spirit ! Make my eyes a fountain 
 of tears,, and my hands liberal dispensers of 
 alms, and unwearied instruments of good works ! 
 Thou art my King; reign absolute in my 
 heart I Subdue and expel thence all rebellious 
 passions ! Quench all the impure burnings of 
 fleshly lusts ! and kindle in it the bright fire 
 of Thy lover 
 
 And, on another occasion, thus: — " Sw^eetest, 
 kindest, dearest Lord! most mighty King of 
 glory, who hast ascended with great triumph 
 unto Thy kingdom in heaven, and sittest en- 
 throned at the right hand of the Father ! draw 
 me up to Thee, that, by Thy powerful guidance 
 and more than magnetic force, I may run 
 
 <> He is here alluding to that poor vapoury pantheitm, 
 which, under the guise of an universal theophany, converting 
 every being and every plant and every passing breeze into a 
 manifestation of God, really exiled God into the unapproach- 
 able remoteness of an unsubstantial sliadow. 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUdUSTINE. 207 
 
 after tlie odour of Thy ointments and not foint! 
 Draw this thirsty soul to the rivers of eternal 
 pleasure — to the fountain of living water, that 
 I may drink my fill, and live for ever, God 
 of my life!" 
 
 His simple, childlike faith fixed its eye less 
 and less upon inward frames, and still more and 
 more upon the outward Christ. " My soul," 
 said he, one day, to a friend who was enquiring 
 earnestly the way of peace, "is rooted and 
 grounded in the hope of glory, past the power 
 of being shaken with any melancholy mis- 
 givings And the foundations which bear me 
 up in this firmness of mind arc throe : First, I 
 consider the greatness of God's love, expressed 
 in my adoption; secondly, the truth of God, 
 which hath promised this blessedness; and, 
 thirdly, the power of God to make good to the 
 uttermost whatever He hath promised. No 
 want of desert on my part, not even the lowest 
 and most mortifying thoughts of my vileness 
 and unworthiness, nor the highest and most 
 enlarged notions of the excellence of the bliss 
 in heaven, can cast me down from this high 
 tower of hope. 
 
208 MEMOir. OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 And, one evening, alone, he gave form to his 
 longings thus: — "My mind entirely dedicates 
 itself to Thee — gasps and pants after Thee — 
 and covets no other bliss than the sight of her 
 Beloved. I taste no other pleasure but that 
 which results from speaking, hearing, writing, 
 conferring, and perpetually dwelling upon the 
 meditation of Thee and Thy glory. And how 
 sweet the refreshment and the inward calm 
 which these sweet remembrances give me in 
 the midst of a tempestuous world !" 
 
 And, another night: — "I love Thee, my 
 Lord, and desire to love Thee every day more 
 fervently ; for Thou art beautiful and amiable 
 above the sons of men, and deservest an 
 affection equal to Thine own adorable and in- 
 comprehensible excellency. Oh, let that fire 
 descend into my heart, which burns with a 
 bright and holy flame never languishing, never 
 to be quenched ! May every part of me feel 
 the kindly heat! May it expand itself and 
 burn up every other passion, that, all the dross 
 of vain and polluted passions and desires being 
 entirely consumed, I may be turned all into 
 love, and know no other object of that love 
 
MEMOIR OF Sr. AUGUSTINE. 209 
 
 but Thee alone, mj dearest, sweetest, and most 
 lovely Saviour! 
 
 A holy man once indited his soul's yearnings 
 after God, thus : — 
 
 *' Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart ! 
 Such a Joy, as none can move ; 
 Such a Love, as none can part ; 
 Such a Heart, as joys in love." 
 
 Augustine \va; now yearning after a like ful- 
 ness of joy and of love. " how happy will 
 my soul be," was his breathing, one day, 
 "when it shall be admitted to see Thy glory! 
 For oh, how great is Thy goodness, and how 
 great is Thy beauty! and how transporting 
 arc those secret pleasures which overflow the 
 hearts of Thy beloved who love and seek and 
 desire to know nothing but Thee ! Happy are 
 they who have no other hope ! happy, whose 
 constant employment is praying to, and con- 
 versing with. Thee ! happy, whose solitude is 
 spent in awful silence, and in heavenly rap- 
 tures, and in constant watchfulness over them- 
 selves! happy, who, even while in this frail 
 body, anticipate, so far as their condition will 
 allow, the ineffable sweetness of their fature 
 glories!" 18* 
 
XXII. 
 
 << Wlien first Thy sweet and gracious eye 
 Vouchsafed, even in the midst of youth and night, 
 To look upon me, who, before, did lie 
 
 Weltering in sin ; 
 I felt a sugar'd strange delight. 
 Passing all cordials made by any art, 
 Bedew, embalm, and overrun my heart, 
 
 And take it in." 
 
 A GREAT Cliurcli-doctor uttered, on Ms death- 
 bed, these parting words : — " Oh that all my 
 brethren may know what a Master I have 
 served, and what peace I have this day ! I 
 shall live and adore Him : glory, glory to my 
 Creator and to my Kedeemer for ever ! Oh 
 for arms to embrace Him ! " Augustine, also, 
 was learning, in these months, the same secret 
 of all life and of all power — a deep personal 
 attachment to his Lord. "Grant, I beseech 
 Thee," we find him whispering in His ear, one 
 day, '' that my mouth may ever be full of Thy 
 praise, and my heart overflow with Thy love. 
 
 [210] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 211 
 
 Oh that it might please my sweetest, dearest 
 Jesus to fill my heart with such a love of Ilim 
 as never can be quenched ! to be ever present 
 in my mind, that I may be all over love, and 
 burn with perpetual desires of His company 
 and enjoyment ! " 
 
 Yinet once remarked — "This single word, 
 this single object, the Cross, may suffice to 
 make Christians; and, without it, nothing 
 suffices." And he added — " True reformers 
 have at all times carried back the view of the 
 Church towards this centre ; and every Church, 
 by looking back towards it, has regained the 
 life which it could not find, nor even seek, 
 elsewhere." Augustine, more than any other 
 Church-father, was to fix, for centuries, during 
 a dark era, thousands of longing eyes upon 
 the same grand central object ; and, to fit him 
 for the work, God was revealing to him, day 
 by day, fresh glimpses of His glory. " Thou 
 seest, my soul ! " he wrote, on another oc- 
 casion, " what noble pledges Thou hast of the 
 affection of Thy spouse. When I reflect upon 
 the constant presence and the abundance of 
 His mercies toward me, I am almost tempted 
 
212 MF.MOTR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 to say, that 1113^ solvation is His only busine?s 
 and care. For sure he could not be more ten- 
 der of my safety, more ready to relieve all my 
 distresses, to comfort all my sorrows, to supply 
 all my wants, to guard me in all my dangers, 
 could He be supposed to overlook the ex- 
 io'encies of all His other creatures and confine 
 
 o 
 
 His good -providence to me alone, — so ^vatch- 
 ful does He shew Himself over all my affairs 
 — so ever present to, nay, ever preventing, 
 my earliest wishes." 
 
 The name of Christ may be on the lips of 
 the divine, and yet be only an idea. The man 
 who is to speak of Him worthily, and, by his 
 words, is to move his fellows, must not only 
 think of Him but love him — must gaze 
 adoringly on His person, and walk confidingly 
 in His fellowship. " I am the light," said 
 Jesus, on one occasion, to the benighted 
 Church-teachers of the day, revealing indi- 
 rectly the secret of their blindness; "he that 
 followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but 
 shall have the light of life." Augustine was 
 laying, broad and deep, the foundations of his 
 future work as a divine, thus: — "While my 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 213 
 
 tliouglits arc engaged, I feel a new and unusual 
 plcasui-e, wliicii makes such strong, such de- 
 lightful impressions as seem to transport me 
 out of myself. Methinks I am in an instant 
 changed, and become quite another creature ; 
 and joys come flowing in upon me, more ex- 
 quisite than I am able to express. Mj mind 
 is enlarged; my understanding clear and 
 bright; my heart and its affections enlight- 
 ened and purified ; all my desires filled with 
 pleasure ; and my soul is perfect rapture and 
 triumph. I am no longer here, methinks, but 
 translated — I know not how nor whither — to 
 some unknown region of bliss ; I embrace, as 
 it were, with a most ardent love, some dear 
 object with wliich I am not yet perfectly ac- 
 quainted; I hold Him fast, and strive, all I 
 can, never to part with Him more." 
 
 Neander once rebuked the cold utterers of 
 theologic dogmas, by announcing his famous 
 apophthegm — "It is the heart which makes 
 the divine." And, in his last years, the veteran 
 theologue, vindicating the watchword of his 
 earlier days, said — " We need not be ashamed 
 of this maxim: shame rather to those who 
 
214 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 were bold enougli to ridicule it: they have 
 pronounced sentence on themselves. It was 
 the watchword of all those who have called 
 forth theology from dead forms to the living 
 spirit of God's Word." The great African 
 doctor was now receiving a Divine training 
 which should preserve him effectually from 
 this peril. On another occasion, he wrote: — 
 "It is with a sort of delightful difficulty that 
 I struggle not to let that break from me, which 
 of all things I wish to keep for ever in ni}^ 
 arms. For in Ilim my soul seems to have 
 found the complement and end of all her de- 
 sires. This thought creates that eager and 
 inexpressible transport of joy, that she seeks 
 nothing — covets nothing — beyond it, bnt 
 would esteem her happiness complete, could 
 she continue always to be as she now is. AVhat 
 can this delicious object be, that pours in such 
 a torrent of rapturous and uncorrupted pleas- 
 ure ? Is it my beloved ? Undoubtedly it can 
 be none but He. 'Tis thus my Lord vouch- 
 safes to visit me. He comes in secret — not to 
 be seen, not to be discerned by any of my 
 senses. He comes to touch me, but not to 
 
MEMOIK OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 215 
 
 shew His face. lie comes to put mo in mind 
 of Him, but not to let me perfectly understand 
 Him. He comes to me to give me a taste of 
 His sweetness, but not to give me His whole 
 self However, this is what my condition will 
 admit ; and it is an assured foretaste of heaven 
 — an inviolable earnest and token of His mar- 
 rying me to Himself" 
 
 Luther's great business, as the preacher and 
 doctor of the Keformation, was with the sin- 
 ner's conscience; and, to fit him for this work, 
 God was pleased, through the most harro\ving 
 experiences, to lead him to the Blood, and to 
 keep him there. Before he proclaimed, with 
 a voice of thunder, the great dogma that "jus- 
 tification by faith alone is the article of a stand- 
 ing or of a falling Church," he had had it 
 graven by God's own finger upon the fleshly 
 tablet of his blood-sprinkled heart. " My 
 heart," said he, unfolding the secret spring of 
 his unfaltering energy in setting forth the 
 "virtue" of the sin-cleansing blood, "is gov- 
 erned by one ruling principle — belief in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who is the subject of all my 
 meditations, both by day and by night — the 
 
216 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 beginning, the middle, and the end of all my 
 thoughts.'" In like manner, he who for so 
 man}^ years was to be the Church's almost only 
 beacon in the dark night which was at hand, 
 had teachings, such as God only can convey, 
 concerning the same atoning blood. " My 
 conscience," he whispered to a visitor, at the 
 retreat, one day, '4s all over satisfaction; the 
 anguish of ni}^ past sufferings is quite swallo^^•ed 
 up ; and not so much as a troublesome remem- 
 brance of them is left behind." And how ? 
 " By that most holy, that most precious blood 
 \yhich He was content to shed upon the cross 
 for our redemption. He hath hidden my sins 
 in His wounds, and washed my stains in His 
 most precious blood. I armed an angry jus- 
 tice against mj^self ; and it is discharged upon 
 His head : mine is the crime, and His the 
 torture." 
 
 Christ is oftentimes divided; at least, in 
 men's minds. One, for example, makes His 
 person ever3^thing, to the comparative exclu- 
 sion of His work, — whilst another mognilies 
 His work to the comparative neglect of His 
 person. Again, one makes the atoning blood 
 
MEMOIIl OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 217 
 
 ever^^thing, to the exclusion of tlie vicarious 
 obedience ; whilst another overlays the blood 
 by giving an exaggerated place to the obedi- 
 ence. By that teaching of the heart which is 
 so infallible a guide into "all truth," Augus- 
 tine was learning to assign to each thing its 
 right place. " His piety," he added, on the 
 occasion last noted, alluding to Christ's obedi- 
 ence, "suffices for my want of it; HLs ready 
 service for my perverseness ; Ilis meekness 
 for my untractable temper ; His humility for 
 iny pride ; His patience for my discontent ; 
 His kindness for my hard-heartedness ; His 
 calmness of soul for my fretfulness and unruly 
 passions ; His gentleness for my rage ; His 
 universal and unwearied love for my hatred, 
 and revenge, and cruelty." 
 
 Yinet, speaking of the power of the cross to 
 sanctify the life, says — " Looking alone can 
 render to action, not that feverish vivacity 
 which our passions will always give it in 
 abundance, but that calm force, that degree, 
 that delicate precision, that beaut}^, which pas- 
 sion can never give." Augustine, also, before 
 he had thought of its place in a theological 
 19 
 
218 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 system, was already fixing unconsciously in its 
 fitting place in his own life this great centre- 
 fact. "Let the Lord," said he, another day, 
 " be the grand subject of our study ; let Hiiii 
 preside over all our inclinations — be the ulti- 
 mate aim of all our desires — dwell always in 
 our thoughts — and reign supreme as the gov- 
 erning principle of all our actions. In a word, 
 let us contemplate, and choose, and remember, 
 and reverence Him above all, and make it our 
 business to live to him alone." 
 
 And, some weeks afterwards, he recorded 
 his secret breathing thus : — " Let me drink of 
 thy heavenly sweetness, and be so ravished 
 with the taste, as ever after to disrelish the 
 sensual delights of the world, to despise its 
 pleasures, and cheerfully to encounter the 
 afflictions of this present life ; and so to fix my 
 heart upon true nobler joys, as always to dis- 
 dain the empty and transitory shadows which 
 flesh and blood is so foolishly fond of, and so 
 fearful of parting with." 
 
 And, again : — " Let me not, I beseech Thee, 
 esteem or delight in anything but Thee ; let 
 all which this whole world can give without 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 219 
 
 Thee, be counted no better than dross and 
 dung. Let me hate most irreconcilably what- 
 ever displeases Thee ; and, what Thou lovest, 
 let me most eagerly desire and incessantly pur- 
 sue. Let me feel no satisfaction in any joys 
 without Thee ; nor any reluctancy in the great- 
 est sufferings for Thee. Let me aim at nothing 
 so much as to do Thee service ; nor detest and 
 avoid anything in comparison of sinning against 
 Thee. Let my ears be ever open to the voice 
 of Thy law ; and suffer not my ' heart to incline 
 to any evil things,' that I may never comply 
 with 'them that practise wickedness,' nor take 
 shelter in trifling pretences to excuse or indulge 
 myself in doing what I ought not." 
 
 These are Thy teachings, Divine Spirit ! 
 And thus thou girdest for life's great battle 
 every servant whom Thou choosest. 
 
 " How dear to me, God. Thy counsels are I 
 Who may with Thee compare 1" 
 
XXIII. 
 
 " Unblamable iu word and thought, 
 A man arises God himself hath taught — 
 To prove that without Christ all gain is loss — 
 All hope despair that stands not on His cross." 
 
 Augustine had now been three years in his 
 htippy retreat, when, one day, a letter arrived 
 from Hippo, a city of some note on the coast, 
 urging him to visit the " imperial commis- 
 sioner," who had heard of his "philosophic 
 fame," and who earnestly desired his instruc- 
 tions. After some hesitation, he went, — gath- 
 ering that it was of the Lord. 
 
 On his arrival, he was welcomed by other 
 citizens besides the Roman magistrate. The 
 church of Hippo, after a protracted skim- 
 ber, had been visited lately with a Divine 
 awakening. Its quickened members had heard 
 of Augustine. And who so fit to speak to 
 them the words of eternal life ? 
 
 [220] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 221 
 
 It was by no orclinarj discipline that God 
 had trained him to be " one of His ministers." 
 Before quitting his retreat, he had poured out 
 his breathings, thus: — "0 Holy Spirit, who 
 proceed est from the Almighty Father and His 
 most blessed Son, descend plentifully into my 
 heart ! lighten the dark corners of this neglect- 
 ed dwelling, and scatter there thy cheerfid 
 beams ! dwell in that soul which longs to be 
 Thy temple ! water ^at barren soil, overgrown 
 with weeds and briers, and make it fruitful with 
 Thy dew from heaven ! Heal the lurking dis- 
 tempers of my inward man! strike me through 
 with the dart of Thy love, and kindle holy fires 
 in my breast, such as may flame out in a bright 
 and devout zeal — may actuate and enliven the 
 heavy mass — may burn up all the dross of 
 sensual affections — and, diffusing themselves 
 through every part, may possess and purify 
 and warm my whole spirit and soul and body." 
 
 Herbert, describing a model-pastor, says, that 
 "the chief and top of his knowledge consists 
 in the book of books, the storehouse and mag- 
 azine of life and comfort, the Holy Scriptures. 
 There he sucks and lives." Augustine in these 
 19^- 
 
222 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 years had lived upon the Word as his daily 
 bread. " With his attached companions," says 
 Possidius, "he lived to God by fastings, by 
 prayers, and by good deeds, meditating on the 
 law of the Lord day and night." * 
 
 And the study had quickened his steps heav- 
 enward. " Oh, that life," we find him breath- 
 ing, one day, " which God hath laid up in store 
 for them that love Him ! That life indeed ! 
 That happy, secure, serene, and most amiable 
 — that pure and holy — life ! That life which 
 fears no death, which feels no sorrow, which 
 knows no sin, which languishes under no pain 
 — is distracted with no care — is ruffled with 
 no passion — ^lies at the mercy of no accidents ! 
 That incorruptible, that unchangeable life, 
 which hath everything that can attract our af- 
 fections and command our esteem ! There, 
 there will be no enemies to assault us, no envy 
 to undermine us, no temptation to seduce us, 
 no fears to confound us ; but perfect love and 
 harmony of souls — a day which never declines 
 
 * " Cum iis qui eidem adhaerebant, Deo vivebat, jejuniis, 
 orationibus, bonisque operibus, in lege Domini mcditans die 
 et nocte." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 223 
 
 — a ligLt which never goes oat. There we 
 shall see God face to face ; and, when we awake 
 up after His likeness, our souls shall be satisfied 
 with it. This let me speak and hear of con- 
 tinually." 
 
 The man in the picture in the Intrepretcr's 
 private room had " the world beneath his feet." 
 Augustine had come forth from his rcti"eat 
 with this "furnishing" of a true pastor. 
 "Lord," he said, another da}^, "I bless Thoc 
 that Thou grantest me some refreshment, sonij 
 loose, from the miseries, and toils, and incum- 
 brances of a troublesome, perishing life. 
 Blessed are all Thy saints, my God and King, 
 who have travelled over the tempestuous sea of 
 mortality, and have at last made the desired 
 port of peace and felicity — fearless of future 
 hazards, and full of perpetual joy. This sea, 
 Thou, my Saviour, didst condescend to tr}^ and 
 to be tossed upon. Oh, cast a gracious eye 
 upon us who are still in our dangerous voyage ! 
 Thou hast promised to make us immortal with 
 and by Thyself, and to bestow upon us the ev- 
 erlasting felicity of Thy presence : Oh, reraeni- 
 16 
 
224 MEMOIE OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 ber and succour us in our rougli storm of trou- 
 bles and temptations ! " 
 
 Many weeks had not passed, when his burn- 
 ing zeal for souls and his valiant defense of the 
 truth drew towards him all eyes and all 
 hearts. 
 
 Hippo, in those days, had for its bishop a 
 godly minister, who, having shared in the late 
 awakening, had begun painfully to feel tlie 
 need of some firmer hand and more watchful 
 eye than his to tend Christ's flock and to stem 
 the rising tide of heresy and of corruption. 
 One morning, in the pulpit, the venerable man, 
 with great simplicity and affection, bid the 
 matter before the people, telling them that 
 they needed another pastor, and that he had 
 been praying to the Master to send them one. 
 AVith one consent, the congregation- named the 
 stranger who had lately come among them. 
 Valerius gave thanks that the Lord had heard 
 his prayers. And Augustine, who was pres- 
 ent, was summoned to feed the flock. 
 
 Overwhelmed with a sense of the greatness 
 of the work and of his own unfitness for such 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 225 
 
 a charge, he gave vent to a flood of tears.* 
 "All! Lord God!" was his secret thought; 
 "behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child. 
 But, as he pondered, in his closet, that night, 
 on the Divine leadings by which he had been 
 conducted through so many successive mazes 
 to that spot, and as he felt rising within him a 
 fresh yearning over souls, it seemed as if a 
 voice from heaven were whispering to him — 
 " Say not, I am a child ; for thou shalt go to 
 all that I shall send thee, and, whatsoever I 
 command thee, thou shalt speak." A few 
 more months were given, in his old retreat, to 
 special study and to prayer ; and, returning to 
 Ilippo, he was ordained a presbyter, to the 
 great joy of all.* 
 
 * Possidius writes : — " Valerius, episcopus Hipponensis, 
 quum flagitante ecclesiastica uecessitate de providendo et or- 
 diuaudo presbytero civitati plebern Dei alloqueretur et exlior- 
 taretur ; jam scieutes catliolici saucti A-Ugustiiii propositum 
 et doctrinam, manu injecta (quoniam et idem in populo secu- 
 rus, et ignarus quid futurum esset, adstabat) eum ergo tenu- 
 erunt, et ut in talibus consuetura est, episcopo ordinandum 
 intulerunt, omnibus id uno consensu et desiderio fieri perfi- 
 cique petentibus, magnoque studio et clamore flagitantibus, 
 ubertim eo flente." 
 
 * Possidius writes again :—" Sanctus vero Valerius, ordi- 
 
226 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 It was in the spring of 392, and in his thirtj- 
 ninth year. 
 
 nator ejus, ut erat vir plus, et Deum timens, exultabat, et 
 Deo gratias agebat suas exauditas a Domino fuisse preces, 
 quas se frequentissime fudisse narrabat, ut sibi divinitus homo 
 concederetur talis, qui posset verbo Dei et doctrina salubri 
 ecclesiam Domini aedificare." 
 
XXIV. 
 
 " Grace makes the slave a freeman." 
 " Bohold, what fire is in his eye, what fervour on his cheek I 
 
 Herbert has described the pulpit as the min- 
 ister's ''joy and throne;" and the characteris- 
 tic of his " sermon," he says, is "holiness" — 
 "he is not witty, or learned, or eloquent, but 
 
 HOLY." 
 
 If ever pastor "approved himself" thus 
 " unto God," it was Augustine during these 
 years. The good bishop, greatly his inferior 
 in talent, was not ashamed to give to his new 
 associate the commanding place for which both 
 nature and grace had so evidently fitted him. 
 Occupying the pulpit very often in Yalerius' 
 presence — " a thing previously unknown in 
 Africa" — he would plead with souls after a 
 
 [227] 
 
228 MEMOIR OF Sr. AUGUSriXE. 
 
 fashion not a little startlinsr in that Laodicean 
 
 o 
 
 '' Oh, unspeakable love ! " he would say, in 
 some of his fervent appeals ; " oh, sweetness of 
 mercy inconceivable ! Oh, most amazing con- 
 descension ! that God, for the sake of man, 
 should be made man — that God for man should 
 die in the flesh — that He should submit to be 
 * tempted in all things like as we are, only 
 without sin ! ' See at how inestimable a price, 
 see with what difficulty, man was redeemed, 
 who had forfeited and enslaved himself to the 
 devil, and, had he not been ransomed at so vast 
 an expense, must unavoidably have suffered 
 eternal damnation, with that tyrannical master 
 of his own choosing ! These things will shew 
 thee, O man, how much thou art bound to love 
 God, and, if He calls thee to it, how patiently, 
 how willingly, nay, with how cheerful and 
 eager a zeal, thou oughtest to endure hardships, 
 and pain, and tortures, for Him who bath en- 
 
 * " Et eidem Presbytero," says Possidius, "potestatem 
 dedit coram se in ecclesia Evangeliuiu pncdicandi ac frequcn- 
 );issime tractaudi. Uude, acceusa et ardens, olcvata super 
 pandcl^brum, lucorua, omnibus qui in domo erant, lucebat." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 229 
 
 dured so much, incomparably greater, for 
 tliee ! " 
 
 " And, therefore," he would proceed with 
 deepening emotion, " let thy soul gladly em- 
 brace thy crucified Jesus ; let it drink deep of 
 His most precious blood ; let this most moving 
 theme be thy constant meditation, that thou 
 mayest never for one moment be unmindful of 
 Ilim that died for thee. Determine from hence- 
 forth not to know anything save Jesus Christ 
 and Him crucified, lest other vain mistaken 
 notions should draw thy knowledge off from 
 the firm bottom of saving faith. And, oh ! let 
 this His wonderful love take possession of all 
 the love thou art capable of, lest any rival pas- 
 sion insinuate itself into thy heart, and thou be 
 swallowed up with a torrent of worldly affec- 
 tions." 
 
 Another secret of successful preaching Her- 
 bert describes as " dipping and seasoning all 
 your words and sentences in your heart, before 
 they come into your mouth, — ^truly affecting 
 and cordially expressing all that you say ; so 
 that the auditors may plainly perceive every 
 word is heart-deep.''^ The preacher of Hippo 
 20 
 
230 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 liad learned the heavenly art of dipping his 
 words heart-deep. " What glowing in niy 
 breast is this I feel ? " he would say. '' What 
 light that darts its rays into my soul ? Fire 
 that art never quenched, kindle my affections ! 
 O Sun of righteoQsuess, that never settest — 
 never art clouded, shine in my heart 1 How 
 sweet is Thy warmth ! how secret and pleasant 
 Thy cheerful light ! O let me ever be inflamed 
 with Thj^ Divine, Thy delightful beams ! 
 Wretched are they that burn with impure 
 fires : wretched that walk by any other light, 
 and remain destitute of Thine : wretched those 
 blind eyes which do not, wretched those dim 
 eyes which can not, wretched those wilful eyes 
 which wink hard and will not, see the truth ! 
 O miserable wretches, who are not sensible of 
 the worth of what they lose ! And yet more 
 miserable those hardened souls, which are sen- 
 sible of their loss and ruin, but nevertheless 
 stumble and fall with eyes broad open, and go 
 down quick into hell ! " 
 
 The " man in the picture," as he '' pleaded 
 with men," had " his eyes lifted up to heaven." 
 Never had preacher been taught moi^c impres- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 231 
 
 Bivel}^ that " it is not of him that willeth, nor 
 of him that ranneth, but of God that sheweth 
 mercy." " Too late," he would whisper, in his 
 secret thoughts, before going forth to preach, 
 " I am brought to a due sense and knowledge 
 of Thee. A thick and gloomy cloud hung too 
 long before my blinded eyes, through which I 
 was not able to discern the Sun of righteous- 
 ness, and light of truth. I was muffled up in 
 darkness — a child of darkness, and did not only 
 endure but love my darkness, because as yet 
 in ignorance of the truth. I was blind and 
 fond of my defect and misery, and every day 
 Ijcwildered more and more in darkness which 
 might even be felt. And what kind Friend 
 was he that took me by the hand to draw me 
 out of this shadow of death ? Who so com- 
 passionate a guide to this blind wretch, — to 
 seek me when I sought not Him — to call me 
 when 1 never cried for help,, never complained, 
 nay, never felt my calamitous and lost condi- 
 tion ? This can be none but Thou, My God, 
 the Father of mercies, and the God of all com- 
 fort. No bowels less enlarged than Thine 
 could shew such tender pity and affection." 
 
232 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 His one aim, in all his labours, was to " win 
 souls." And tlie secret of his deep love to 
 them was the heart-melting experience he had 
 had of the tender affection of the Chief Shep- 
 herd. ''This," said he, one day, "is that care- 
 ful Shepherd, who, when His sheep wandered 
 over steep hills and thorny vales and desolate 
 wildernesses, sought and brought it back with 
 wondrous skill and pains ; and, when it was 
 faint and just expiring, sustained and carried 
 it, tied it fast to Himself by the straitest bands 
 of love — lifted it out of the pit of error and 
 confusion — and, with many a kind and tender 
 embrace, rejoiced over it, and fetched the poor, 
 lost, silly creature home to the ' ninety and 
 nine ' which lay safe in His own fold." 
 
 Cowper, alluding to the futile efforts of 
 those preachers who have not learned to 
 *' glory" only "in the Cross," writes — 
 
 "Charm the deaf serpent wisely! 
 Be most subHmely good, verbosely grand, 
 And with poetic trappings grace thy prose, 
 Till it outmouth all the pride of verse. 
 Ah, tinkling cymbal, and high-sounding brass, 
 Smitten in vain I Such music cannot charm 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 233 
 
 The eclipse tliat intercepts truth's heavenly beam, 
 And chills and darkens a wide-wandering soul." 
 
 Augustine had learned, in his own daily life, 
 to gaze so intently on Clirist, and on Christ 
 only, that, in his preaching, all other themes 
 dwindled into nothing. " I have, by my words, 
 poured out before Thee," he wrote, one day 
 indicating the way in which he seemed to feed 
 every moment upon Him, " sent that Word in 
 my behalf to Thee, as my glorious intercessor, 
 whom Thou didst erst send down from heaven 
 for my sins : I have paid down the price of 
 that passion wliich Thy own Son underwent 
 for the release of that debt to Thy justice which 
 my misdeeds had contracted. I believe that 
 Thy Godhead, sent thus into the world, did 
 take upon him my manhood ; that in this state 
 He vouclisafed to be bound and buffeted — to 
 be derided and spit upon — to be nailed and 
 pierced and crucified. And this nature of 
 mine, after being wrapt up in swaddling clothes 
 and moistened with infant tears — after the toils 
 of youth, the mortifications of fastings and 
 watchings and long journeys — after being fur- 
 
 20^ 
 
234 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 rowed with scourgiiigs, torn upon tlie cross, 
 numbered among the dead, and at last honoured 
 with a glorious resurrection, — this nature of 
 mine, I say, Thy Godhead united to it, I most 
 assuredly believe, hath now exalted to the joys 
 of heaven, and seated at the right hand of 
 Thy majesty on high. Kemember, then, in 
 much mercy, the quality of Thy Son, and the 
 condition of Thj^ servant redeemed by Him." 
 
 Such preaching soon began to tell. Paul, 
 alluding to his own ministry, once said — 
 *^ Thanks be unto God, which always causeth 
 us to triumph in Christ ; " and, on the same 
 occasion, he added — " We are unto God a 
 sweet savour of Christ." Augustine, also, 
 found that God was with him, blessing His 
 own Word. He expected SMCcess] and success 
 was given — not always the conversion of souls, 
 but always such a power in the Word as to be 
 "a savour" either of 'Mife" or of '^death." 
 
 We have a glimpse into that Hippo-minis- 
 try, in a conversation which occurred one day 
 at his table. 
 
 " Did you take notice of my sermon to-day 
 in the church," said he, addressing, in liis sim- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 235 
 
 pie and homely way, two or three brethren in 
 the ministry who were dining with him, "that 
 its beginning and end were not according to 
 my custom — that I did not finish what I be- 
 gan, but left my subject in suspense ? " 
 
 "We answered," writes one who was pres- 
 ent, " that we were at the time astonished, and 
 now recollected it." 
 
 " I believe the reason was," said Augustine, 
 "that the Lord perhaps intended some errone- 
 ous person in the congregation, through my 
 forgetfulness and mistake, to be taught and 
 healed; for in His hand are we and our dis- 
 courses. While I was handling the points of 
 the question proposed, I was led into digression, 
 and so, without concluding or explaining the 
 subject in hand, I terminated the argument 
 rather against Manicheism — on which I had_ 
 had no design to speak a word — than concern- 
 ing the matter proposed." 
 
 " Next day, or two days after," says the same 
 eye-witness, " came a merchant called Firmus, 
 and, while Augustine was sitting in our pres- 
 ence, threw himself at his feet, shedding tears, 
 and entreating his and our prayers. ' I have 
 
236 MEMOIR or ST. Augustine. 
 
 lived.' was liis confession, 'many years a Man- 
 icliee, and have vainl}^ spent many years in the 
 support of that sect ; but, through Divine mer- 
 cy, I have been convinced, by your preaching, 
 of my error ; and I now desire to be restored 
 to the Church.' Augustine and we enquired," 
 proceeds the narrator, "by what sermon in par- 
 ticular he had been convinced : he informed 
 us : and, as we all had the occasion fresh in 
 our recollection, we admired and were aston- 
 ished at the profound counsel of Grod for the 
 salvation of souls, and we glorified and blessed 
 His holy name, who — when, whence, and as 
 He pleases, by persons knowing and unknow- 
 ing — works out the salvation of men. From 
 that time, the man, devoting himself to God, 
 gave up his business, and, improving in piety, 
 was by the will of God compelled, against his 
 own will, in another region, to receive the office 
 of presbyter, preserving still the same sanc- 
 tity." 
 
 Augustine was not a ritualist ; still less was 
 he a poor, withered "gospeller," content with 
 a dull routine of duty, and with a string of 
 high-sounding phrases. He sought souls : and, 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 237 
 
 believing that the Word — and the "Word only 
 — is " able to save the soul," he preached it, 
 "in season and out of season." Over that 
 pulpit in Hippo, if ever over any, might have 
 been written — 
 
 "From afar, 
 Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, 
 Legible only by the light they give, 
 Stand the soul-quickening words— Believe, and Live." 
 
XXV. 
 
 " Pitch thy behaviour low ; thy projects high ; 
 :X) shalt thou humble and magnauimous be." 
 
 It was after some years of self-denying labour 
 in Hippo, that tHe lioly Valerius, feeling the 
 infirmities of advancing years, and fearing to 
 lose "so great a treasure," conceived the design 
 of associating the devoted presbyter with Lim- 
 self in the episcopate. The Church, with one 
 voice, seconded the invitation, and urged him 
 with many tears. 
 
 At Home, and elsewhere, the office had 
 begun to be associated with so much of lordly 
 arrogance and of priestly pretension, that it 
 seemed, at first, as if he should never be able 
 to ascend a bishop's " throne." But the saintly 
 Valerius had walked so meekly, and had gone 
 in and out among his brethren so unpre- 
 [238] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTIXE. 239 
 
 tcndinglj and so lovingly, that; his cliair looked 
 more like a place where he might sit on a 
 level with his brother-pastors than a tripod 
 whence to announce oracular commands. And 
 so, after many searchings of heart, he at length 
 accepted the charge; and, in the year three 
 hundred and ninety-five, on Valerius' death, 
 he become sole bishop. 
 A poet writes — 
 
 "Where the meekness of self-knowledge veileth the front 
 
 of self-respect, 
 There look thou for the man whom none can know but 
 
 they will honour: 
 Humility is the softening shadow before the statue of 
 
 Excellence, 
 And lieth lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as a 
 
 violet." 
 
 Such was Augustine in his see. Writing, one 
 day, to a brother in the ministry he said: — 
 "Above all things, I desire you to ponder, 
 deeply and earnestly, that nothing in this life, 
 and especially at this time — if the thing be 
 gone about perfunctorily and in a spirit of 
 flesh-pleasing — is more easy and deliglitfal, 
 and to men more acceptable, than the function 
 
240 MEMOIR OF Sr. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 of a bisliop or presbyter or deacon, — but, 
 before God, nothing more wretclied and de- 
 plorable and ruining: and, on the other hand, 
 believe me, nothing, in this life and especially 
 at this time, if the service be rendered after 
 such a fashion as our Captain approves, is more 
 difficult, more laborious, more perilous, but 
 before God more blessed. How the service is 
 to be rendered, I myself had no instruction, 
 either in boyhood or in youth ; and, just when 
 I had begun to learn, I, who did not know 
 how to hold the oar, was constrained by a 
 certain holy violence to assume the second place 
 in the ship, — my only claim being my sins, for 
 any other I could not even guess." 
 
 Preaching was still his ruling passion ; and 
 most striking often were the scenes which his 
 earnest zeal occasioned. 
 
 One day, he entered the pulpit of Hippo 
 with a heart deeply moved. A vicious custom 
 had gradually grown up in the town, of cel- 
 ebrating solemn days by riotous feasts; and he 
 had come, that morning, bent on an earnest 
 appeal, and after not a little prayer. Opening 
 the Scriptures, he besought them — by the 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 241 
 
 ignominy of Jesus, by His sorrow, by His 
 agony, by His blood — not to destroy them- 
 selves, but to turn and live. The effect was 
 most thrilling. "I did not make them weep," 
 said he, narrating the scene afterwards to his 
 fiiend Alypius, "by first weeping over them; 
 but, while I was preaching, their tears pre- 
 vented mine. Then I own I could not restrain 
 myself. After we had wept together, I began 
 to entertain great hope of their amendment.'' 
 And, turning from the discourse which he had 
 prepared, into a line of thought suited to " the 
 present softness of their minds," he urged, so 
 earnestly and so affectionately, an immediate 
 reformation, that from tliat very day the habit 
 was discontinued. 
 
 On another occasion, he was on a visit to 
 Csesarea, and, ascending the pulpit, was en- 
 deavouring to persuade the people to abolish 
 their barbarous sports, in which, at a certain 
 season of the year, they fought publicly for 
 several days. "I said what I could," he wrote 
 long afterwards, alluding to the scene," "and 
 they shouted applause; but, whilst I heard 
 only their acclamations, I thought I had done 
 21 
 
242 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 notliing. At length, however, they began to 
 weep, and then I liad hope that the horrible 
 custom, which they had received from their 
 ancestors, would be abandoned. It is now up- 
 wards of eight years since that time," lie adds, 
 "and, by the grace of God, they have ever 
 since been restrained from the practice.'' 
 
 It is said of Whitefield, that he always came 
 down from the throne of grace with the tidings 
 of salvation, — like the angel of the Apocalypse 
 having a rainbow round his head. He came 
 not to entertain or entrance or electrify, but to 
 transact a great business with men for God; 
 and souls bowed before his heart-melting 
 message, like willows by the water-courses. 
 The good bishop had the same estimate of his 
 errand. " We must not imagine," referring to 
 the occasion last noted, "that a man has spoken 
 powerfully when lie receives much applause. 
 This is sometimes given to merely ornamental 
 eloquence. But the sublime overwhelms the 
 mind with its vehemence — it strikes them 
 dumb — it melts them into tears." 
 
 Like the Great Preacher, "the common 
 people heard him gladly." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 243 
 
 "His excellence," says the historian, ''lay in 
 exhibiting that which was useful to the vulgar, 
 not that which was entertaining to the learned. 
 The matter, rather than the manner, was his 
 chief concern. An elaborate, highly fiiiished, 
 elegant style — then, as now, affected by so 
 many as the perfection of pulpit- oratory — he 
 eschewed as that ' wisdom of words' which ren- 
 dered the cross of Christ of none effect. De- 
 spising the fastidiousness of cold critics, and 
 intent on the one business of bringing souls to 
 Christ and of feeding the sheep already folded, 
 he was plain, downright, warm, affectionate, 
 himself content to be nothing, if only Christ 
 might be lifted up." 
 
 Baxter, after his pithy fashion, describes 
 preachers who "cut the throats of their ser- 
 mons" by their worldly, carnal life. Augus- 
 tine's life was "a living epistle of Christ," as 
 distinct and legible as his words, — "the purity 
 of his mind (as Herbert has it) breakir.g out 
 and diluting itself even to his body, clothes, 
 and habitation." 
 
 Nothing could be simpler or more beautiful 
 than his daily domestic habits. Choosing to 
 
244 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 remain single, thougli not blaming marriage 
 in others, lie liad drawn around him a goodly 
 little fellowship, Avho, beneath his hospita^ble 
 rcof, prosecuted their studies for the ministry, 
 and who saw in their master a pattern of 
 *' moderation" and unworldliness more impres- 
 sive than all teachings. "All things were 
 common," Possidius tells us, "no one had more 
 than another, — even he himself never being 
 preferred.""^ ^[icroscopic and unfriendly ej^es 
 may detect in this a tinge of that asceticism 
 which elsewhere was substituting for the warm, 
 genial, homelike Christianity of the Gospel, a 
 drear}^, isolated, and isolating monachism. But 
 
 * Possidius, referring to his diet, furniture, and other 
 household arrangements, adds : — " Testes ejus et calceamenta 
 vel lectnalia ex moderate et competente habitu erant, nee 
 nitida nimium, nee abjecta plurimum : quia his pleruraque 
 vel jactaro se insolenter homines solent, vel abjicere ; ex 
 utroque non qua3 Jesu Christi sed quae sua sunt iidem qua3- 
 rentes : at iste, ut dixi, medium tenebat, neque in dexteram, 
 neque in sinistram declinans."' 
 
 And, again, he writes : — ' Mensa usus est frugali et parca, 
 quaj quidem inter olera et legumina, etiam carnes aliquando 
 propter hospites, vel quosque intirmiores, semper autem vinum 
 habebat. Quid noverat, et docebat, ut apostolus dicit, quod 
 omnes creaturte Dei bomr sit, et nihil abjiciendum quod cum 
 gratiarum actiono percipitur, — sauctiiicatur enim per verbum 
 Dei et oratiouem." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 245 
 
 Augustine was not a monk ; his soul was 
 liglited with too heavenlj^ a sunshine for that. 
 
 " Let the misanthrope shun men and abjure,— the 
 most are rather loveable than hateful ; 
 A man may travel through the world, and sow it 
 thick with friendships." 
 
 The bishop's home was a bright and happy 
 spot ; and not the least attraction was the ray 
 which fell on it from heaven. 
 
 If ever conversation was "with grace sea- 
 soned with salt," it was his. A single incident 
 will illustrate it. 
 
 On his table he had a distich written, warn- 
 ing all his guests against slandering an absent 
 brother : — 
 
 " Quisquis amat dictis absentum rodere vitam, 
 Hauc mensara vetitam noverit esse sibi." 
 
 And the rule was not a dead letter. One day, 
 we are told, certain bishops, his intimate friends, 
 were with him, and the conversation took this 
 turn. For a while, the good man sat silent, 
 evidently much discomposed, until, at last, 
 pointing to the lines, he mildly but firmly inti- 
 mated, that either they must be erased, or he 
 21^* 
 
246 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 must himself rise from the midst of the meal 
 and retire to his bed-chamber.* 
 
 Deep was the well-spring of love whicli had 
 been formed in that once rocky heart by the 
 stroke of the Divine rod. "Thoa who repair- 
 est our breaches," he wrote in his diary, one 
 day, recording the Divine healing of his own 
 spirit, " and buildest up our decayed ruins with 
 a word of Thy mouth — Thou who hast sown 
 in Thy field, my heart, the good seed, — i-oot 
 out the weeds and thorns of vicious disposi- 
 tions and habits, Avhich else will choke the 
 work and make it unfruitful. O sweetest, 
 kindest, dearest Jesus ! pour into me, I beg 
 Thee, the abundance of Thy love, that there 
 may be no remains of earthly or sensual desires 
 or thoughts in my breast, but that Thou and 
 Thy love may reign unrivalled there, and pos- 
 sess my heart entirely." 
 
 * Possidius, alluding to this, says : — " Ideo omnem con- 
 vivam a superfluis et noxiis fabulis et detractionibus sese 
 abstiuere de])ere admonebat. jS^am et quosdam suos famili- 
 arissiraos coepiseopos illius Scripture oblitos, et contra earn 
 loquentes, tarn aspere aliquando reprchendit commotus ut 
 diceret, aut delendos esse illos do nionsi versus, aut se mediii 
 refectione ad suum cubiculum surrecturum. Quod ego," he 
 adds, " et alii, qui illi mensie interfuimus, cxperti sumus." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 247 
 
 And this it was whicli made him so tender 
 and considerate towards his fellows. Often he 
 would spend a whole day — sometimes several 
 successive days — in reconciling parties who 
 were at variance. Knowing by experience the 
 heart's deceitful n ess, and knowing also the 
 graciousness of the Divine Healer, he knew 
 how to touch other hearts with the healing 
 balm. To him many a torn bosom and many 
 a troubled home owed the return of sunshine 
 after a dark storm. 
 
 Himself " one of God's poor,"* he loved and 
 cared for the poor.f " Man," it has been said, 
 
 "Is God's ima(>o; but a poor man is 
 Christ's stamp to boot : both imag-es regard. 
 God reckons for him— counts the favour His. 
 Write ' So much giv'n to God.' Thou slialt be heard. 
 Let thy alms go before, and keep lieaven's gate 
 Open for thee; or both may come too kite." 
 
 Augustine, at the close of his sermon, one day, 
 observing the smallness of the offerings, said — 
 " I am a beggar for beggars, and take pleasure 
 
 * " Pauper Dei" he used to call himself 
 t Possidius says — "Compauperum vero semper memor 
 eral." 
 
248 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 in being so, in order tliat yon may be num- 
 bered among the children of God." At times, 
 rather than leave unrelieved cases of extreme 
 suffering, he not only parted with all bis own 
 means but even " melted down the silver vessels 
 of the Church." 
 
XXVI. 
 
 " His refuted quirks bo still repeats ; 
 New raised objections with new quibbles meets ; 
 Till, sinking in the quicksand he defends, 
 He dies disputing, and the contest ends — 
 But not the mischiefs; they, still loft behind, 
 Like thistle-seeds, are sown by every wind." 
 
 Augustine was not a lover of controversy. 
 His mild and gentle spirit would rather have 
 dwelt with the meek dove than with the petrel 
 Avhich revels in the storm. But truth was 
 dearer to him than ease or self-pleasing ; and 
 so daring or so specious were the efforts of 
 various heresiarchs in tliose days to erase from 
 the Church's living creed some of the most 
 precious doctrines of grace, that, on more than 
 one occasion, his whole soul was " stirred in 
 him," as for the very ark of God. 
 
 By profession a monk, and of blameless life, 
 Pelagius had traversed various countries of 
 
 [249] 
 
250 MEMOIE OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Europe, insinuating, in the most artful way, 
 liis heretical notions respecting grace. "I arn 
 mucli grieved for Pelagius the monk," a contem- 
 porary wrote; "consider what crowns must 
 be reserved for those who stand firm, when 
 men who have lived in so much mortification 
 and continency appear to be so carried away." 
 His views he would deliver, with a great ap- 
 pearance of modesty, in the form of queries 
 suggested by others; whilst, to a select few 
 whose affections he had ensnared, he would 
 impart his real opinions. 
 
 One leading position was, the denial of hu- 
 man depravity. " The sin of Adam," he said, 
 " hurt himself alone, and not mankind." And 
 again : — " Infants are born in the same state 
 as Adam was before the fall." Grace he held 
 to be, not an inward renewal of the will by the 
 almighty operation of the Holy Ghost, but an 
 outward revelation simply — the example of 
 Christ Jesus. Adam and Christ introduced — 
 the one, sin — the other, righteousness — into 
 the world, in no other sense than by example. 
 The fixll of man, and his need of a new birth, 
 were dismissed as " ^^ious imaginations." The 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 251 
 
 virtues of Abel, Enoch, ^lelchizedek, Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, and the like, were the 
 product of their natural powers, and proved 
 " how great was the goodness of nature." 
 
 Man, he affirmed, could not practise good- 
 ness spontaneously, were it not equally in his 
 power to do evil. " The goodness of nature 
 was so apparent that it shewed itself even 
 among Gentiles. How many virtuous philos- 
 ophers had we read and heard of ! Whence 
 their goodness, were not nature good ?" 
 
 The heresiarch, early in the fifth century, 
 after propagating his sentiments in Italy, fled 
 into Africa, on the sack of Kome by the Goths. 
 And his mischievous zeal in that region at last 
 stirred into activity the earnest watchman at 
 Hippo. 
 
 The !Nranicheans had attempted to explain 
 the great variety of luiman character by the 
 idea of a physical difference in souls ; some 
 being the creation of "the evil spirit," and 
 therefore naturally and essentially evil, and 
 hopelessly enthralled by him, — whilst others 
 derived froni " the good spirit " so large a part 
 of their nature as to find no difficulty in main^ 
 
252 MEMO! a OF ST. AUOrSTIXE. 
 
 taining their integrity. About the end of the 
 third century, Origen had opposed to this the- 
 ory the dogma — acquired in the Platonic school 
 of Alexandria — that all souls are created by 
 the one omnipotent God, and are endowed by 
 Him with the power of choosing either good 
 or evil, the free will of each, not any malign 
 independent being, determining his precise line 
 of action. In the course of the fourth cen- 
 tury, Origen's writings had spread far and wide 
 throughout Europe, rendering no small service 
 in counteracting the poison of Manicheism. 
 Among others, Pelagius had deeply studied 
 them, drinking in their subtle teachings. The 
 result was, that, in his zeal to maintain that no 
 souls were the handiwork of the evil s})irit, he 
 lost sight of the fact of the corruption of our 
 nature, — laying down as the basis of his own 
 system the doctrine that, notwithstanding the 
 fall, we are able, by our own inlierent powers 
 and without Divine aid, to do God's will. 
 
 Augustine, himself rejoicing in his emanci- 
 pation from the Manichean delusion, might 
 liavc been expected to lean towards the same 
 extreme; but his inner conflicts had been too 
 
MKMOTR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 253 
 
 real to leave him in any doubt about bis own 
 depravity and corruption. And, to prepare him 
 for defending this fundamental position, He 
 who knows the end from the beginning had 
 been carrying him through these long years of 
 trial and of triumph. 
 
 In an after-age, Luther contended for the 
 grace and the glory of God against human 
 merit, in the matter of the sinner's pardon ; in 
 that ao^e, Augustine contended for the same 
 Divine grace and glory in the turning of the 
 sinner's heai't. The heresies of all ages have 
 been little else than a new name or dress for 
 the denial of these two great cardinal articles 
 of alivinof soul and of a livins; Church. 
 
 At first, that he might " more easily profit 
 him," Augustine did not name Pelagius, ex- 
 posing only his mischievous tenets. Such was 
 his personal prepossession for him, that he 
 continued to hope against hope, not believing 
 that one so eminently virtuous could be found 
 guilty of so grave a heresy. At length, how- 
 ever, he took the field against him openly and 
 avowedly. "Pelagius alone," he wrote, "is 
 not now our object; but many souls are in 
 22 
 
254 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 danger of being beguiled. Let him be asked 
 what he means precisely by the term ' grace ; ' 
 and, if he be found to speak in the same man- 
 ner as the Church of Christ, let us rejoice in 
 him. For, whether he calls grace ' free-will,' 
 or ' remission of sins,' or the ' precept of the 
 law,' he explains not that grace of the Holy 
 spirit, which conquers lusts and temptations, 
 and which He who ascended into heaven has 
 poured on us abundantly. The grace which 
 Christian doctrine teaches, is not nature, but 
 nature saved, and not by external doctrine, 
 but by the supply of the Spirit and secret 
 mercy. For, though natural gifts may be 
 called grace, yet that grace by which we are 
 predestinated, called, justified, glorified, is 
 quite a different thing. It is of this the apos- 
 tle speaks w^hen he says, ' If by grace, then it 
 is no more of Avorks. And to him that work- 
 eth not, but believeth on Him wlio justifieth 
 the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteous- 
 ness.' For, if Christ had not died for our 
 sins, Pelagius' possibility of natun^, winch he 
 makes to be grace, would have been just the 
 same. 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 255 
 
 The heresiarch was summoned before a 
 council of fourteen bishops in Palestine. In 
 his plausible way, he spoke much of " Divine 
 grace," confessing its necessity ; but secretly 
 he believed that " man might be without sin, 
 and easily keep the commands of God if he 
 would." The deception lay in attaching the 
 term "grace" to whatever was the gift of God, 
 so that " a man who, by the use of his natural 
 powers, in conjunction with the aid of the re- 
 vealed will of God, should expect to please 
 God, might be said to be saved by grace." 
 The council was cnjoled, and ended by de- 
 claring him a "Christian brother." 
 
 But Augustine was not to be so cajoled. 
 " Without doubt," he wrote to a member of 
 the council, "the grace by which we are saved, 
 is not that with whicli we are created. For, if 
 those bishops who acquitted him, had under- 
 stood that he called that grace which we have 
 in common with the wicked, and that he de- 
 nied that which we have as Christians and as 
 sons of God, he would not have been borne 
 with. I blame not, then, his judges, who un- 
 derstood the word ^ grace ' in its common 
 
256 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 meaning." " But," he proceeded, vindicating 
 a truth which to him was not a mere theologi- 
 cal dogma, but a felt fact of bis own conscious- 
 ness, " this man imagines that he must believe 
 God to be an acceptor of persons, if he believe 
 that, without any preceding merits, God pities 
 whom he wills, and calls and sanctifies whom 
 He pleases. He forgets that to the condemned 
 his punishment is a thing justly due, and to 
 the saved soul the deliverance is mere un- 
 merited grace, so that neither can the one 
 complain of having not deserved the condem- 
 nation, nor the other boast as if he had had 
 any claim." 
 
 With the tenderness of a true shepherd, we 
 fmd liim appealing to one whom Pelagius had 
 been labouring to pervert, thus: — "In every- 
 thing give thanks. Ye do so, because ye have 
 it not of yourselves. For who hath distin- 
 guished you from Adam, the mass of death 
 and perdition ? Was it not He who came to 
 seek and to save the lost? AYhen the apostle 
 says, ' Who made thee to differ ? ' does he an- 
 swer, 'My good will, my faith, my righteous- 
 ness?' does he not say, 'What hast thou 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. ACGUSTINE. 257 
 
 whicli tliou liast not received?' We hope, 
 considering the humility in which Demetiias 
 was educated, that, when she read Pelagius' 
 words — if she have read them — she sighed, 
 smote her breast, and perhaps Avcpt, and 
 prayed, that, as these were not her words, so 
 neither might they be her creed, — that she 
 might glory, not in herself, but in the Lord. 
 If you narrowly observe, " he continued, 
 " though the writer speaks of grace, he does 
 it with guarded ambiguity ; — it may mean na- 
 ture, or doctrine, or forgiveness of sins, or the 
 example of Christ. But find, if you can, one 
 word which owns a positive work of the Holy 
 Spirit on the mind, actually imparting the 
 power of loving God. Gladly would I see 
 such a confession in some much admired 
 writers ; but as yet I have not discovered it." 
 
 One day, some friends were conversing on 
 the subject, and he said : — " The great sin of 
 Pelagianism is, that it makes a man forget why 
 be is a Christian." 
 
 Another day, an inquirer was puzzled to 
 know how a man could be responsible for 
 wrong-doing, if he had not the power of doing 
 22^ 
 
258 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 good. *' If I do wrong," said the visitor, *' am 
 not I just to pray that God would give me 
 what He has withheld? It is not ni}^ own 
 fault that I am debarred from the power of 
 doing good ; therefore how can I be blamed?" 
 ''ISTaj," replied Augustine, "thy own con- 
 science condemns thee when thou sinnest. This 
 evil heart of thine is itself sin." And, turning 
 his thoughts into another channel, he added : 
 — " O man, in the precept, know what thou 
 oughtest to possess ; in rebuke, know thou art 
 without it, through thy own fault ; in prayer, 
 know whence thou mayest receive what thou 
 desirest." 
 
 On another occasion, as he sat alone, he re- 
 corded his secret feeling, thus : — " Lord, 
 who hast formed and sustained me from my 
 mother's womb, suffer me not, I implore Thee, 
 to fall Tinder that condemnation, of attempting 
 to steal away any part of Thy glory. Thine is 
 all the good ; and fit it is, that thine should be 
 all the honour of it. I most humbly confess 
 my spiritual poverty, that I have nothing of my 
 own. I do look upon myself to be no better 
 than vanity, a mass of corruption, a dark and 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 259 
 
 empty creature, a barren soil, not able, with- 
 out the fructifying dew of Thy blessing, to 
 bring forth any fruit but the venomous and 
 noisome weeds of sham^e and sin and death. 
 If I have au}^ good disposition, it is of Thy in- 
 fusing ; if I have persevered in doing well, it 
 is because Thy strength enabled me ; if I fell 
 off from a good course, it was because Thy 
 grace did not preserve me: and in each of 
 those relapses I had lain and been lost for 
 ever, had not Thy mighty hand raised me oilt 
 of the dust of death." 
 
 And, one evening, his meditation took an- 
 other turn, thus: — "Infinite, God knows, are 
 our hazards ; and all our wi\y is spread so 
 thick with traps and toils, that we cannot tread 
 one step where there is not some net laid for 
 our souls. And whose wisdom and care are 
 sufficient to escape them all? Snares in our 
 plenty, and snares in our poverty; snares in 
 our company, and snares in our most private 
 retirements ; snares in our pleasures and the 
 ordinary refreshments of life, and snares in our 
 very fastings and most mortifying austerities. 
 Abroad or at home, asleep or awake, we are 
 
260 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 never safe ; but every word and action, every 
 thought and design, is hazardous and ensnar- 
 ino". Such is our condition, and so manifold 
 our danger. But do Thou, Lord, deliver us 
 from the toils of the hunter, that we may give 
 thanks unto Thy name, saying with the holy 
 Psalmist — ' If the Lord Himself had not been 
 on our side, our enemies had swallowed us up 
 quick ; but praised be the Lord, who hath not 
 given us over for a prey unto their teeth.' " 
 
 It was thus that his humble and reverend 
 spirit lay continually in the dust, — " trembling, 
 yet happy ; confident, yet meek." And such 
 a spirit shrank with intensest sensitiveness 
 from whatever Avould lift itself against the 
 Lord."^ Like the believers of Ephesus, he 
 
 * In an '' Historical Skotcli" ' of Augustine hy Tliilip 
 Schaft', D. D., the author speaks of the Reformers as '-folloAV- 
 ing him, at least in the beginning, even to the dizzy abyss of 
 the doctrine of Predestination, which Luther, Melancthon. 
 and still more Calvin, pushed into the terrible logical conse- 
 quences of Supralapsarianism." Dr. Schaff must surely 
 know that Augustine's views on man's utter and hopeless 
 depravity, and on God's free and sovereign grace are identi- 
 cal with Luther's and Calvin's. The writings of neither con- 
 tain any language stronger than that which we have quoted 
 from Augustine. Apart from technical phrases, such as Su- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 261 
 
 "could not bear them wbich were evil; " and, 
 living in an age when a proud and vain spirit 
 was eating out the Church's life, he had scarce- 
 ly laid down his weapon against one opposer, 
 when another demanded its unsheathing. 
 
 In those years, there arose in Africa a sect 
 which pecaliarly vexed his meek spirit. 
 
 One night, on his way home from a pastoral 
 visitation, his guide, mistaking the road, led 
 him by a different route from that which he 
 had intended to take ; and he thus escaped a 
 plot which had been laid for his life. The 
 assassins were a body of heretics, called Cir- 
 CLuncelliones, who were filled with such hatred 
 of all the pastors of the Church that they 
 "again and again," "waylaid them, attacked 
 them with an armed force, and mutilated and 
 even killed them." 
 
 pralapsariauism and Sublapsarianisni, does not the whole 
 matter resolve itself into this— Is God a being so imperfect as 
 to have recourse to unexpected and unanticipated after- 
 thoughts? or, are all His works known to Him and ordain- 
 ed by Him from the beginning?" '• But," it is asked, "may 
 not God foreknow, and then ordain?" Nothing, we answer, 
 can be known but what is certain and fixed ; and, if certain 
 and fixed, whence the certainty. Is it not from God's 
 eternal purpose? 
 
262 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 A dispute had arisen, a century previous, 
 whether a particular bishop had been legally 
 ordained; and so fierce had the strife grown, 
 that the schismatic body refused to recognise 
 the general Church as within the pale of Chris- 
 tian fellowship. Broken up into parties, the 
 Donatists found themselves identified with 
 certain furious maniacs — " a mere banditti (as 
 Augustine described them), sons of violence 
 and bloodshed, who valued neither their own 
 lives nor those of their neighbours, and who 
 not unfrequently in a fit of phrenzy would 
 commit suicide." These latter were the Cir- 
 cumcelliones. 
 
 AVhat was to be done ? Augustine addressed 
 the Emperor. *' Such as are peaceable," said 
 he, "must be reasoned with: compulsory con- 
 versions are not genuine, and tend only to 
 harden men in sin; therefore I recommend 
 preaching and arguments." But the savage 
 and lawless Circumcellioncs could be restrained 
 only by the civil sword. Pains and penalties 
 were employed, — though not with the exact 
 discrimination which Augustine had advised. 
 The result was — the schism almost dwindled 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTIXE. 263 
 
 away, many even of the most nntractable 
 confessing their error and with much humility 
 and joy returning to the Church's fold. 
 
 Augustine, by these events, was betrayed, 
 in his subsequent writings, into an approval 
 of harsh measures for the eradication of error, 
 such as his meek spirit, left to its own feelings, 
 would have loathed. But even the "failing 
 leaned to virtue's side." It was that zeal for 
 the Lord which had before suggested to John 
 the calling down of the fire. Even the Re- 
 formers of Germany and of England made the 
 same grand mistake. The idea of toleration 
 belongs peculiarly to our own age. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 " If still the sun should hide his face, 
 Tliy house would but a dungeon prove ; 
 Tliy works, night's captives. Oh ! let grace 
 Drop from above." 
 
 Bacon remarks, that " there is a superstition 
 in avoiding superstition, when men think to 
 GO best if they go forthcst from the superstition 
 foi-merly received. Therefore," he adds, "care 
 should be had that (as it fareth in ill purgings) 
 the good be not taken away with the bad." 
 
 The Church, in Augustine's time, bad "left 
 its first love;" and, with a spiritual declension, 
 there had come a grievous departure from the 
 outwaixl simplicity of early days. Carnal 
 splendour and priestly pride were overspread- 
 ing, like some vast upas-tree, the fair face of 
 apostolic Christianity ; sacraments were taking 
 
 [264] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGrSTIXE. 265 
 
 the place of the word ; and a nascent ecclesias- 
 ticism was supplanting Christ. 
 
 Augustine had found in Christ his personal 
 Saviour ; and, in all the power of a living faith, 
 he was lifting up his voice like a trumpet, and 
 proclaiming the heaven-sent message. But 
 this very engrossment with the grand central 
 reality made him content to retain not a little 
 of the death-clothes which encumbered the 
 risen man. 
 
 This explains certain expressions which fell 
 from him, exalting unduly the pabtismal 
 sacrament. To use such expressions in a 
 " sacramentarian" sense is a fraud. They are 
 no more a part of the real man, than the cere- 
 ments of death which Lazarus brought with 
 him from his grave were a part of his living 
 self. 
 
 At the risk of repetition, we reiterate this 
 position. Any biographer who overlooks it, 
 at once misapprehends the man, and dishonours 
 that Lord who made him what he* was. ' ' Many 
 weeds," it has been said, 
 
 " Run rank in pride, if men have dubbed them cedars." 
 
 23 
 
266 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 The preacher of Hippo, if he were with us at 
 this hour, would disown all brotherhood or 
 sympathy with any save the earnest, soul- 
 seeking minister who glories in exalting Christ. 
 
 Let th€ man himself speak. 
 
 Writing, one day, to a brother who seemed 
 to be yielding himself to the prevailing ten- 
 dency to ritualism, he says : — "It grieves me 
 that so many salutary precepts of Scripture 
 should be held cheap, whilst our religion abounds 
 with commandments of men. All those cus- 
 toms which do not carry in their appearance 
 an evident reason for their existence, I am free 
 to say, ought to be laid aside. Admit, it 
 cannot be proved that they are contrary to the 
 faith, yet they burden with servile usages that 
 religion which God, in His mercy, intended to 
 make free. In this respect, the condition of 
 the Jews is more tolerable; they are subject^ 
 indeed, — but to Divine ordinances, not to the 
 precepts of men. However the Church, sur- 
 rounded as she is with chaff and tares, endures 
 many things, yet she cannot tolerate what is 
 contrary to faith and practice. " 
 
 On another occasion, he wrote: — "No bap- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 267 
 
 tized person can be saved in his sins. With- 
 out holiness, none can possibly enter heaven." 
 
 And, again : — '' I starve in the midst of 
 plenty, and am but mocked with the empty 
 pomp of a feast, — when my soul feeds on any- 
 thing else but Thee ; for Thou alone canst sat- 
 isfy my hunger, assuage my pains, and fill my 
 large desires." 
 
 The older he grew, the deeper was his attach- 
 ment to the doctrines of grace. 
 
 A holy man once wrote — 
 
 '• If thou sbalt let this venom lurk, 
 And in suggestions fume and work, 
 My soul will turn to bubbles straight, 
 And thence by kind, 
 Vanish into a wind 
 Making Thy workmanship deceit." 
 
 Augustine also, day by day, realized more 
 intensely the heart's desperate deceitfulness. 
 "The house, I confess, is strait," was his se- 
 cret breathing, one evening.; "do Thou en- 
 largo it ! ruinous, but do Thou repair it I 
 full of pollutions, which might be a nuisance 
 to eyes so pure — I know and with grief con- 
 fess it ; but whose help shall I implore in 
 
268 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 cleansing it, except thine alone. To Tlice, 
 therefore, I cr)- instantly, begging that Thou 
 wilt 'purge me from my secret faults,' and es- 
 pecially 'keep Thy servant from presumptu- 
 ous sins, that they never get the dominion 
 over me.' " And, another day : — " Enable me, 
 sweet Jesus, I beseech Thee, to lay aside every 
 weight. Let mj body be in constant subjec- 
 tion to my soul^ my senses to reason, and my 
 reason to Thy grace, that so both the outward 
 and the inward man may be ever obedient and 
 disposed to do thy will. Fill my heart, my 
 mouth, and all my bones, with Thy praise. 
 Enlighten my understanding, and exalt my 
 affections, that I may soar upwards to Thee ; 
 and set me free from those fetters which fasten 
 me down and are an encumbrance to me, that 
 I ma}^ leave all here below, and serve and fix 
 and dwell upon Thee alone ! " 
 
 A great divine, on his death-bed, said : — " I 
 have been a poor wretched sinner ; but I stand 
 at the best pass that ever a man did — Christ 
 is mine, and I am His." And, as a friend 
 came in and asked — " What think you now of 
 Christ ? " he replied, with a heavenly glow 
 
MEMOIli OF ST. augusti:n"e. 269 
 
 on his countenance — " My Lord and Master 
 is the Chief often thousand of thousands ; none 
 is comparable to Him in heaven or in earth." 
 And, some others joining him, he added : — 
 " Dear brethren, do all for Him ! pray, for 
 Christ; preach, for Christ; feed the flock com- 
 mitted to your charge, for Christ; do all, for 
 Christ ! " In like manner, Augustine was led 
 by his deep necessity into a keener sense of 
 Christ's glorious fullness. "If Christ, he 
 would say, *' is really the foundation, our love 
 to Him must outweigh all other interests, and 
 the soul must be ready to sacrifice everything 
 to Him. Pour Thj'self into my heart ; and 
 let it overflow and be so entirely filled with 
 Thy pleasures, that there may be no room left 
 for the trifling vanities here below ! Help me 
 against the insinuations of such, and be Thou 
 the joy of my heart! take it all to Thyself, 
 and keep thy continual residence there." 
 
 On another occasion, his massive theology took 
 shape thus: — "The contrast betwixt the two 
 Adams becomes more and more the central 
 point of my faith. In the one, we are guilty 
 and corrupt and undone ; in the other, we are 
 23- 
 
270 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 accepted and renewed and exalted. 'In Adam 
 we all die' — all tlie first Adam's race; 'in 
 Christ we all are made alive' — all wlio are 
 united to him by a living, life-giving faith." 
 
 Another characteristic of these years was, 
 his deepening relish for the Word. "Won- 
 drous depths of Thy Word ! " he exclaimed, 
 one day, from the pulpit ; " whose surface, be- 
 hold, is before us, inviting us little ones; yet 
 are they a wondrous depth, my God, a won- 
 drous depth ! It is awful to look therein ; an 
 awfulness of horror, and a trembling of love."''^ 
 
 * Neander says of Augustine and of his times: — '-To 
 this period was transmitted from tlie primitive Christian da^-s 
 the riglit, closely connected with the consciousness of the 
 universal Christian priesthood, and belonging to all Christians, 
 of instructing and edifying themselves by going direct to the 
 fountain of the Divine Word. Hence manuscripts of the 
 Bible were multiplied and exposed for sale. It was regarded 
 as the chief part of a pious Christian education, both in men 
 and in women, to become early familiar with the Holy Scrip, 
 tures." 
 
 And the Dean of Westminster, to the same purport, writes '- 
 — " Perhaps in no Christian writer of any age do we count 
 more, or more varied, expressions of a rapturous delight in 
 the Word of God ; no one laid himself down in its green 
 pastures with a deeper and a fuller joy ; no one more en- 
 tirely felt that he might evermore draw water from these 
 * wells of salvation' without fear of drawing them dry." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST, AUGUSTINE. 271 
 
 Anotlier day, comparing the earnest believer 
 to an "ant," he described bim as " treasuring 
 up from the Divine Word that which he might 
 have occasion to use in the time of need." 
 " Do not allow yourselves," said he, " to be so 
 immersed in present earthly things as to be 
 obliged to say, ' I have no time to read or to 
 hear God's Word." And again: — ''What 
 food is for the body, such are the IIolj^ Scrip- 
 tures for the soul — tlie source of substantial 
 strength. 
 
 K Augustine were among us, what a withering 
 frown he would cast on those blinded guides 
 who would heal wounded consciences by send- 
 ing them to the priest's "confessional," instead 
 of declaring to them the simple Word! "Go," 
 said he, one day, to his people, " and tell your 
 difficulties to some Christian neighbour or 
 friend ; and, if the passage be too hard fur 
 them, pray for light from above." ^ It was 
 not uncommon, at the close of a sermon such 
 as Augustine would preacli, for one after an- 
 other to retire into a side-chamber where the 
 
 * "Ad ipsum Dominum pulsa orando, pete, insta.'' 
 
272 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Scriptures lay open for the people; and to 
 read or listen therefor hours, "thirsting for 
 tiie word of God." 
 
 Yinet once remarked — "A man in reason, a 
 child in heart, — such must the Christian be." 
 Such was now the great Church-doctor, and 
 growingij as he hastened heavenward. "I 
 am a little child," he said, one day ; "but my 
 Father always lives, and is my sufficient guar- 
 dian. My hope is this, that Thou art faithful 
 — that Thou dost not suffer us to be tempted 
 above that we are able, but with the tempta- 
 tion also makest a way to escape, that we may 
 be able to bear it. Lord, not with doubting, 
 but with assured confidence, do I love Thee ; 
 Thou hast smitten my heart with Thy Word, 
 and I have loved Thee." 
 
 Augustine was not a stoic ; he was too hu- 
 man, too real, to affect not to feel the sharp 
 edge of the Father's pruDing-knife. But ho 
 saw it in the Fatherly hand ; and that made 
 all well. "Is not the life of man upon earth," 
 he said, on one occasion, " all trial ? Who 
 wishes for troubles and difficulties? Thou 
 commandest them to be endured, not to be 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 273 
 
 loved. No man loves what lie endures, though 
 he love to endure. For, though he rejoices 
 that he endures, he had rather there were noth- 
 ing for him to endure. All my hope is nowhere 
 but in Thy exceeding great mercy. Give 
 what thou enjoinest, and enjoin what Thou 
 wilt. Too little doth he love Thee, who loves 
 anything with Thee, which he loveth not for 
 Thee. O Love, who ever learnest and never 
 consumest ! O Charity, my God ! kindle me !" 
 
Vr. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 ** Give me simplicity, that I may live ; 
 
 So live, and like, that I may know Thy ways, 
 Know them and practise them. Then shall I give, 
 For this poor wreath, to Thee a crown, of praise." 
 
 As years rolled on, his gentle but brave spirit 
 was tossed by buffeting waves. 
 
 One was, the continued hardness of sundry 
 members of his flock. " I do not wish," was 
 his appeal to them one day from the pulpit, 
 " to be saved without 3^ou, why should I ? 
 why am I your bishop ? why am I in the 
 world? Only, to live in Christ, — but ivitli 
 youP On these occasions, the great tear not 
 seldom trembled in his dimmed eye. 
 
 The bitterness of this trial, only a heart 
 
 touched with a like compassion for souls can 
 
 know. His one business in life still seemed 
 
 to be, to win souls. Oftentimes, five days in 
 
 [274] 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGTSTIXE. 275 
 
 succession — on some days twice — he preached 
 to '' perishing sinners." "Human language," 
 says a contemporary, Avho heard him, " seemed 
 insufficient to express, in a fit and lively man- 
 ner, the thoughts and feelings which, with the 
 speed of lightning, streamed through his soul. 
 
 He set before him, as the aim of his spiritual 
 oratory, to preach himself and his hearers into 
 Christ, so that all might live with him, and 
 he, with all, in Christ. This was his passion, 
 his honour, his boast, his joy, his riches."* 
 
 Now, more than ever, he felt intensely that 
 the secret of all pulpit-powder was prayer. 
 "Let the preacher," said he, one day, "who 
 would be understood and be heard with pleas- 
 ure, pray before he speak. Let him lift up 
 his thirst}^ soul unto God, before he pronounce 
 anything. For, since there are many things 
 which may be said, and many modes of saying 
 the same thing, who knows, except Him who 
 
 * Possidius says : — '' Faciebat hoc tanquam speculator (i.e., 
 watchman) a Domhio constitutus domui Israel ; pra^dicans 
 verbum ; atque instans opportune, importune : arguens, hor- 
 tans, increpans, in omni longanimitata, et doctrine ; praeci- 
 pueque operam dans instruere eos qui esseut idonei et alios 
 docere." 
 
276 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 knows the hearts of all men, what is most 
 expedient to be said at the present hour ? and 
 who can canse ns to speak what we ought, and 
 as we ought, except Him in whose hands we 
 and our words are? And bj these means he 
 may learn all that is to be taught, and may 
 acquire a faculty of speaking as becomes a 
 pastor." 
 
 Another deep trial visited him. The Empire 
 was reeling, under the shock of the Gothic 
 invasion; and its calamities were attributed 
 by the pagan to the baleful effects of Christi- 
 anity. The calumny painfully wounded the 
 bishop's sensitive heart; and, to prove its 
 groundlessness, he set himself, in his sixtieth 
 year, to prepare his great work, " The City 
 of God." The noble " apology" cost him 
 the leisure hours of nearly thirteen years ; and 
 right valiantly did he do battle in it for the 
 faith. 
 
 " The seeds of the Empire's dissolution," 
 said he, " were sown, ages ago, in the growing 
 dissoluteness and corruption. And, so far has 
 Christianity been from precipitating the crisis, 
 that the invader spared every Eoman who fled 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 277 
 
 for refuge to the Cliristian temples — the onlj 
 instance known where the lives of the yan- 
 quishecl were spared on acconnt of their 
 religion." 
 
 " But see," said the pagan, " how many 
 Christians are led captive !" 
 
 "Yes," replied Augustine ; "but they can- 
 not be led to any place where they do not find 
 their God." 
 
 In the town of Nola, some of his people suf- 
 fered from the barbarian ravages. Ko sooner 
 did he hear of their distress, than he sent them 
 relief, even reducing himself to poverty in 
 sharing their afflictions. 
 
 A heavenly fervour seemed, more and more, 
 to breathe in his every word and act. "Suffer 
 me not. Lord," was his holy aspiration, on one 
 occasion, " to be tormented on account of gold 
 and silver ; for, where all my wealth is. Thou 
 knowest." And, on another occasion, he 
 wrote: — "Our great things are, not here, but 
 in the 'city of God.' The world, with its 
 glory and grandeur, will soon perish ; and a 
 symbol of this is Alaric's devastation of the 
 noble Capitol. But the 'city of God' is 
 24 
 
278 MEMOIR OF Sr. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 founded on a rock and the day is at hand when 
 her holy and happy citizens shall enter into 
 their abiding rest," 
 
 Bacon describes riches as "the baggage of 
 virtue." "The Eoman word,"* he says, "is 
 better; for, as the baggage is to an army, so 
 is riches to virtue — it cannot be spared or left 
 behind, but it hindereth the march ; yea, and 
 the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth 
 the victory." ISTever was combatant more 
 keenly sensitive to this " weight" than Augus- 
 tine. " To you, who are God's children," he 
 would say, "I appeal for whatever I need; 
 for I prefer living by your free-will offerings 
 to the harassing cares of wealth. "f Again 
 and again, he declined large legacies which 
 Christian friends had bequeathed to him.:!: He 
 
 ^" " Impedimenta." 
 
 t On this point, Possidius writes: — " Alloquebatur plebem 
 Dei. malle se ex collationibus magis plebis Dei viverc, quani 
 illarum possessionum curam vel gubernationem pati ; et pa- 
 ratuni so esse illis cedere ut eo niodo omues Dei servi et 
 ministri viverent, quo in vetere Testamento leguntur altari 
 deservientes de eodem comparticipari. Sod," he adds, •• nun- 
 quam id laici suscipere voluerunt." 
 
 :j; Possidius says, again : — " Ahquas eum hu?rcditates re- 
 moasso novimus non quia pauperibus inutiles esse possent. 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 279 
 
 "looked for a city wliicli liatli foundations;" 
 and he would suffer no one to "make his 
 glorying void." 
 
 Amidst all his labours as a writer, he never 
 for a moment lost sight of the flock. " In ser- 
 mons," says Herbert, "there is a kind of 
 state; in catechising there is a humbleness 
 very suitable to the Christian regeneration." 
 Like a true pastor, Augustine was constantly 
 face to face with his people. Counselling, one 
 day, a youthful minister, he said : — "You are 
 engaged in some agreeable study, and are told 
 that you must proceed to catechise. You are 
 vexed that the course of your work is inter- 
 rupted ; and, from the agitation of your mind, 
 you are unfitted to discharge the work itself. 
 The teacher, therefore, must himself learn those 
 things which may exliilarate his own mind ; 
 for God loveth a cheerful giver. To this end, 
 place before you the meek and charitable 
 example of the Son of God, to shame you out 
 of your pride and impatience ; that, if indeed 
 
 sed quoniam justum et acquum esse videbat, ut a mortuorum 
 vel filiis vel pareutibus vel affinibus magis possiderentur, 
 quibus ea deficientes dimittere noluerunt." 
 
280 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 you have any more useful study to prosecute 
 concerning yourself, you may tlien expect 
 that God will speak to you in it more power- 
 fully, when you have undertaken cheerfully 
 to speak for him as well as you could to others. 
 We are poor judges of the best order of things ; 
 and, when we consider how much better it is 
 to leave the direction of times and seasons with 
 the all -wise God, we shall not take it amiss 
 that the providential calls to work disturbed 
 the order which we had prescribed to ourselves, 
 and that His will took place before ours." 
 
 There is a way of doing ministerial work 
 which hardens alike "priest" and "people." 
 A man may be busy — very busy, and yet be a 
 mere machine — a spiritual automaton. Even 
 Christ's true minister is caught oftentimes in this 
 snare. " The name of Christ," as some one 
 says, " may be affixed to a work, and the work 
 be His no longer." Augustine was keenly 
 alive to the peril ; and he was in the secret of 
 the only safeguard. "The tediousness," said 
 he to the same youthful minister, "of that trite 
 and plain road of catechising should be smooth- 
 ed by Divine love in the heart." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 281 
 
 How anxiously tie still fanned the flame of 
 that " divine love" in his own heart, we gather 
 from glimpses into his inner breathings, which 
 are ever and anon presenting themselves. " To 
 Thee," we have him whispering, one day, for 
 example, " joy and desire of my heart, I cry 
 aloud and from the bottom of my heart. I 
 call within, because I know Thee there ; for, 
 wert not Thou in me, I should not be at all ; 
 and, were not I in Thee, Thou wouldest not be 
 in me." And, again : — " I am wounded with 
 the darts of Thy love, and burn with eager de- 
 sire of seeing and being inseparably united to 
 Him whom my soul longeth to enjoy. How 
 sweet, gracious Lord, who in wonderful 
 kindness hast so love<l, and saved, and enliv- 
 ened, and sanctified, and exalted us, how in- 
 expressibly sweet are the thoughts and the re- 
 membrance of Thee !" 
 
 And, another day, thus : — " This is my 
 hope, and the joy of my confidence. He loves 
 His own flesh, His own body, and His own 
 bowels. That flesh of ours, in which He rose 
 from the dead and ascended into heaven and 
 now does sit in heavenly places, cannot but 
 24* 
 
282 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 love us, because this is in effect but to love 
 itself : We have tbe privilege of our own blood 
 flowing in His veins : We are His body, and 
 His substance. He is our Head, from whence 
 the members are derived, to which they are in- 
 separably united. O marvellous mystery ! O 
 inexplicable conjunction I mercy most ador- 
 able ; ever to be admired, ever to be loved !" 
 
 To have fellowship now with Christ in His 
 acceptance before God in heaven, is to have 
 fellowship with Him also in His rejection by 
 man on earth. Day by day, Augustine found 
 this truth more intensely real. " Where there 
 is rejoicing in the world,'' he remarked on one 
 occasion, '' there is no rejoicing in the Lord : 
 where there is rejoicing in the Lord, there is 
 no rejoicing in the world. Let rejoicing in 
 the Lord prevail, till the rejoicing in the world 
 be ended. Let the rejoicing in the Lord be 
 always on the increase; the rejoicing in the 
 world always lessening, till it come to an end." 
 And he added : — " This is not said as though, 
 when we are in the world, we ought not to re- 
 joice, but that, when we are even in the world, 
 we may rejoice already in the Lord." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 283 
 
 The happy, heavenly tone of his soul during 
 these years, when he devoted so many hours 
 to his great work, "The City of God," is indi- 
 cated by such breathings as the following : — 
 " heavenly Jerusalem ! our common mother ! 
 Thou beautiful spouse of Christ ! my soul hath 
 loved thee exceedingly ; and all my faculties 
 are ravished with thy charms. O what graces, 
 what glory, what noble state, appear in every 
 part of thee ! IMost exquisite is thy form ; and 
 thou alone art beauty without blemish. Ee- 
 joice and dance for joy, daughter of my 
 King; for thy Lord Himself, fairer than all 
 the sons of men, hath ' pleasure in thy 
 beauty.' " 
 
 And, another day : — " Thy light and glory, 
 and all thy happiness is the incessant contem- 
 plation of the Divine King ; for this King of 
 kings is in the midst of thee, and all His host 
 are ministering round about Him continually. 
 There are the melodious choirs of angels ; 
 there the sweet fellowship and company of the 
 heavenly inhabitants ; there the joyful pomp 
 of all those triumphant souls who, from their 
 sore trials and travels through this valley of 
 
284 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTIXE. 
 
 tears, at last return victorious to their native 
 country ; there the goodly fellowship of proph- 
 ets, whose eyes God opened to take a pros- 
 pect of far-distant mysteries ; there the twelve 
 leaders of the Christian armies, the blessed apos- 
 tles; there the noble army of martyrs; there 
 the convention of confessors ; there the holy 
 men and women who, in the days of their lies]}, 
 were mortified to the pleasures of sin and of 
 the world ; there the virgins and youths whose 
 blooming virtues put out early fruit; there 
 the sheep and lambs who have escaped the 
 ravening wolf and all the snares laid for their 
 destruction." 
 
 And, again : — " These now all rejoice in 
 their proper mansions ; and, though each differ 
 from other in degrees of glory, yet all agree in 
 bliss and joy, diffused to all in common ; and 
 the happiness of every one is esteemed each 
 man's own, for there charity reigns in its ut- 
 most peifcction, because 'God is all in all, 
 whom they continually behold, and, behold- 
 ing, continually admire, and praise and love, 
 and love and praise, without intermission, 
 without end, without weariness or distraction 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 285 
 
 of thouglit. This is their constant, their de- 
 lightful employment. And oh! how happy 
 shall I be, how exquisitely, how incessantly 
 happy, myself to bear a part with them — to 
 behold his face in glory, and to be made par- 
 taker of that whereof He hath given me the 
 comfortable hope when saying to His Father, 
 ' I will that they whom Thou hast given me be 
 with me where I am, that they may behold 
 my glory.' " 
 
 The veteran preacher was feeling more and 
 more vividly, each year, the blessing of wait- 
 ing, in his ministry, simply and expectingly 
 upon God. " At the hour of speaking itself," 
 he remarked, on one occasion, "a faithful 
 spirit will think his Lord's words adapted to 
 his circumstances — 'Think not what or how 
 ye shall speak ; for it is not ye that speak, but 
 the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in 
 you.' If the Holy Spirit speak in those who 
 are delivered ujd to persecutors for Christ, why 
 not also in those who deliver Christ to learn- 
 ers?" 
 
 It is a maxim of George Herbert's — 
 
 " Usefulness conies by labour.'' 
 
286 MEMOIK OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 Augustine was not a fanatic, despising or neg- 
 lecting diligent study. " If any say," he ad- 
 ded, on tlie occasion just noted, " that men 
 need to know no rules nor follow any studies, it 
 might be said also that men need not to pray 
 because our Lord saith, ' Your Father know- 
 eth what ye have need of before ye ask Him :' 
 and at this rate the rules of St. Paul to Timo- 
 thy and Titus might be superseded. Prayer 
 and study should go hand in hand ; and the 
 two Epistles to Timothy, and that to Titus, are 
 of standing authority in the Church, and ought 
 to be deeply meditated upon by every one 
 who undertakes the of&ces of a teacher." 
 
 A holy, mellowed light, falling on his chas- 
 tened soul, seemed to tell that he was nearing 
 the rest above. One day, gently solacing a 
 tried believer, he said: — "The will of God is 
 sometimes that thou shouldest be whole, some- 
 times that thou shouldest be sick. If, when 
 thou art whole, God's will be sweet, and, when 
 thou art sick, God's will be bitter, — thou art 
 not of a right heart. Wherefore? Because 
 thou wilt not make right thy will according to 
 God's will, but wilt bend God's will to thine. 
 
MEMOIR OF QT. AUGL'STINE. 287 
 
 That will is riglit, but thou art crooked : thy 
 will must be made right to that, not that made 
 crooked to thee ; and thou wilt have a right 
 heart. It is well with thee in this world ; be 
 God blessed who comforteth thee : It goeth 
 hardly with thee in this world ; be God blessed 
 because He chasteneth thee." 
 
 And, on another occasion, a glimpse of the 
 glory, now so near at hand, opened upon him, 
 thus : — " happy state ! O truly glorious 
 kingdom ! where eternity is continued through 
 one endless day — one ever-blooming spring ! 
 where they who have been victorious in their 
 spiritual warfare, join in concert with the 
 blessed angels, and sing without ceasing the 
 songs of Sion ! where a never-fading crown 
 adorns every head, and exquisite jo}^ overjflows 
 every heart ! O when will it please God to 
 give me leave to lay down this load and lum- 
 ber of flesh, and to admit me without spot or 
 corruption into the true rest, the transporting 
 delight, of that blissful place, — that I may 
 walk about the beauteous walls of the city of 
 God — view all her palaces, and receive a 
 crown at the hand of my merciful Judge? 
 
288 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTI^'E. 
 
 When shall I make one in that holy choir, and 
 behold the majestic presence of my Maker 
 with 'the spirits of just men made perfect?' 
 When shall I see my dear redeemer face to 
 face ? " 
 
 These were no mere devout rhapsodies — no 
 unchastened utterances of a soul which had 
 not learned to lie down in the dust, and to 
 stand in awe before the Holy One. They were 
 the calm, quiet longings of a loving child, who 
 — counting it no presumption to feel, even 
 here, at home in his Father's house — yearned 
 as became him, 
 
 •* To tread the golden streets above, and 
 'oin the glorious throng." 
 
XXIX. 
 
 " storms and tempests, darkly warring, 
 Bid mc sock a better home ; 
 Earth is with her joys receding, 
 Angel-voiccs whisper — ' Come !' " 
 
 The great Church-fatlier was about to pass 
 from the scene of strife and of labour to tlie 
 joy of his Lord; and stormy indeed was the 
 passage by which he was to reach his quiet 
 haven. 
 
 It was in the early summer of the year four 
 hundred and twenty -eight, that a formidable 
 host of some fift}^ thousand barbarians crossed 
 the sea from Spain, Landing on the coast of 
 Africa with Genseric, the Vandal chief, at their 
 head, they ravaged cities and villages, " sparing 
 no age or sex, and raging more fiercely than 
 wild beasts of prey." The Roman general met 
 the invader in a pitched battle, but was driven 
 25 [289] 
 
290 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 into tlie fortified town of Hippo. This was liis 
 last stronghold. 
 
 The venerable bishop trembled for his 
 beloved flock. The Yandals wei-e Arians; 
 and, with a wild ferocity, they were hunting 
 down all who were zealous for the true fiiith. 
 It was a critical occasion ; but Augustine was 
 not daunted. " Whoever flees," were his manly 
 words to a brother-shepherd, "so that the 
 Church is not deprived of the necessary minis- 
 trations, he does wdiat God commands or 
 permits. But whoever so flees that the flock 
 of Christ is left without the nourishment by 
 which it spiritually lives, he is an hireling, who, 
 seeing the wolf come, flees because he has no 
 care for the sheep." 
 
 The city w^as " straitly besieged ;" and, week 
 after week, the faithful watchman occupied his 
 watch-tower, feeling (as he said) that "the 
 bonds, which the love of Christ had knit, 
 should not be rent asunder." 
 
 One evening, as he sat alone in his chamber 
 after the labours of the day, he poured forth 
 his breathings thus : — " See, my God, and King, 
 see the good vShepherd bringing to Thee the 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGL^STIKE. 291 
 
 sheep committed to His charge. Tie undertook 
 to save men by Thy appointment; and He 
 hath performed the nndertakiug, so as to restore 
 to Thee pure and spotless Thy once polluted 
 creatures. He brings in safety back that prey 
 which the wolf and robber had carried off by 
 violence. He brings into Thy presence that 
 servant whom his own guilty conscience had 
 put upon fleeing from Thy sight, that so the 
 punishment due to his deserts might be remit- 
 ted through his Lord's satisfaction, and the 
 offender, who had nothing to look for but to be 
 banished for ever into hell, might, under the 
 protection of this glorious Conqueror, be assured 
 of admittance into His heavenly country." It 
 was thus that the fountain of his deep com- 
 passion for souls never grew dry ; — the " nether 
 springs" in his heart were kept in direct com- 
 munication with the "upper springs" in the 
 heart of God. 
 
 It is told of John Eliot, " the apostle to the 
 Indians," that, on his deathbed, he was found 
 one day with a young savage at his side, 
 teaching him his letters ; and, on being asked 
 why he did not now take rest, he replied, " I 
 
292 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 have often prayed to God to make me useful, 
 and, now that I can no longer preach, He 
 leaves me strength enough to teach this poor 
 child his alphabet." Augustine was fired with 
 a like zeal. " He preached the Word of God, 
 in the church," says Possidius, "even to his 
 very last illness, without intei-mission, full of 
 vigour, sound in understanding, and in all the 
 power of his best days."* 
 
 " A thousand hearts kindled by thee with consecrated 
 fire! 
 
 They Uve but in thy words ; 
 
 Thou art expanded into them—one faith, one hope, 
 one spirit ; 
 
 They breathe but in thy breath , their minds are pas- 
 sive unto thine. 
 
 Thou turnest the key of their love, bending their affec- 
 tions to thy purpose ; 
 
 And all, in sympathy with thee, tremble with tumultu- 
 ous emotions." 
 
 A great Eeformer used to sa}^, with tears in 
 
 his eyes, that, before he set out upon the 
 
 : heavenly road, the sun was already past noon. 
 
 * Possidius' words are : --" Yerbum Dei usque ad ipsam 
 suam cxtremam aegritudinem impra^termisse, alacritor, et for- 
 titer, san§, mento sanoque consilio in ccclesia prtodicavit." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 293 
 
 Augustioe also had tlie same grief. " Too late 
 did I love Thee," lie would say;* "thou 
 Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new ! too Late 
 I loved Thee. I searched for Thee abroad, 
 deformed I, plunging midst those fair forms 
 which Thou hadst made; and, all the while 
 Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. 
 Things held me far from Thee, which, unless 
 they were in Thee, were not at all. Thou 
 caliedst, and shoutedst, and burstedst my deaf- 
 ness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scatteredst 
 my blindness. Thou breathedst odours, and I 
 drew in breath and did pant for Thee. Thou 
 touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace." 
 
 It was now the third month of the siege, 
 wlien, sitting one day at table, surrounded by 
 the little circle of brethren who had taken 
 refuge from some neighbouring towns under 
 his roof, he gave utterance to his emotions, in 
 a kind of half-conscious soliloquy, thus:— 
 "Happy, beyond imagination happy, is that 
 soul which, making its escape out of this earthly 
 prison, wings its wa'y to heaven without any 
 
 * St. Paul often felt this pang. "Who also," says he, for 
 example, " were in Christ before me." 
 
 25* 
 
294 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 restraint — wliicli sees its dearest Lord face to 
 face, triumpliing in tlie joys of everlasting 
 glory ; possessing Thee, the object of its love 
 and long pursuit ; and singing hymns of never- 
 ceasing praise to the honour of her King and 
 Redeemer ; satiated with the plenteousness of 
 Thy house, and with the rivers of Thy over- 
 flowing pleasures ! happy company of heav- 
 enly citizens! O glorious pomp of souls re- 
 turning from their toilsome pilgrimage to the 
 excellence of the beauty and splendour and 
 majesty of Thy courts !" 
 
 To more than one anxiously -observant eye, 
 that evening, the words, and, still more, the 
 unearthly look which accompanied them, 
 seemed as if already he were treading the 
 vestibule heaven. 
 
 "Glorious hopes, ineffable imaginings," 
 
 marked huu out for a speedy departure to a 
 region of brighter vision. 
 
 A day or two afterwards, the din of conflict 
 grew louder, and tidings came in that one and 
 another of his beloved flock had fallen. It 
 was more, almost, than his gentle spirit could 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 295 
 
 bear. '' What I ipTciv to God for," lie said, 
 looking out upon tlie scene of carnage, " is, 
 cither that He will deliver the city from the 
 enemy, or, if He have determined otherwise, 
 that He will strengthen His servant for his suf- 
 ferings, or, which I would rather" — and, in 
 uttering the words, a sort of j)rophetic glow 
 came over him as if the wish were already 
 more than half accomplished — " that He would 
 call me out of this world unto Himself" 
 
 At the end of that week, he was seized with 
 "a fever," which, " from the first," says his 
 friend, "he appeared to hail as the messenger 
 sent to call him home." 
 
 If ever sick-chamber was lighted with a 
 heavenly glory, it was the humble apartment 
 where the illustrious Church-father noAv lay 
 down to die. 
 
 " What love of Christ can that be," he would 
 say, in other years, " when we fear to go to 
 Him whom we say we love? O brethren, let 
 us be ashamed to say we love, while we arc 
 afraid to go to Him." And now, as the celes- 
 tial city with its bright glories rose before his 
 eye, he was " quite unable " (says Posidius) to 
 restrain within him the ardent longings of his 
 
296 MEMOIR OF ST. AUG TS TINE. 
 
 soul to meet liis Lord." " My God," he would 
 say, " how I long to hear that transporting 
 music, and those Divine songs, which publish 
 the mysteries and glories of the blessed Trinity! 
 Mj God, how honoured to be so soon admitted, 
 not only to hear, but myself to join in concert 
 with the sons of God who sing to their Christ 
 and King the pleasant songs of Sion." 
 
 Another liomeward-bonnd pilgrim has writ- 
 ten — 
 
 '• I see, by faith, my holy home above, 
 Jerusalem ! 
 Adorn'd so richly by my Saviour's love 
 
 "With pearl and gem. 
 
 " I long to enter the eternal gates, 
 
 And sin no more ; 
 My best and sweetest praise suspended waits, 
 For that glad hour. 
 
 " Then shall my harp possess no broken string, 
 My song to mar ; 
 And, in the everlasting praise I bring, 
 No note to jar." 
 
 AA^ith an eye undimmcd and with a certain Di- 
 vine halo on his calm brow, the aged saint la}^, 
 day after day, surrounded by weeping friends, 
 and his heart ali'eady half in heaven. " the 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 297 
 
 ravishing entertainment," he would whisper, 
 "of those harmonious hymns, the melody of an- 
 gels, and the sweet notes of songs, in concert, 
 sung by each member of the heavenly choir ! 
 No mixture of bitter pollutes those holy joys, 
 no railing or revelling, no fear or disquiet, no 
 doubt or uneasiness or mutual distrust ; but 
 perfect peace and love, eternal praise and 
 thanksgiving, unbroken rest, and joy everlast- 
 ing in the Holy Ghost. 
 
 And, another day, he broke forth thus : — 
 " glorious kingdom, where God is seen face 
 to face — where the mind is feasted and fully 
 satisfied with knowledge, ever seeing, and ever 
 desiring to see more, but desiring without un- 
 easiness, and satisfied so as never to be cloyed ! 
 O life truly \vorthy of the name, because ever- 
 lasting, ever blessed ! A life of joy unj)ollut- 
 ed with sufferings or sorrow, where the Sun 
 of rightecjusness sheds upon every head the 
 refreshing beams of Ilis excellent beauty, and 
 where the Light is so diffused that every tenant 
 of the blissful regions shines by the reflection: 
 for, being constantly united to the Deity, they 
 are transformed into the likeness of the Divine 
 
298 MEMOIR OF ST. AUrxUSTINE. 
 
 immortality and perfections, thus receiving the 
 full effect of the promise of their holy Lord, 
 ' Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast 
 given me be with me where I am, that they may 
 behold my glory which Thou hast given me,' 
 and ' all may be one in us, as Thou, Father, 
 art in me, and T in Thee, that they also may 
 be one in us! ' " 
 
 To the last, he watched for souls with the 
 tenderest solicitude. Boniface, the Eoman 
 general conducting the defence of the city, 
 and one of the most heroic soldiers of the day, 
 had long shared the bishop's friendship ; and, 
 tliough many an earnest colloquy had passed 
 between them on the great business of eter- 
 nity, the warrior had been too incessantly daz- 
 zled with the vision of human glory to be able 
 to fix his heart on God ; and Augustine was 
 leaving him with the afflicting conviction that 
 his prayers and his pains for him had all been in 
 vain. Calling him to his bed-side, and desiring 
 they should be left alone, he appealed to the 
 commander once more, " endeavouring to draw 
 him from the love of the world to God." The 
 two friends wept, and wept agafn. It was 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 299 
 
 Augustine's last effort to pluck a brand from 
 the fire. 
 
 Some weeks before bis departure, Hewitson 
 lay, one day, recalling the sins of his ministry 
 and bewailing his so imperfect labour for pre 
 cious souls. " Oh ! " said he, " I am naked, 
 utterly naked! " Often, in his familiar con 
 versation, Augustine had been used to remark, 
 that "even experienced and notable Christians 
 and ministers ought not to quit this mortal 
 scene without much penitence and brokenness 
 of spirit." * And now, in these closing days, 
 a most characteristic scene presented itself. 
 " He had the seven penitential psalms," (his 
 friend informs us) written on the wall of his 
 chamber, so that he could i"ead them from his 
 bed ; and, while he read them, the tears coursed 
 down his cheeks.f For hours together, he 
 
 * Our authority is his friend Possidius, who says : — " Di' 
 cere,autem, nobis inter famiHaria colloquia consueverat, etiam 
 laudatos Christianos, et sacerdotes, absque digua et compe- 
 teni poenitentia exire de corpore non debere." 
 
 f Possidius' words are: — "Sibi jusserat Psahuos Davidicos 
 qui sunt paucissimi de poenitentia, scribi, ipsosque quaterni- 
 ones jacens in lecto contra parietem positos diebus suae in- 
 lirmitatis intuebatur, et legebat. et jugiterao ubertim flebat." 
 And he adds: -" Et ne intentio ejus a quoquam impediretur, 
 ante dies ferme decern quam exiret de corpore, a nobis postu- 
 
300 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 was left alone, giving tlie whole time to 
 prayer. 
 
 If ever a soul was "sick of love," it was 
 Augustine's in these hours. "Till I shall 
 come and appear before Him," he would say, 
 " I cannot choose but weep. My soul is athirst 
 for the fountain of His love ; and, while my 
 fruition is delayed, I can only burn, and burn 
 more vehemently." And again : — " I will not 
 cease to weep, until I see Him : and these tears 
 are to me pleasant nutriment." And, yet 
 again: — "Then, oh! then, we shall at length 
 behold and possess God fully ; then we shall 
 give Him the whole affection of our souls, — 
 we shall see Him face to face — shall gaze upon 
 Him, and love Him, and adore Him, without 
 interruption and without end." 
 
 A holy man once wrote — 
 
 " Lord, in my silence, bow do I despise 
 What upon trust 
 Is styled 'honour,' 'riches,' or 'fair eyes,' 
 But is 'fair dust!" 
 
 lavit prsesenti))us, ne quis ad cum ingrederelur, nisi iis tan- 
 tum horis, quibus medici ad inspiciendum intrarcnt, vel quum 
 ei refectio inferrotur. Et ita observatum ac factuu) est; et 
 omni tempore orationi vacabat." 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 301 
 
 I surname them ' gilded clay,' 
 
 ' Dear earth,' 'fine grass,' or ' hay,' 
 In all, I think my foot doth ever tread 
 Upon their head." 
 
 "I am one of God's paupers," said Augustine, 
 in liis favourite phrase, to an intimate friend 
 wlio liad come in, one morning, to enquire 
 respecting any parting directions: "I have 
 nothing but my library, which I desire to be 
 given to the Church.- Any spare money I 
 possessed, I have given at intervals to my rela- 
 tions, as they seemed at any time to be in need. 
 The rest I have shared with the poor saints." 
 Towards the tenth day, the pain grew more 
 intense ; but his patience was not ruffled. " O 
 how I long," he was heard whispering gently, 
 his bright eye fixed steadily upward, " for that 
 blessed moment, when this poor unworthy 
 creature, the last and least of all my Master's 
 servants, shall be called to put ofT this load of 
 sin and corruption, and, thus disburdened, 
 remove and fix my habitation in the heavenly 
 city, mingling with that harmonious host above, 
 
 *Possidius writes:— "Testamentum nullum fecit, quia 
 unde faceret Pauper Dei non habuit." 
 
 26 
 
302 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 and doing homage with them in the bleesed 
 presence of my glorious Lord!" 
 
 The siege continued ; and deeply was he 
 moved at the fresh scenes of blood, "especially" 
 (says Possidius) " for so many souls hurried 
 into eternity not ready to meet God." 
 
 Then, longing for a holier and brighter fel- 
 lowship than belongs to this place of shadows, 
 he would whisper, half-audibly : — "When I 
 shall with my whole self cleave to Thee, I shall 
 no longer have sorrow and labour ; and my 
 life shall wholly live, as wholly full of Thee. 
 Because I am not full of Thee, I am a burden 
 to myself. Lamentable joys strive with joyous 
 sorrows ; and on which side is the victory, I 
 know not. AVoe is me ! Lord, have pity on me ! " 
 
 " Ah ! is this dying ? " said a holy man, in 
 his last moments : " how have I dreaded as an 
 enemy this smiling friend?" And said an- 
 other: — "I am not afraid to look death in the 
 face. I can say — " Death, where is thy sting? 
 death cannot hurt me." And a third, the holy 
 Owen : — " 0, brother, the long-looked-for day 
 is come at last, in which I shall see that glory 
 in another manner than I have ever yet done 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 803 
 
 or been capable of doing." And a fourth, the 
 heavenly William Janeway : — " son, now it 
 is come, it is come, it is come. I bless God I 
 can die. My heart is full, it is brimful ; I can 
 hold no more ; I know now what that Scripture 
 means, ' The peace of God wliich passeth all 
 understanding.' " As he spoke, the tears began 
 to gather in his bright eye, and liis voice was 
 choked with weeping. And, after a little, he 
 added: — ^' What made me weep so, was a fit 
 of overpowering love and joy, so great that I 
 could not contain myself; neither can I 
 express what glorious discoveries God has 
 made of Himself to me. Bless the Lord, 
 my soul, and, all that is within me, bless His 
 holy name, who hath pardoned all my sins, 
 and sealed the pardon. Oh, now I can die! 
 It is nothing : I bless God I can die. I desire 
 to be dissolved and to be with Christ." And 
 in a few more minutes he was away. 
 
 In the dying chamber at Hippo, a heavenly 
 glory not less triumphant shone on the last 
 moments of Augustine. As night drew on, 
 he spoke once more of ''an inextinguishable 
 burning of vehement longing" after the imme- 
 
304 MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 diate vision of his Lord. And, •' thus con- 
 sumed" (as the same eye-witness has it) " in the 
 flames of love," he was wafted upward in the 
 fire-chariot, to see Him as He is."^ 
 
 It was on the twenty-eighth of August, 
 in the year four hundred and thirty, and in 
 his seventy-sixth summer.f 
 
 A few months later. Hippo surrendered to 
 the Yandal, and its Church was scattered to 
 the four winds. But Augustine, "embalmed 
 in his writings," lived on.:j: The mission of 
 
 * Possidius says : — " Merabris omnibus sui corporis inco- 
 lumis, integro adspectu atque auditu, et nobis adstantibus et 
 videntibus ; et cum eo pariter orantibus, obdormivit cum pa- 
 tribus suis, enutritus in bona senectute, et sepultus est." 
 
 And he touchingly adds : — " Ille Vir cum quo ferme annis 
 quadraginta, Dei dono, absque amara uUa dissensione famili- 
 ariter acdulciter vixi." 
 
 t Possidius says again: — "Sane ille Sanctus, in vita sua 
 prolixa pro utilitato ac felicitate sanetre Ecclesiag Catholicae 
 divinitus condonata, vixit annis LXXYI., in clericatu autem 
 vel episcopatu annis ferme XL." 
 
 t Possidius writes: — " Et in suis quidem scriptis ille Deo 
 acceptus et earns Sacerdos, quantum lucente veritate videre 
 conceditur, recte ac sane, fidei, spei, et caritatis Catholicae 
 Elcclesia) vixisse manifestatur : quod aguoscunt qui eum lo- 
 quentem et in ecclesia prtTscntem, audire et videre potuerunt, 
 et ejus praesertim inter homines conversationem non ignora- 
 verunt. Erat enim non solum eruditus scriba in regno ccelo- 
 
MEMOIR OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 305 
 
 the great Chiircli-fatlier was, to teach men to 
 lie in the dust before God ; and, though not 
 untainted by certain prevaihng superstitions 
 of the day, he nobly fulfilled his errand. He 
 restored to the Church the doctrine of Divine 
 grace. 
 
 A soldier of Napoleon's "grand army" was 
 wounded, one day, by a bullet, which entered 
 his breast right over his hcai't. He was car- 
 ried to the rear ; and the surgeon was probing 
 the wound with his knife, when at length the 
 brave guardsman exclaimed, "An inch deeper 
 and you find the Emperor ! " In the heart of 
 Augustine, and in his massive theology, was 
 enshrined a greater than the Emperor. Graven, 
 in characters traced by the very finger of God, 
 Avas the legend — which whoso ran might read — 
 " The grace of Christ only !" 
 
 May the Divine Spirit engrave now in the 
 Church's heart the same holy legend ! 
 
 rum, de tliesauro suo proferens nova et Vetera., et unus 
 negotiatorura qui iuventam iDretiosani margaritam quae habe- 
 bat venditis comparavit : vcram etiam ex iis ad quos scrip- 
 tutu est, 'sic loquimini et sic fecite;' et de quibus Salvator 
 dicit, ' Qui fecerit et docuerit sic homines, hie magnus voca- 
 bitur in regno coeloruni.' " 
 
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